‘We have no future’: A Syrian woman speaks about her life with an American ISIS member

On a recent day at a community center in Raqqa, in northeastern Syria, Wafaa Mustafa sat with her two daughters, 8-year-old Istabraq and 6-year-old Mardia.

Mustafa, who also goes by Um Yusuf, was wearing a black abaya (gown) and a black face covering. Both girls wore their light chestnut hair in ponytails. With a red bow in her hair and a leopard jacket, Istabraq came off as the fashionista.

The girls were born toward the end of ISIS’ rule here in Raqqa. Their father, Russell Dennison, was born in New Hampshire and lived in Redding, Pennsylvania.

He converted to Islam and left the US for the Middle East to pursue a religious path. 

By 2014, Dennison was in Syria, in the middle of a raging civil war and witnessing the rise of ISIS. The brutal terror group captured territory in Iraq and Syria and established what they called a caliphate — an Islamic society run by Sharia law. 

Dennison eventually joined ISIS and became part of their propaganda unit.

During the height of ISIS’ rule in 2015, about 30,000 foreign fighters went to Syria to fight for the group. Most were from Europe and Asia. About 300 Americans joined or attempted to join ISIS. 

Mustafa who lived in Raqqa city under ISIS’ control at the time, said she met Dennison through mutual friends. Dennison was looking for a religious wife, she explained. 

“At the beginning, our life in Raqqa was quite nice,” she said. Dennison spent most of his day on his laptop. His time as a fighter had been cut short after he was shot in the leg.

In the period ISIS was in power between 2014 and 2019, ISIS carried out massacres in Iraq and Syria. Its fighters beheaded journalists, raped women and threw people off the roofs of buildings.

ISIS also forced women to marry its fighters and kept some of them as slaves. 

But Mustafa said she wasn’t forced to marry Dennison. In fact, she found him intriguing — an Arabic-speaking, red-headed American who said he’d come to her country to learn about Islam.

She said Dennison talked a lot about the great life he had in America, how he learned about and converted to Islam and how his family’s behavior toward him changed after that.

The best memory Mustafa has about her time with Dennison was the trip they took to neighboring Iraq, to the city of Mosul, where it was warm and beautiful, she said. 

But by 2017, things started to take a turn. 

The US-led coalition was bombing Raqqa relentlessly. The family moved around, trying to dodge the bombings. Eventually, it became too much. Mustafa and her daughters fled the area and ended up in a camp for families of ISIS members in Syria.

She described a difficult life in the camp, where it was cold and rainy.

One day, a friend of hers shared the devastating news that Dennison had been killed in an airstrike. Mustafa said since she hasn’t seen his body with her own eyes, she likes to think he’s still alive.

‘Trail of misery’

Investigative journalist Trevor Aaronson stayed in touch with Dennison until his death in Syria.

Over a period of six months, Dennison recorded a trove of voice messages explaining his motivation for joining ISIS as well as his daily life and shared them with Aaronson. 

“I realized that as I was communicating with Russell over these months, there was a great likelihood that any of our conversations would be the last. That there was a good chance that he would be killed,” Aaronson said. 

These recordings provided a rare look into his life as an ISIS fighter. Aaronson eventually made a podcast about Dennison’s life called “American ISIS.” 

He said Dennison “wasn’t just some cartoonish man who wanted to cut people’s heads off. This was a man who went to Syria to try to find himself and find a life, and he believed he was fighting for this greater cause.” 

But in the end, Aaronson said, “he left behind on Earth this kind of trail of misery,” referring to his widow and children. 

‘We have no future’

Mustafa lives with her parents now. She and her two kids sleep in a small room, she said. 

She tried to connect with Dennison’s family in Florida, but they didn’t want to be in touch. The World also reached out to Dennison’s mother, but she did not respond.

“We have no future,” Mustafa said. “At least the US should help these girls,” she said. “Aren’t they American?”

Families who have ties to ISIS are often ostracized in communities in Syria and Iraq. Only one of the girls is going to school, she said, because the other one doesn’t have any official documents.

At its height, ISIS ruled over about 10 million people in Iraq and Syria. Its leaders promised an Islamic society based on justice and care for the people.

But that turned out to be far from the truth. 

Today, ISIS might officially be eliminated in the region. But it continues to leave its mark on the people in the region and beyond.