INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Raqqa, but she says nothing was like the childbirth she attended two years ago as the handpicked doula of the Islamic State.Moments after an
infant was born to a Turkish couple - an Islamic State fighter and his young wife - they tried to dress their newborn son in a
custom-tailored military uniform
The father proudly declared that the child would grow up to become an Islamist militant
She said she persuaded the father not to use the uniform, telling him the material was too coarse for the baby's delicate skin.Nasr, 66, is
among the millions who lived under the Islamic State's violent and austere rule in Syria and Iraq, but she witnessed a side of the militancy
that perhaps no other outsider did
She was coerced, she said, into delivering countless babies for Islamic State families, attending the most intimate moments of their
secluded lives, which she described as alternately ordinary and grotesque.Entrusted by the Islamic State with delivering the "cubs of the
caliphate" shortly after it captured Raqqa in 2014 and made the city its capital, Nasr began making house calls at all hours
During the three years she was shuttled by taxis and gunmen to the homes of Islamic State families, most of them foreign, Nasr's emotions
ran from fear to anger to helplessness, she said
There was none of the joy or pride that had sustained a career of delivering babies for a generation of Raqqans."They had no respect for the
profession," she said of the militants and their wives
"I was like a prop, not a caregiver
I would attend the birth and they would toss me out.The children of the "caliphate" were themselves treated as props
They were central characters in Islamic State propaganda videos, which often showed children of diverse European, Asian and African
backgrounds studying Islamic State teachings, or playing and training with weapons
Other videos purported to show adolescent boys executing people deemed;tates or enemies.In their private interactions, Nasr also found the
al-Nasr, Um Alaa."The young women were mostly elated upon becoming mothers, and in a practice that seemed ignorant to Nasr but is actually
increasingly common in the West, they all insisted on holding the newborns tight and breast-feeding them even before the umbilical cord was
The women would frequently whisper a few words of prayer in halting Arabic exalting the role of mothers in Islam while pressing the infants
to their chests.But the husbands imposed harsh rules
They forbade Nasr to give the women painkillers or other medicine while they were in labor
She said some of the women went through 10 hours of labor without the opioids or muscle relaxers that Nasr had routinely given to women in
the past."They wouldn't let me give her a thing," she recalled
"These women endured a lot of pain."The husbands claimed that the medication violated their religious tradition and offered platitudes about
how the women would reap greater rewards from God for their suffering
The wives obediently agreed.But Nasr said she knew better
The men were concocting these excuses because they feared she might poison the women, and she felt sorry for them."They just didn't trust
the medicine coming from me, an outsider," she said
"They wouldn't even let me give her a glass of water unless the husband poured it himself."When Nasr recalled the foreign women repeating
their husbands' bromides about rewards in the afterlife, she mimicked their heavily accented Arabic in a high-pitched voice, and her bright
blue eyes welled up with tears of laughter.Mostly, however, she remembered her experiences in delivering Islamic State babies with revulsion
She felt humiliated by how she was treated
Nasr has a soft face and slow, labored walk, but she is a proud woman who knows her craft and is accustomed to respect
The central area of the city was damaged heavily.On the wall outside her home, largely spared the devastation suffered by her neighbors,
hangs a sign advertising her services
It bears the name she's widely known by: Umm Alaa
It means "Alaa's mom," a nickname she acquired after the birth of a son who would go on to become a doctor in Raqqa
Three bullet holes blemish the sign, a reminder of the ferocious battle last year as U.S.-allied forces ousted the Islamic State from the
city.The ordeal has left her bitter and confused
She is still reckoning with her role in helping the "caliphate" pursue its proclaimed goal of "remaining and expanding."Nasr said she had
initially tried to resist working for Islamic State couples, but the consequences of not cooperating soon became clear: imprisonment or even
execution in a public square
Her husband, a slightly built, bookish retired Arabic teacher, had been jailed for a few days after he tried to mediate between the feared
Islamic State morality police and a neighbor who had run afoul of their strict code."What choice did I have" Nasr asked
"I would do it against my will
Even if I was afraid or disgusted, it is irrelevant
I was forced to help them."Maternity ward services had been offered free by the Syrian government, but Islamic State administrators began
imposing fees for these services at the hospital to raise revenue for their nascent city-state
They charged the equivalent of about $20 for a regular birth and $50 for a Caesarean section.But the militants faced a problem, Nasr
They did not trust local doctors and nurses to attend to their wives, fearing that the mothers and their newborns might be poisoned by a
hospital staff hostile to their rule.As the group consolidated its power in Raqqa in late 2014, Nasr and her husband were told by their
Kurdish neighbor that he was being evicted
In his place came a Kenyan man, his wife, three adult sons and German daughter-in-law
Word spread in the neighborhood that he was an administrator for the Islamic State who went by the nickname Abu Walid and was in charge of
the affairs of widows whose militant husbands had died fighting.Not long after, Abu Walid introduced himself
He had noticed the sign advertising Nasr's services and invited her to come to his place, which he called the "House of the Widow."Nasr
declined, pretending to be too old and frail and saying she had retired from the profession
Abu Walid, who was armed, didn't accept her refusal
He insisted she accompany him to the large house
There, Nasr recalled, she found pregnant women from an astonishing array of nations: There were Tunisians, Saudis, Egyptians, Yemenis,
Somalis, Moroccans, Irish women, French women, Germans, Russians, Turks and women from the Caucasus and African countries she could not
identify.She was also struck by the Syrian wives
The youngest were 13 and the oldest no more than 15
Over the next three years, Nasr said, she would sadly note that the Syrian wives were never older than 18 - an illustration of how the new
al-Hammam, 67."These were not humans," she said of the militants
"They were a different kind of creature.Nasr said she doesn't remember how many babies she delivered during the Islamic State occupation,
saying that there were too many and that she had always hoped "each one would be the last." But she does recall the last one vividly.In the
final days of the battle to evict the militants in October, she was summoned to the house of a Somali fighter and his Yemeni wife
The woman was already in labor and had a bleeding head wound
Nasr was told by the fighter that he was riding his motorcycle at high speed to avoid the U.S.-led coalition's airstrikes and that his wife
had fallen off the back of the bike.The husband demanded that Nasr deliver the infant, she said, but forbade her to treat the woman's
injury.Sitting in her house, warmly decorated with caramel-colored floor cushions and an ornate peach Persian-style rug, Nasr said she has
recently been reflecting on her time as the Islamic State's preferred midwife, grappling with the morality of her actions.On the one hand,
she said, she was forced to work for the Islamic State and had acted as anyone in her position would
Moreover, she felt a moral obligation to give medical attention to helpless and blameless children.But on the other, Nasr suggested, by
giving in to the militants and thus avoiding punishment or even death, she had courted devastating retribution from God.Days before his 40th
birthday in October, Nasr's son Alaa had headed out into the city during an aerial barrage to provide medical attention to victims
Nasr had begged her son not to go, but he told her it would be a "dishonor to him as a doctor to not help people in need."Alaa was treating
the survivors of an earlier airstrike when the building he was in was bombed
Alaa was killed."My heart is dark from the injustice," Nasr said, now weeping
"My pain is deep.(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by TheIndianSubcontinent staff and is published from a syndicated
