A Paris-based journalist is now fearing for her life after she wrote an account of her undercover experience posing as the girlfriend of high-ranking ISIS commender Abou Bilel for her magazine.
According to Anna Erelle, a pseudonym she uses to protect her true identity, she originally wanted to do a story about what motivated young women to cross borders to become jihadi brides so she joined a young Muslim community online to observe their exchanges and understand what drew them to radicalism.
"They knew very little about religion. They had hardly read a book and they learnt jihad before religion. They'd tell me, 'You think with your head, we think with our hearts.' They had a romantic view of radicalism. I wondered how that happened," Erelle recounted from one of her interviews.
According to the New York Post, Erelle said she assumed the name of Melodie, and was surprised to one day be approached by ISIS commander Abou Bilel, who wooed her and eventually asked her to travel to Syria to join him. Bilel is considered the right-hand man of the Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, considered the most dangerous man in the world with a $10 million US government bounty for his capture.
Under the guise of Melodie, Erelle said that she pretended to be a recent Muslim convert from a poor area in France. During their exchanges, Bilel tried to impress her with his position in the ISIS and even sent her photos of himself in his 4x4 jeep wielding a gun. Their conversations alternated between him romancing her and sharing how he killed dozens of 'infidels.'
As Bilel began to trust Melodie more, he started sharing more details of their operations to her. One such incident was Bilel's description of the battle for Raqqa in 2013.
"He's a braggart, he's very full of himself, but he is also a man capable of real cruelty. At first I wanted to feel something for him because I like to think there is always something good in humans . . . but there is nothing human in him."
As their online relationship continued, Erelle started to share information he gleaned from Bilel with her contacts in Syria and the French security services. Most of the details about the battles and the killings proved true.
Erelle shared that Melodie instantly grew popular within her Islamic friends online when they learned of her connection to Bilel.
"This must have played a part in the British girls' disappearance, too. The ones who go to Syria know they will be in the newspapers and on the Internet and people will be talking about them. These girls were following a friend who had already left for Syria. They must have seen the pain that caused her family, but it didn't stop them," she said, adding that when Bilel was persuading her to travel to Syria and that he also promised her that she would be treated like a princess.
Eventually, Erelle went along with Bilel's plan for her to travel to Amsterdam with a fictitious companion, and then fly to Istanbul to meet a woman known as "maman" who would escort them to Bilel's location. Erelle said she was intrigued by the woman's identity and wanted to see what motivated her to shepherd young women to become jihadi brides.
However, when Bilel changed the plan by saying maman could not travel because it was dangerous, Erelle called off the journey and said she wanted to return to Paris.
This, she said, angered Bilel and the ISIS fighter immediately threatened her.
"'You've made a fool of me in front of the hierarchy here.That would not easily be forgiven. I know who you are, it would be a matter of minutes to find you and kill you," he aparently said.
As soon as her betrayal was exposed through her magazine article, Melodie's Skype account was flooded with death threats from ISIS sympathisers, prompting her to change her number and move homes. She even had to give up her dog at the prompting of authorities because its rare breed may make her easily indetifiable among ISIS allies.
After her ordeal, Erelle wrote the book, In the Skin of a Jihadist, which will be released on June 30.
Nowadays, Erelle is under the watchful eye of French authoritiesa round the clock. Despite having to look over her shoulder every minute, she said she did not regret her decision.
Asked if she would do everything all over again, she said: "For sure."
