Halima Salman convicted of Islamic State weapons training in New York

Defense asks judge to acquit; sentencing set for Feb. 2

A jury in New York convicted Halima Salman on Tuesday of receiving weapons training from the Islamic State group, after a trial in which she testified that her father took her to Syria as a teenager and that she was unable to leave once there. AP reported that Salman’s father also arranged her marriage to an Islamic State fighter. Jurors heard evidence that included a video of Salman holding an assault rifle, a photograph of her with the group’s flag and loving text messages she sent to her husband.

Salman, a U.S. citizen born in Brooklyn, was 17 when her father took the family on what she thought was a trip to visit relatives in Turkey in 2017. The van crossed into Syria, where masked gunmen surrounded them, and she said she was frightened and confused and had no idea where her father was taking them. AP reported that Salman’s father arranged her marriage to an Islamic State fighter.

Brooklyn-based U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. said in a statement that the verdict held Salman “accountable for joining forces with a terrorist organization.” The conviction carries the potential for up to 10 years in prison, and sentencing currently is set for Feb. 2.

Prosecutors said Salman pledged loyalty to the Islamic State group and willingly participated in its activities. Jurors were shown a video of Salman holding an assault rifle, a photograph of her with the group’s flag and loving text messages she sent to her husband. Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Shami told the jury in her closing argument last week: “The evidence shows that the defendant received military training from a violent, brutal, terrorist organization — an organization that is responsible for attacks across the world.”

The defense sought to portray Salman as a teenager whom her father brought into Syria and whom she was unable to leave, and as a wife whose Islamic State fighter husband issued orders she had to follow. She said she spent three months in housing run by the Islamic State group before reuniting with her family, and that the family moved twice because their homes were hit by airstrikes.

“I do blame my father for a lot of things that happened,” Salman testified. Her father died after being injured in an airstrike in 2018.

Salman said she refused to be “married off” at age 18 and repeatedly tried to get a divorce. On the first day of her marriage, her husband told her: “Get up, stupid wife, it’s time for you to be a wife.” She spent much of the marriage doing domestic labor for her husband and mother-in-law. “You try to leave, it is death,” she testified.

Her husband took the video of her holding the assault rifle, prosecutors said she had been trained to use. When she testified, Salman said she was only complying with her husband’s request to carry it. She recalled that her last year of marriage was marked by constant bombings, which sometimes forced them to live in the streets, where she recalled seeing “dead bodies everywhere.”

The couple eventually fled with other refugees in a truck, where she told her husband they were going to separate, and Salman testified that she never saw him again. She was detained in Baghouz, Syria, in 2019 by forces opposed to the Islamic State group. She was arrested by U.S. authorities when she returned to New York in 2024.

Prosecutors insisted Salman was dishonest and had more agency in Syria than she claimed. They got her to concede during cross-examination that she once sent a religious song about Osama bin Laden to her husband. Prosecutors also disputed her account of a poor marriage, citing two of the loving text messages she sent to her husband.

The dispute over how much of what Salman did in Syria was her own choice ran through the trial. Prosecutors argued that she pledged allegiance, received weapons training and sent loving text messages to her husband. The defense argued that she was a teenager taken across a border by her father and unable to leave Syria, and that the Islamic State fighter she married issued orders she had to follow. The defense also said her own testimony showed she wanted out.

Salman, her mother and even her defense attorneys wept after hearing the verdict. Still in tears, Salman and her mother later hugged each other across the railing between the audience and the courtroom well.

Jurors, who began deliberating Thursday, had repeatedly indicated Monday that they were struggling to reach a unanimous decision. The members declined to comment as they left court after the verdict. Salman’s lawyers also declined to comment. They are asking the judge to set aside the verdict and acquit her, as federal law allows if a judge finds the evidence presented at a trial doesn’t legally support a conviction. Such requests are often made but rarely granted.

The Islamic State group, which the U.S. government designates as a terror group, seized large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014 and declared the territory to be a caliphate. Despite its defeat in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later, the group still has sleeper cells that carry out deadly attacks in both countries.