Woman Who Became ISIS Teen Bride Convicted of Getting Weapons Training From Terror Group

A verdict after deliberations

Salman, now 27, and her mother wept in court. Her lawyers are asking the judge to set aside the conviction and acquit her, arguing that the evidence did not legally support the verdict. Such motions are often filed but rarely granted.

What prosecutors presented

Prosecutors argued that Salman willingly supported the Islamic State group and had more control over her actions in Syria than she claimed. Jurors saw a video of her holding an assault rifle, a photograph of her with the group’s flag and messages she sent her husband.

Prosecutors said Salman had been trained to use the rifle. She testified that she carried it at her husband’s request. During cross-examination, she acknowledged sending him a religious song about Osama bin Laden; prosecutors also cited two affectionate messages as evidence against her account of an unhappy marriage.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Shami told jurors that Salman received military training from a violent organization responsible for attacks around the world. U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. said the verdict held her accountable for joining forces with a terrorist group.

Taken to Syria as teenager

Salman was born in Brooklyn and was 17 when her father took the family to Syria in 2017. She testified that she believed they were going to Turkey to visit relatives, but their van crossed into Syria, where masked gunmen surrounded them.

Escape, arrest and wider context

Salman testified that bombings made her final year of marriage especially difficult, sometimes forcing the couple to live on the streets. She recalled seeing dead bodies. She said they eventually fled with other refugees in a truck, where she told her husband they would separate; she testified that she never saw him again.

Forces opposed to the Islamic State group detained her in Baghouz, Syria, in 2019. U.S. authorities arrested her after she returned to New York in 2024. The group seized territory in Iraq and Syria in 2014 and declared a caliphate. It was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and Syria two years later, though sleeper cells continue deadly attacks in both countries. Kurdish forces still hold around 2,200 foreign relatives of suspected fighters in a camp in northeastern Syria, an official there told AFP.