United States — A federal jury in Brooklyn convicted Halima Salman, a 27-year-old U.S. citizen and former Brooklyn resident, of receiving military-type training from ISIS in Syria, the Justice Department announced October 27. The verdict followed a federal trial before U.S. District Judge Natasha C. Merle. Salman, also known as “Umm Khattab al-Muhajir,” faces up to 10 years in prison. According to court reports, her sentencing is scheduled for February 2, 2027.
Prosecutors said Salman traveled from the United States with her parents and eight siblings in 2016, eventually reaching territory controlled by ISIS. They told jurors that after she turned 18, she married an ISIS fighter and voluntarily sought training from Khatiba Nusaybah, an all-female ISIS military unit. According to the government, she received authorization to carry ammunition and an assault rifle.
The prosecution pointed to a document it described as a certificate confirming Salman had completed training. A copy was found on her husband’s cellphone after it was recovered from a battlefield, prosecutors said. Jurors also saw photographs of Salman with an ISIS flag in the background and a video that prosecutors said showed her holding an AK-47.
Salman’s defense disputed the government’s account of her circumstances and challenged the evidence. During the trial, she testified that her father took the family to Syria when she was a teenager and that she did not know where they were going until they were already there. She described being under her husband’s control and said she had tried to leave the marriage. Her lawyer argued that the training document was unreliable and highlighted the absence of a witness who testified to seeing Salman train.
The jury’s guilty verdict means it found the evidence sufficient to convict Salman of the charged training offense. It does not resolve every broader question about the conditions she faced in Syria, which were contested at trial. The Justice Department said the case was investigated by the FBI’s New York field office, with assistance from the department’s Office of International Affairs in obtaining evidence overseas.
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