Northern Iraq, March 2019: that month marked the territorial defeat of the infamous ISIS (Islamic State) terrorist group. Their last vestige of control in eastern Syria was finally swallowed up by the relentless onslaught of coalition forces. During that time, many of their captive slaves were fleeing; our humanitarian NGO (non-government organization) teams were one of few organizations reaching out specifically to the ISIS female sex slaves — young Yezidi girls captured in 2014 to reward the Islamic State fighters.

In one refugee camp near Turkey, we visited a close friend in her tent and discovered her fourteen-year-old daughter had returned from five years of ISIS captivity the night before. Her eyes were completely blank and would not speak because of the brutally intense trauma and torture she experienced from her captors. 

Words cannot express the feels that rise within us, feelings that demand justice, perhaps even revenge. I sometimes struggle to know what to do with these feelings. And yet, Jesus commands we must love our enemies.

The next day, I got to meet that enemy.

ISIS captured thousands of teenage boys, brainwashed them and trained them to be soldiers. Many became committed believers in the extremist ideology; as ISIS lost territory hundreds of these young men returned to the area our team is based in.

One of these young men was “Ahmed” (not his real name), who fought for ISIS for four and a half years. He finally surrendered because he was nearly starving to death. When we met him, he had been fighting with the Islamic State a week before in their last territorial stronghold. Likely, the young lady we had just met in the refugee camp the day before had been in the same area. They may have even met.

And now I came face to face with the evil that had completely destroyed her life. How am I supposed to handle this contradiction? What should my response be to such dramatic contrast between individuals? The young lady was scared and traumatized; Ahmed was confident and hard.

But I found I had made a mistake in my perspective. Ahmed wasn’t the evil that had ruined so many lives. As I interacted with him, I was amazed that under the facade of a tough jihadist was in reality just a confused, disheartened teenager. For all the dramatic stories, Ahmed was perhaps just as tragic a victim of the perverse ideology, like so many others. A life of incredible potential thrown away in pursuit of some brutal extremist belief to build a true “Islamic Caliphate” by whatever means necessary.

In the end, we gave Ahmed food, heard some of his story, and promised to come back to check on his injuries (he had been seriously wounded by an airstrike in Syria three months before). And I had to think of the command of Jesus, who said “if your enemy is hungry, feed him.” So that is what we did. And I suddenly realized that Ahmed is a human being, just like you and I. I had always demonized people like him; but in the end he is a precious creation of God in desperate need of redemption and hope just like the rest of humanity.

We don’t know how Ahmed’s story will end. But maybe, just maybe, he will see God through the living of Christ’s command: “if your enemy is hungry, feed him.”

Our teams in Iraq continue to work with the many victims of ISIS terrorism. I wrote a previous piece on Ahmed, which you can read here.

I gave a lecture based on some of my experiences in Iraq and the lessons we can learn about fear, dangerous places, and living above it all. Iraq has taught me many things, and perhaps they can be helpful to someone else as well.