APPREHENDED
- Full name: Claire Khacer
- Pseudonym: N/a
- Alternatives: N/a
- Location: France, fmr Syria
- Affiliation: Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [DaIISh]
Claire Khacer (°1976) is French woman from the Parisian suburb of Châtillon who has been active in Islamist extremist milieus after converting to Islam when she was seventeen years old in the mid-1990s.1 Khacer got married a few years later and had four children before divorcing her husband.2 Around 2010, she met Afghan Islamist immigrant Mohammed Wazir in Scotland and later married him.3 In 2011, Khacer moved to Afghanistan after her husband was expelled by French authorities for being in the country illegally.4 The couple defiantly returned to France the following year and settled in the town of Cannes where they had a son before separating in 2012.5 Khacer later got in touch with Oumar Diaw, a Senegalese jihadi from the Alsace who had joined the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [DaIISh; Dawlat al-Islamiya fi-Iraq wal ash-Sham] through social media.6
In February 2015, Khacer traveled to Syria via Algeria and Turkey and began a romantic relationship with Diaw.7 She left Syria a few months later but was caught by Turkish security forces. Khacer was expulsed from Turkey in September 2015.8 Upon her return to France, she remained in contact with Islamist extremists.9 Khacer was even planning to return to Syria for some time. She was eventually arrested. During her pre-trial incarceration, Khacer exerted considerable influence over other jihadi women in custody.10 On Jun. 29, 2018, a French court sentenced her to seven years in prison for associating with terrorist organizations.11
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