America puts $5 million on the head of Dutch IS terrorist Khadra Essa: who ordered corporal punishment, execution and murder
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Silvan Schoonhoven

Modified: 1 hour ago3 hours agoin Domestic

The US State Department's Rewards for Justice program is offering a maximum of $5 million bounty on the head of Dutch IS terrorist Khadra Essa. According to the department, she played a key role as a chief instructor in the female terrorist battalion Nusaybah Khatibah.

According to the ministry, the Somali-born Dutch woman traveled to Syria in 2014, where she joined IS. The terrorist group trained her in the use of weapons, explosives and suicide operations. She is also said to have recruited new members and called on her fellow believers to commit suicide attacks, including abroad. Essa led a group that enforced Islamic law with violence against other women. She is said to have imposed corporal punishment and even ordered executions and murder.

The US State Department is putting a bounty of up to $5 million on the head of Dutch IS terrorist Khadra Essa.
© rewardsforjustice

If the information from the US is correct that Khadra Essa is Dutch, then she managed to stay well under the radar. She is not on the terrorism sanctions list and no bells ring for experts on the Dutch jihad scene.

The Nusaybah Khatibah (IS-NK) women's battalion is named after Nusaybah, the first convert to Islam according to traditional stories. The unit was founded in 2016 in the Syrian capital Raqqa, at the time the capital of the caliphate. Many Dutch supporters settled in the city. IS-NK had hundreds of trained members and still exists despite the collapse of the terrorist caliphate. According to the Americans, the group still poses a threat, also to Western countries.

Western jihad women sentenced for participating in IS-NK
A number of returned Western jihad women have already been convicted for participating in IS-NK. The judiciary suspected the Gouda jihad woman Ilham B. of having been part of that group, but on appeal there was insufficient evidence for this. The American Allison Fluke was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022 as the leader of the group. Another woman, the German Marcia M., had made electronics for bomb belts. Carla-Josephine S., also a German IS member, was convicted because she let her children participate in IS training. The youngest was only six.

Khadra Essa 'held kidnapped children captive'
The Americans accuse Essa of holding several kidnapped children captive. Like the American siblings Yusuf and Zahra Shikder, whose mother was killed in an attack. The mother had kidnapped her children to Syria in 2015 without their father's permission.