A US-born woman whose family was just repatriated from Syria is accused of completing ISIS training — including how to fire an AK-47 assault rifle — when she was just 18, according to newly unsealed court documents.
Halima Salman, now 25, was arrested Tuesday at JFK Airport in Queens after she and her family were repatriated as part of an extensive State Department effort to bring back American citizens held in Kurdish-run Syrian detention centers.
Salman, also identified in a criminal complaint as Umm al-Khattab al-Muhajir, has been charged with knowingly receiving military-type training from ISIS, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years.
Her lawyer, Samuel Jacobson, argued in Brooklyn federal court Tuesday that her father, who was later killed in a rocket attack, manipulated the then-17-year-old into joining the armed extremist group.
“Halima was a teenager. She had no idea that her father had any sentiments that were pro-ISIS, had any interest in joining ISIS,” Jacobson said, according to a court transcript.
In October 2016, Salman and her family flew out of JFK on a flight bound for Istanbul by way of Moscow, according to the complaint.
Once in Turkey, Salman is alleged to have made her way to a militant-controlled region of Syria, where she married an ISIS member and joined Nusaybah Katiba, a female-only military unit of the terror organization, the filing alleged.
Prosecutors said Salman, who lived in Brooklyn, was 18 when she completed training with the bloodthirsty terror group, including on how to use an AK-47.
Salman was captured by anti-ISIS forces in Baghouz, Syria in 2019, insisting to FBI agents last November that she never attended any type of ISIS training and never owned a weapon, according to the complaint.
However, evidence collected from a cell phone investigators traced to her ISIS-member husband told a very different story.
On the phone, feds discovered image files depicting Salman with a Kalashnikov-style assault rifle, including several with the black and white ISIS flag clearly visible behind her.
A video from the device also allegedly shows Salman walking around while brandishing one of the Soviet-style machine guns.
“This is in a town that is actively controlled by the Islamic state. Every home in the town has an Islamic state flag on the wall and every home in this town has a Kalashnikov rifle propped up against the wall or somewhere in the house,” Jacobson said of the photos of his client being presented as evidence in the case.
“This does not indicate anything about being trained by the Islamic state [or] receiving military training.”
Also found on the phone was a digital image of a paper document certifying Salman had successfully completed her military training and was now qualified to receive ammunition for the AK-47 which was already in her possession.
Jacobson claimed Salman “had never seen” the primarily hand-written document before FBI agents showed it to her, and questioned its authenticity.
“I don’t know why this document would be admissible in any trial,” the attorney said in court.
“I don’t know where it comes from. We don’t know who generated it. We don’t know if the husband made it, if some Islamic state functionary made it.”
The document was signed with a signature stamp indicating it was issued by Nusaybah Katiba, the criminal complaint states.
Salman, her mother and her eight siblings returned to the US early Tuesday in what Secretary of State Antony Blinken called “the largest single repatriation of US citizens from northeast Syria to date,” the New York Times reported.
At Salman’s arraignment in Brooklyn Tuesday, federal prosecutors alleged she “poses a significant danger to the community if she were released on bond” and asked she be detained pending trial.
Jacobson denied Salman received ISIS training and downplayed videos showing her walking around with one of the assault rifles.
“If she picked up an AK-47 once, who cares?” he said. “Everyone has an AK-47 in these towns. That doesn’t mean she’s a danger.”
Assistant US Attorney Amanda Shami shot back, “The idea that it’s ‘who cares’ if she picked up an AK-47 is not actually [valid]. People care. People care if you receive military training from ISIS.”
Magistrate Judge Robert Levy ordered Salman held without bond.
Additional reporting by Priscilla DeGregory.
