Tristan Redman

They actually controlled an area the size of England, right, that spanned Iraq and Syria. And it had roughly 10 million people under their governance. And what they did then is they set about a really highly polished PR and propaganda campaign.

of selling this vision to the world of a supposed Islamic utopia and inviting people from all around the world to come and join them. And tens of thousands of people did from more than 100 nations. And from there, the state grew and grew and grew. But a lot of people felt like this was...

not a representation of Islam at all. Just to be transparent with listeners, I'm a Muslim woman. I have a master's in Middle Eastern Islamic studies. I've studied the faith quite a bit. What they were selling was such a distortion of the religion and seemed so disconnected from reality that it is mind-boggling to me that it was in any ways sold as a utopia.

During the height of the ISIS caliphate days, Josh, I know you reported from the region. What was it like to report from the region at that time? It was an extraordinary time because...

You had a scenario where literally the map of two countries had been redrawn by this terrorist organization. And you had a concerted effort to defeat them going on. So being inside the territory that they controlled or the fight to regain that territory was extraordinarily dangerous.

We're in an armoured car pulling back from one of the forward positions. The roads are literally littered with debris, with cars. I remember there was one time when I was in Iraq, I was embedded with Iraqi special forces, and they were trying to retake the city of Mosul, which is where ISIS had declared its so-called caliphate from. So we have to be very careful how we move, because it's a perfect place for an ambush.

Se tulee olemaan pitkä päivä. Kun menemme tänne kaupungin kanssa, olemme yhdessä niiden kanssa. Olemme yhdessä niiden kanssa. Olemme yhdessä niiden kanssa. Olemme yhdessä niiden kanssa. Olemme yhdessä niiden kanssa.

Täällä on kaksi sääntöä työssä. Hyvä ja väärä. Maailma on yhdistetty tällä tavalla. Ja me menisimme näihin yhteisöihin ensimmäisen ajan. Ja se oli mahtavaa nähdä, että ihmisten puolueilla on tullut tällainen valkoisen vihreä järjestelmä. Ja he olivat hyvin vähentäneet kontaktia ulkopuolella, kun ISIS oli vahvistamassa ympäristön.

And that's the way we want it, and that's the way they want it. What happened to the remaining people who were living in this so-called caliphate? The fighters, their family members? So look, you know, if you imagine at the height of 2014-2015, that's when the group is at the height of their power. They control a massive territory. Fast forward to 2019. That so-called state, if you will, has been pushed into less than a square kilometre in a town called Bagoose.

Nyt päivän jälkeen sotilas on rauhoittunut. Se on hyvin rauhoittunut, rauhoittunut ja rauhoittunut. Järjestelmä Bargoonin yli. Yhdysvallat yrittävät rauhoittua islamilaisen valtion pahaa. Sitten sieltä tanssia ihmisiä on tullut. Heidän rauhoittuminen on vaikuttanut miljoonaan. Nyt he eivät ole paikalla.

Eikä kukaan tiedä, mitä heidän kanssaan tehdä. Ne olivat ihmisiä, jotka olivat liittyneet ISISiin. Ehkä heidän perheensä olivat saaneet heidät sieltä tai he olivat syntyneet sen sisällä. Tai he olivat karttikarjaajat, jotka olivat käyneet ja heidän perheensä olivat syntyneet ryhmään. Silloin lapset ja lapset olivat laitettavissa yksityiskohtaisissa kampoissa. Ja miehet olivat laitettavissa todella horiittisissa kivissa.

They've largely been there ever since. There's been no universal global policy about what to do with these people. Today that's created a great tension.

Josh, you mentioned these camps for ISIS fighters and their family members. You've been to them, I understand. What's it like? A lot, substantially. What's it like? It differs depending on whether you're a man or a woman. And if you're a man, you tend to end up in these very grim prison facilities where you are completely shut off from the outside world. For years, a lot of them weren't even sure whether the caliphate had truly existed.

Ja niin he ovat hieman valkoisessa kohdassa. Kaikki naiset ja heidän lapsensa, he yleensä loppuvat näissä valkoisessa kohdassa, jolla on melkein ajattelua, että ne ovat rauhassa. He ovat hyvin rauhassa paikassa, mutta heillä on hieman enemmän tilaa ulkopuolelle kuin miehet. Ja minulla on tällainen hyvin vihreä muistinen, että juuri sitten...

Kalafaitin jälkeen olin puhunut tekstistä näiden kaupungin naisista. Heillä oli telefoni, jonka he käyttäisivät myöhemmin. He olivat yhdessä ja kysyivät minulle kysymyksiä. Se oli niin mielenkiintoista ja myös histerinen, koska he halusivat kysyä minulle kysymyksiä, mitä bitcoin on.

What is gender neutrality? Are gay men all good looking? And there were all these concepts which are funny on face value, but it shows you how isolated they've become and how they were wrestling with this world that they'd emerged back into. Were these women you're referring to, Josh, were they Western women? Were they women who had grown up in Europe or the United States? Or are they from Iraq and Syria?

There were a couple there that were from the region specifically, but predominantly, you know, there were Canadian, there were English, there was Dutch. I think there was a German lady there at one point. There were women that had either traveled to be with the group with their families, or they were women that would argue that they were taken there against their will.

How are these prisons managed? How secure are they? You describe a situation where there's kind of refugee tents, essentially. And is the vision that these tents slash prison camps will exist in perpetuity? Like, is there an eventual plan for what to do with these people?

These facilities were always meant to be a temporary solution, right? And it's not just adults that live in these facilities, it's children as well. Some of these children were born inside the caliphate, some of them were taken there by their parents. And so they're surrounded by this sort of dominant ideology of extremism. And the longer they're kept there, security experts will tell you that the further they get from easy de-radicalization, if you will, because they don't know an outside world beyond that.

They are, as I said, meant to be temporary facilities. Therefore, they are largely insecure. We do see prison breaks. We do see people paying to be smuggled out of these camps. ISIS themselves smuggle money into the camps as well. So the dominant sort of group inside are pro-ISIS supporters. There's one in particular called Al-Hol.