Elkhart woman says she was tricked into joining ISIS, wants to come back to US
An Elkhart woman says she was tricked by her husband into joining ISIS. Now she wants to return to the United States with her four children.
The woman spoke with CNN while in Syrian-Kurdish custody.
Samantha Sally and her children have been interviewed by the FBI. CNN reports no charges have been filed, but no tickets home been given either.
The last time Samantha was in the United States, she was living in Elkhart.
In 2013 she was managing a delivery business in Elkhart with her husband Moussa Elhassani.
That's when they hired Ann Young.
“When I was hired in, Sam hired me in,” Young told WSBT. “We all used to call her Sam. Real friendly, outgoing, beautiful girl, just a beautiful person."
Young says Sam and Moussa were good bosses, but then one day they were gone.
"They went ahead and left kind of abruptly,” Young said. “It was just kind of like hush hush. Nobody really knew other than the fact that they were going to be closer to his family."
Sam told CNN that she thought they were moving to Morocco.
What she thought was a vacation to Turkey led to a border wall where she faced a decision, go with her husband into Syria and keep the family together or leave without her daughter.
"They can think whatever they want to believe, but they've never been put in a situation to make a decision like that,” Samantha told CNN.
She decided to keep her family together. Her husband Moussa became an ISIS fighter.
Sam stayed home where she says she spent years being beaten and raped.
Her son from a previous marriage to a US soldier was forced to act in an ISIS propaganda video.
"The more I think about it the more it makes me just want to cry,” said Young.
Young says she is shocked that this is why she had never heard from Sam. But she isn't surprised that she survived years of beatings.
"That's a tough woman right there. I knew from the moment I met her that's a tough woman."
Moussa was killed by a drone strike late last year.
"I was able to breathe. I was like - OK - we can start phase two,” said Samantha.
Now she's hoping phase two can be back in the United States.
"We want to eat McDonalds. you know, we want to live a normal life for us again."
Some of Sam's former employees in Elkhart say they have been interviewed by the FBI about this case.
The delivery company the couple managed no longer has an office in Elkhart.
