Opening statements began Tuesday in a Brooklyn federal courtroom in the trial of Halima Salman, an American citizen accused of receiving military training from ISIS after her father brought her to Syria as a 17-year-old. Prosecutors say Salman learned to fire an AK-47 and posed for photographs with an ISIS flag; her lawyers say she was a child who never chose to go and never held the group's ideology.
Salman was arrested after landing at Kennedy Airport in spring 2024, when she returned to the United States along with her mother and eight siblings, according to Yahoo News Singapore. The family had spent years in detention camps in northeast Syria holding relatives of ISIS fighters, and their arrival capped a long effort to bring them home. A U.S. military plane carried the family of 10 Americans back to Kennedy Airport, per the New York Times, though CNN has reported the repatriated group as 11 U.S. citizens from the same family — the two accounts differ on the exact headcount.
A Trip Billed as Camping That Ended in ISIS Territory
According to NPR, the Salman children told officials their father said they were going camping in Turkey, but the trip ended instead in ISIS-controlled territory in Syria. Salman was 17 at the time; CNN's reporting places her entry into that territory around late 2016 or early 2017. Her lawyer told Yahoo News Singapore that she had no say in what followed, stating plainly, “She was 17 years old. She didn't have a choice in the matter.”
Her attorneys argue that her father arranged an underage marriage without her consent once the family was in Syria. Attorney Samuel Jacobson has said Salman was an American teenager when her father married her off to an ISIS fighter there, according to the Times. Her defense maintains she was taken to Syria as a child and never shared the group's ideology.
Prosecutors Point to Weapons Training and a Flag Photo
Federal prosecutors allege that once Salman turned 18, she received training from ISIS that included learning to use an AK-47, a claim detailed in CNN's reporting. Prosecutors also say photographs recovered from a phone allegedly belonging to Salman's husband show her standing in front of an ISIS flag and walking with an assault rifle. Court records cited by the Times indicate she used the name Umm al-Khattab al-Muhajir during that period, according to the same prosecutors.
Salman has disputed the government's account. She told an FBI agent that she never received training and never owned a weapon, per Yahoo News Singapore's report. She was captured by or surrendered to forces opposed to ISIS roughly two years after entering Syria, in Baghouz, according to CNN. A magistrate judge later ordered her held without bond, with prosecutors arguing she could pose a flight risk or danger to the community; the charge she faces carries a maximum sentence of 10 years, the outlet reported.
One of Thousands Still Tied to Syria's Camps
Salman's case unfolds against the backdrop of a much larger population still held in camps across northeast Syria. Those camps have held roughly 45,000 people from more than 70 countries, with children making up about two-thirds of that population, NPR has reported. A more recent analysis from the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism found that, as of March 2025, roughly 23,000 foreigners remained in the al-Hol and Roj camps, more than 60 percent of them children, out of about 46,500 suspected ISIS members and relatives still detained in the region.
The pace of repatriations has slowed overall, though Iraq brought home more than 3,000 detainees after the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, according to the same analysis. U.S. officials have said the country had repatriated 27 Americans from Syria and Iraq as of February 2025, including 10 facing terrorism-related charges tied to ISIS support, per the U.S. Department of Justice.
Salman's trial is notable in part because she is believed to be the first woman accused of ISIS membership to stand trial in U.S. federal court, according to the Times. Other American women have faced similar allegations in past years: Allison Fluke-Ekren, formerly of Kansas, was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to leading an all-female ISIS battalion, a case detailed by the U.S. Department of Justice and later covered by CNN. The Eastern District of New York's own court calendar lists the pending matter simply as USA v. Salman, confirming the case is active in Brooklyn federal court.
