World Exclusive - The World's Most Dangerous Region Days Before Soleimani's Assassination

In Syria, guns and bombs have largely fallen silent after the defeat of Islamic State. But, amid the eerie calm that prevails, the war-torn nation stands exposed to strange new perils and challenges

- Lakshmi Subramanian/Qamishli, Ab Hasakah And Al Hol, Syria

Amani Fathima was 28 when she took the vacation that ruined her life.

In late 2014, she and her husband, Hussaifa, and their three-year-old son Kisar, left her in-laws’ home in Mumbai for Bahrain. It was to be the start of an exciting tour of the Middle East—a break from their dull, middle-class life in Kurla West. At least, that is what her husband had told her.

Their host in Bahrain was a friend of Hussaifa, a man Fathima referred to as ‘bhai: The family spent three months in the country, before they packed their bags for Turkey.

In Istanbul, they checked into a hotel room. Fathima remembers being over the moon. She was pregnant with their second child, and spent most of her time in the hotel room. Hussaifa would go out often to meet his friends.

After spending five days in Istanbul, they headed south to the Turkey-Syria border. It was 2015, and things had taken a dark turn in the region. An extremist group called Islamic State had captured swathes of territory in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, and declared itself a caliphate. Its reach extended from Mosul in Iraq in the east, to the outskirts of Aleppo in Syria, 600km to the west.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Iraqborn IS chief, had called upon all Muslims to join his caliphate. Hussaifa wanted to answer that call. He took Fathima and Kisar to the northern periphery of IS-held territory—a small town called Tell Abyad, close to the Turkey-Syria border. “I did not know where my husband was taking me,’ Fathima told THE WEEK. “T did not have any option but to follow him. I still believe that he, too, did not know what lay next for us. We were following bhai’s instructions over the phone.’

Tell Abyad, which was part of Syria’s Raqqa province, had fallen in 2014. IS had plundered the town and driven away its diverse population of Syrians, Kurds, Arabs and Assyrians.