A Swedish ISIS recruiter suspected of war crimes lost custody of her children after returning to her homeland.
The mother-of-three, 31, who has not been named, is suspected to have let her children play with weapons and is believed to have recruited other women and girls to the terrorist group.
She had been held in the Al Hol refugee camp in Syria, from where she escaped, and was returned to Sweden in November last year.
Swedish authorities ordered that two of her children be taken from her and her eldest child, a boy aged nine, returned to his father.
In 2014, she left his father in Sweden and took their child to Syria.
There, she married an ISIS fighter with whom she had another two children, now aged two and three.
As a suspected recruiter for the terrorist group, the woman was on an international wanted list. A court hearing is due to start this month.
Her lawyer, Lars Kruse, told Sweden's Expressen newspaper the woman was "deceived" into travelling to Raqqa in search of religion and once there "she could not escape".
“My client was attracted to travel to Syria, where she was deprived of her freedom from day one,” he said. “No evidence has been presented at all for the allegations made about participation in ISIS.
“My client is a young Swedish Muslim woman who sought comfort in God during a life crisis and was tempted to travel to Syria.
“Against all odds, she has managed to escape from a Kurdish prison camp with three small children and get to what she thought was security in Sweden. Instead, she was deprived of her freedom again.”
Her legal team has appointed US psychiatrist Anne Speckhard, an expert in terrorism, to speak on the woman’s behalf.
The accused, from Landskrona, western Sweden, was charged at Lund District Court with gross arbitrariness with children.
Last September, she and three other female Swedish ISIS supporters and their nine children escaped from the Al Hol camp after paying smugglers to help them.
They were caught and detained in Turkey, where a delegation from Sweden’s Foreign Ministry negotiated their repatriation.
Their return home was delayed while authorities awaited DNA test results to confirm the children’s relationships to the women.
On arrival in Stockholm they were met by police, security services and social services and interrogated. The children were placed in care and monitored to ensure they had not been radicalised.
The children's representative, lawyer Ulrika Rogland, told the court about her concerns that the youngsters had played with weapons, Expressen reported.
Her three children have been described as “physically well-nourished with good dental status and well-behaved”.
One of the woman who escaped the camp and returned to Sweden was a widow, 48, who left the country to travel to Syria in 2011 with two of her children.
Another went to Syria when she was 19.
Sweden is focusing on returning orphans of ISIS recruits abroad and last year it repatriated seven youngsters from Al Hol.
BULKWHIZ PROFILE
Date started: February 2017
Founders: Amira Rashad (CEO), Yusuf Saber (CTO), Mahmoud Sayedahmed (adviser), Reda Bouraoui (adviser)
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: E-commerce
Size: 50 employees
Funding: approximately $6m
Investors: Beco Capital, Enabling Future and Wain in the UAE; China's MSA Capital; 500 Startups; Faith Capital and Savour Ventures in Kuwait
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
Ten tax points to be aware of in 2026
1. Domestic VAT refund amendments: request your refund within five years
If a business does not apply for the refund on time, they lose their credit.
2. E-invoicing in the UAE
Businesses should continue preparing for the implementation of e-invoicing in the UAE, with 2026 a preparation and transition period ahead of phased mandatory adoption.
3. More tax audits
Tax authorities are increasingly using data already available across multiple filings to identify audit risks.
4. More beneficial VAT and excise tax penalty regime
Tax disputes are expected to become more frequent and more structured, with clearer administrative objection and appeal processes. The UAE has adopted a new penalty regime for VAT and excise disputes, which now mirrors the penalty regime for corporate tax.
5. Greater emphasis on statutory audit
There is a greater need for the accuracy of financial statements. The International Financial Reporting Standards standards need to be strictly adhered to and, as a result, the quality of the audits will need to increase.
6. Further transfer pricing enforcement
Transfer pricing enforcement, which refers to the practice of establishing prices for internal transactions between related entities, is expected to broaden in scope. The UAE will shortly open the possibility to negotiate advance pricing agreements, or essentially rulings for transfer pricing purposes.
7. Limited time periods for audits
Recent amendments also introduce a default five-year limitation period for tax audits and assessments, subject to specific statutory exceptions. While the standard audit and assessment period is five years, this may be extended to up to 15 years in cases involving fraud or tax evasion.
8. Pillar 2 implementation
Many multinational groups will begin to feel the practical effect of the Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax (DMTT), the UAE's implementation of the OECD’s global minimum tax under Pillar 2. While the rules apply for financial years starting on or after January 1, 2025, it is 2026 that marks the transition to an operational phase.
9. Reduced compliance obligations for imported goods and services
Businesses that apply the reverse-charge mechanism for VAT purposes in the UAE may benefit from reduced compliance obligations.
10. Substance and CbC reporting focus
Tax authorities are expected to continue strengthening the enforcement of economic substance and Country-by-Country (CbC) reporting frameworks. In the UAE, these regimes are increasingly being used as risk-assessment tools, providing tax authorities with a comprehensive view of multinational groups’ global footprints and enabling them to assess whether profits are aligned with real economic activity.
Contributed by Thomas Vanhee and Hend Rashwan, Aurifer
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The view from The National
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
UAE tour of the Netherlands
UAE squad: Rohan Mustafa (captain), Shaiman Anwar, Ghulam Shabber, Mohammed Qasim, Rameez Shahzad, Mohammed Usman, Adnan Mufti, Chirag Suri, Ahmed Raza, Imran Haider, Mohammed Naveed, Amjad Javed, Zahoor Khan, Qadeer Ahmed
Fixtures:
Monday, 1st 50-over match
Wednesday, 2nd 50-over match
Thursday, 3rd 50-over match
RESULT
Manchester United 2 Tottenham Hotspur 1
Man United: Sanchez (24' ), Herrera (62')
Spurs: Alli (11')
Squad
Ali Kasheif, Salim Rashid, Khalifa Al Hammadi, Khalfan Mubarak, Ali Mabkhout, Omar Abdulrahman, Mohammed Al Attas, Abdullah Ramadan, Zayed Al Ameri (Al Jazira), Mohammed Al Shamsi, Hamdan Al Kamali, Mohammed Barghash, Khalil Al Hammadi (Al Wahda), Khalid Essa, Mohammed Shaker, Ahmed Barman, Bandar Al Ahbabi (Al Ain), Al Hassan Saleh, Majid Suroor (Sharjah) Walid Abbas, Ahmed Khalil (Shabab Al Ahli), Tariq Ahmed, Jasim Yaqoub (Al Nasr), Ali Saleh, Ali Salmeen (Al Wasl), Hassan Al Muharami (Baniyas)
Classification of skills
A worker is categorised as skilled by the MOHRE based on nine levels given in the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) issued by the International Labour Organisation.
A skilled worker would be someone at a professional level (levels 1 – 5) which includes managers, professionals, technicians and associate professionals, clerical support workers, and service and sales workers.
The worker must also have an attested educational certificate higher than secondary or an equivalent certification, and earn a monthly salary of at least Dh4,000.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Squads
Australia: Finch (c), Agar, Behrendorff, Carey, Coulter-Nile, Lynn, McDermott, Maxwell, Short, Stanlake, Stoinis, Tye, Zampa
India: Kohli (c), Khaleel, Bumrah, Chahal, Dhawan, Shreyas, Karthik, Kuldeep, Bhuvneshwar, Pandey, Krunal, Pant, Rahul, Sundar, Umesh
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
