Minnesotan will be sentenced for fighting for ISIS: ‘I joined a death cult’

The Islamic State group’s territory was wasting away five years ago when a member from Minnesota desperately dug a trench around his young family’s tent to protect against airstrikes in the eastern Syrian village of Baghouz.

By then, Abdelhamid Al-Madioum had become disillusioned with what an online ISIS recruiter once sold as a divine calling that he was compelled as a Muslim to join. Born in Morocco but raised in St. Louis Park, Al-Madioum seized on that pitch at age 18, becoming one of the few Minnesotans to evade law enforcement to join ISIS overseas.

He lost an arm and his legs were shattered in an explosion early in his enlistment. Years later, during those final days with ISIS, even his trench failed him: A bullet pierced the family tent and killed his wife in front of him and their two sons. He buried her in that trench, took the boys and finally surrendered to Syrian forces.

“I joined a death cult, and it was the biggest mistake of my life,” Al-Madioum now says, in a letter written to the federal judge who will deliver an unprecedented terror recruitment sentence back in Minnesota.

Read more: Minneapolis Star-Tribune