Two Sisters: A Father, His Daughters, and Their Journey into the Syrian Jihad

Journalist Seierstad (One of Us) tells a harrowing tale that began in October 2013, when two teenage Norwegian-Somali girls, Ayan and Leila, fled their comfortable life in Norway for the Islamic State in Syria. Their bewildered father, Sadiq Juma, set off to retrieve them, thwarted first by his imprisonment by ISIS and later by a botched kidnapping attempt that resulted only in extracting a stranger. Along the way, Seierstad reveals not only the destruction that competing armies have leveled in Syria, but also the chilling process of the sisters’ radicalization, tracing their exposure to the fundamentalist group Islam Net. Seierstad also accords her large cast of characters the dignity of being treated in depth, detailing the sisters’ lives back in Norway, as well as those of their friends, also from Somali backgrounds, who followed very different paths, and revealing Sadiq’s flaws along with his courage. The book is more gripping narrative than cultural study, especially in the dramatic scenes of Sadiq’s imprisonment. Seierstad’s scrupulous reporting shines a revealing new light on the phenomenon of young Westerners becoming fervent supporters of terror.[em] (Apr.) [/em]