Rukmini Maria Callimachi Quotes

One of ISIS’ biggest propaganda coups was the beheadings of the aid workers and journalists. Is [Emni], the group that is exporting fighters overseas, also the one that was holding James Foley and John Cantlie and Kayla Mueller?

I’ve had countless jihadis shut me down straightaway and say, “I’m not allowed to speak to any woman who is not my relative.” But among the few I’m able to get through to, I think that being female makes me more approachable, soft, all the stereotypes of what female means.

If we cover a court case involving a murderer, we would still seek out the side of that murderer, even as we realize that what people say is going to be self-serving.

It’s become extremely difficult to speak to active ISIS members now. I was speaking to them in 2015, and the last one was killed in a drone strike.

[People who have left the ISIS] say that there comes a moment when the inconsistencies and apparent hypocrisies of their sheikh lets them down, and they begin rereading scripture and find ways that vouch for a nonliteralist reading of the Koran.

It seems to me that a 9/11-style attack is impractical.

The systemic failure in the media in covering ISIS is that the majority of reporters are doing it in a semaphore fashion.