Islamic State’s White Widow: Sally Jones’ Digital Jihad
Islamic State’s White Widow: Sally Jones’ Digital Jihad
Sally-Anne Frances Jones (a.k.a. Sakinah Hussein; Umm Hussain al-Britani; the White Widow) is a former punk rock guitarist turned one of the most dangerous female militants in the Islamic State (IS) group, serving as an online recruiter and propagandist. Jones is believed to be the first woman to be placed on a UN sanctions list that included a travel ban and freeze on assets (United Nations, September 25, 2015). A widow of Junaid Hussain (a.k.a. Abu Hussain al-Britani), the infamous IS hacker, Jones was reported to have been killed in June 2017 by an American drone, though this remains unconfirmed.
Background
Jones, 45, a single mother of three, had no foundation in the Islamic faith when she traveled to Syria from her home in England during the Christmas holiday in 2013, after likely having been persuaded by Junaid Hussain, who was 19 years old at that time. Jones left Chatham, Kent with her son JoJo, 12, leaving her other two sons behind. She uses various online accounts under pseudonyms to promote the values of life under the Islamic Caliphate and lure other foreign women to join the group. It is believed that she converted to Islam after her marriage to Hussain in Idlib, after which she changed her name to Sakina Hussain and her son’s name to Hamza. After reaching Raqqa, she was sent to a southwestern training camp, where she spent six weeks having her loyalty to the group tested, and learning tafsir (Islamic exegesis) and Sharia, while her husband was at a military training camp (shafaaq.com, September 17, 2016).
The Allure of Jihad
Jones had a tough upbringing. Her parents divorced when she was a young child, and her father committed suicide when she was only ten. Over time, she seemingly developed a complicated and controversial relationship with authority. Possibly as a result of her upbringing, Jones has exhibited a consistent impulse to rebel against authority and mainstream norms, at times leading to destructive behavior. Her rebellion, seemingly driven by anger, has manifested in varying degrees of challenges to the establishment — as a punk rocker, attempts to practice witchcraft online and, ultimately, by becoming a notorious jihadist (nmisr, December 1, 2016). Jones, who felt unfulfilled in her quiet family life in Chatham, Kent, was always eager for an adventure, and IS’ jihad gave this to her (arabic.cnn.com, October 3, 2015). IS’ notorious image and openness to new recruits, even those without a strong knowledge of ideology or Islam, was a subculture that fulfilled her in ways that her previous forays into rebellion had failed to do: Jones had long yearned for public recognition, but she was unable to achieve that through her music. She was willing to cast off her British national identity, go against the establishment and employ violence and brutality, which was enough to earn her entry into the group.
As a movement that focuses on visual performance — from visually documented beheadings to physical destruction and grand invasions — IS found in Jones a practiced performer who could help realize their sophisticatedly-programmed online propaganda machine, one of the most successful of our time. As a punk rock band guitarist who believes in rejecting the perceived excesses of the mainstream, and a fan of anti-establishment rhetoric, Jones found in IS a means to revive her rebellion against the establishment. IS gave Jones the exposure to maliciously translate her rebellious past into loud, violent and effective politicized lyric-like tweets. Under the pseudonym Umm Hussain al-Britani, she posted messages in support of IS, stating: “You Christians all need beheading with a nice blunt knife and stuck on the railings at Raqqa… Come here I’ll do it for you.” (al-Anba, August 30, 2016). Often, her posts evoke violent images that are in line with IS’ visualized terror.
Images of Jones’ posing with weapons, together with her tweets, are a performance, staging the rhetoric of IS. Her image has helped IS spread waves of fear online, rippling out through Western society and establishing the group as masters of public fear-mongering. Conversely, Jones was offered a prized opportunity to have easy, borderless access to her global spectators and invade their daily life by producing volumes of fast-paced rhetoric that dwells mainly on violence. IS used Jones to infiltrate the lives of her global audience and conjure fear through the idea that even a white British woman would turn her back on democracy in favor of the Islamic Caliphate.
Self-destructive or Independent?
Another twist in the tale of Jones is her destructive persona. Whether due to a deep-rooted resentment harbored from her childhood or to other life experiences, she has actively destroyed most of the traditionally core relationships in her life. This aspect of her character likely made her ready to offer her own child, JoJo, to the jihadist cause (Erem News, August 27, 2016). Unlike other female jihadist militants — with the exception of the British jihadist bride, Grace “Khadija” Dare — Jones is a rare case of a mother who has offered her child to the cause. [2] After abandoning her partner and two children in the United Kingdom, she was willing to offer both her husband Hussain and her son JoJo to the jihadist cause. One interpretation is that she used the cause as another tool of abandoning those who she loves before they abandon her. Further, offering her husband Hussain in the name of jihad enabled her to abandon him while casting herself as a “winner,” rather than abandoned (independent.co.uk, October 12).
Digital Jihadist Power Couple
The dynamic of Jones’ function within the group, as well as her relationship with Hussain, are uniquely suited to her. Hussain, just 23 when he died, had an adversarial relationship with the establishment, much like Jones. His young age allowed her to play a parental role in their relationship, giving her authority. IS’ marital structure — it is centered on the momentary marriage of jihadists, as the male jihadist should offer himself martyrdom — gave Jones a stronger identification with her role as a widow, rather than as a deserted wife. The temporary nature of her jihadist relationship with Hussain was the perfect fit for her, giving her a relationship that never forced her to lose her sense of independence.
Hussain’s reputation as a hacker, and his impulsive enmity and rejection of the establishment, was also a major factor in his appeal to Jones. She easily partnered with Hussain, forming a prominent IS cyber militant power couple. Further, operating primarily in the virtual world does not mandate the emotional attachment that a real life relationship requires. Jones’ past shows her as someone who prefers to be free of bonds, both social and emotional. Thus, the only space in which she could relate to men is online, and IS gave her the means to maintain that. Before joining ISIS, Jones developed an interest in witchcraft. She was eager to be a supernatural power herself, and she has, in some sense, achieved that, practicing “digital black magic.”
Driven by a thirst for influence, Jones operates according to a dynamic that is different from her female jihadist counterparts. Unlike most jihadist brides, for Jones, marriage in the land of “Jihad till martyrdom do us part” was not a sentimental romance. It was rather a vehicle to reinvent her image from an invisible mother in Chatham to a cyber presence who can spread fear and violence on a wide scale. Jones did not perform al-Nafir (“call to arms” or “call to mobilize”) or “Hijra” to Syria to offer her body to her jihadist husband, nor was she driven by ideological or religious reasons. Instead, Jones sought to rebel against the establishment. [1] She was not “overtly concerned with sexuality” in her relationship with the jihadist husband, as she came to terms with Hussain marrying another woman while she was still married to him. It is reported that after a few weeks of the couple’s relocation to Raqqa, Hussain married a 23-year-old Syrian woman from Raqqa and lived with her and Jones in the same building (shafaaq.com, September 17, 2016). Jones was not driven by love in her relationship with Hussain. Their relation was more of a partnership in the insurgency of cyber terror.
Jones used love and marriage as a temporary state to further her independence. Unlike Hussain’s second Syrian wife, who married a jihadist after his death, Jones preferred to stay a widow, turning into IS’ “White Widow.” She then moved with her son JoJo to a family building in Raqqa (shafaaq.com, September 17, 2016). Her status as a widow facilitates her role in IS’ recruitment dynamic. Jones recruits other vulnerable jihadist brides to offer up their bodies to IS, but this time as vessels for explosives. Her destructive impulses were channeled in her operational authority over al-Anwar Alawlaki brigade, through which she recruits and trains female militants. [3] She cemented herself as a key cyber recruiter who entices women in the West to join IS.
Conclusion
Sally Jones is the perfect example of a deconstructed image of a traditional female militant, manipulating IS’ outreach to manufacture her own global persona. Jones’ solitary and angry soul found a refuge in IS’ barbaric narrative and in her pragmatic relationship with Hussain. Jones symbolizes a unique, dangerous dimension of the Islamic State’s female militancy. It transcends the conventional Islamic female roles of jihadist brides as sexual objects into a new definition of female destructive power. The uniqueness of Jones lies in the seemingly limitless malice she is able to skillfully channel into visual performance to create mass impact of terror.
NOTES
[1] Al-Nafir to the land of Sham (the Levant) is the call to arms issued by IS to travel to IS self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq for the purpose of jihad and fighting in support of IS. In his first audio message, ISIS self-appointed caliph, Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi, sent a message to Muslims in July 1, 2014, titled “A Message to the Mujahideen and the Muslim Ummah In the Month of Ramadan,” in which he dwelled on inviting Muslims to perform al-nafir by emigrating to the Islamic State (news.siteintelgroup.com, July 1, 2014).
[2] Grace “Khadija” Dare is a British convert jihadist bride whose son soldier, Isa Dare, appeared in IS’ execution video (vetogate.com, January 5, 2016).
[3] The Anwar Alawlaki brigade is the Islamic State’s female special militant brigade, which was set up by Junaid Hussain in Raqqa (shafaaq.com, September 17, 2016)
