Anna Sundberg from Stenhuggeriet Halmstad lived for many years among militant Islamists. She lived among other things, in a poor Georgian village and she was under house arrest in Damascus, with their four children. Now she talks about the time of the book “Loved terrorist.”
Many saw her safely in “Skavlan ‘on SVT on Friday, and many of us to speak with Anna Sundberg these days, because of “Loved terrorist – 16 years Islamic militants” that will soon be put on the market, writes Hallandsposten.
in his autobiography writes she, with the help of the author Jesper Huor, about how she, as a student in Lund converted to Islam, and later lived with a militant Islamists.
– But today, I live with my four children in a suburb of Stockholm says Anna when I call her.
She is a teacher and works union with school issues, which sounds “typical Swedish” and a stark contrast to her years as a housewife abroad.
But we take it from the beginning:
Anna grew up in a house near the sea in the masonry and as a child she played including football in Astrio and Alet.
– But above all I was doing gymnastics in Halmstad sport girls.
in her twenties she ended up in Lund, in a circle of friends where everyone was pager. There were many deep philosophical conversations.
– We thought a lot and questioned the existence of ordinary life to get a job and family was not good enough. But our discussions led nowhere, and many of my friends ended up with the times correctly odd places.
Anna felt bad , but one day the summer of 1994, she met Walid in a park in Lund. He was a beautiful Muslim from Algeria who spoke just as beautiful on spirituality.
– I fell instantly. I had been to question everything for a long time and was quite blank. I had been alone in a boat on a stormy sea, but now I had found a man who took over the helm and led me right, says Anna.
Two weeks later she married to Walid.
I can understand that you fell in love, but why get married so quickly?
– According to his religion, we did not hang over gender boundaries as unmarried, and I was sure that I had met the man who would guide me into the religion – and the good life.
Anna converted to Islam and began to socialize with other Muslim women in Lund. It was time for a new life and Walid cut down her old clothes and photographs.
When I read about that time in your book, it feels as if you should have responded. Your new life must have been so contrary to much of everything you had learned earlier?
– Yes, there were some hefty warning signs and I still do not really know why I stayed. But I had low self-esteem at the same time I had my pride. I had made my choice and I would follow.
Anna bar niqab , leaving only a slit for the eyes, and she had two sons with Walid in Lund. But she also realized that he was neither a good husband or a Muslim, and divorced.
After a while, she, with the help of friends, introduced to another man. She married Said Arif, who would later become efterspanad of terrorism.
– We were Salafists, a hard branch of Islam that does not have the ordinary Muslims to do. Salafism is, among other things, to live very traditional and orthodox.
Along with her new husband Anna moved around the world. At first they lived in Berlin, where Said Arif had contact with other brothers – as they are called – while Anna was at home in the apartment with the children.
– I did not know what he did, but realized it was “something big going on.” Later I learned that he had contributed to the planning of a deed that would have affected civilians, but it was stopped in advance by the police.
The couple moved in 2001 to a village in the Pankisi Valley in Georgia, near the Chechen border. Said Arif was a member of the Muslim group Mujahedeen and participated in the fight against the Russians in Chechnya, while Anna socialized with neighboring women.
According to your book, you felt you pretty well in the village?
– Yes, it was certainly poor and physically tough, but it was socially and cozy.
Meanwhile, in the Pankisi Valley, Anna was pregnant with her third child, and when in 2003 the family moved to Damascus in Syria, had output increased by a daughter.
In Damascus plummeted, however, all together, when Said Arif was arrested by the Syrian security police. Anna was never told why but she and her children lived in a period of house arrest in different apartments – and prison.
When I read if I am struck by how calm and energetic you seemed , despite the exposed position. You were on top of all pregnant with your fourth child.
– Yes, but I simply had to take care of the children. In stressful situations it can be panic but I was focused.
2003 managed to Anna, the Swedish embassy’s help, return to Halmstad. There were parents in all the years had supported her and welcomed her back.
– They meant incredibly much, says Anna.
Her husband was left in prison, and the family settled for some time in an apartment on Vallås. In 2004 we moved to Stockholm, where the children attended Islamic schools and Anna spent time with other believers.
She corresponded with Said Arif, who is now sitting in a French prison, and she was still a believer. But after a few years Anna began to doubt and do forbidden things, like watching TV.
– I wanted to make subsequent right for me in Sweden and trained as a teacher, as my husband did not like.
one thing led to another, and the summer of 2007, Anna took a big step. She had received a scholarship to stay at a school boarding for single mothers in Bastad, and on the way there, she took “vacation from the veil.”
– I took it and came to the boarding school as a regular Svennebanan , Anna says with a laugh.
a female Svenne?
– Yes, and it was nice and interesting to be among the other women, who do not had no idea of my background.
Anna divorced her husband in 2010 and the same year she notice their Muslim friends in Stockholm that she took off her veil and doubted God. “Any kind of faith in God remained in a few months, but it became increasingly blurred and disappeared eventually,” it says in the book.
today been five or six years since. How is it to live without God? Do not you feel a regret?
– Yes, sometimes. As a believer, I was never alone, I always had God but now I only have relationships with other people. But I feel good about it and experience a great freedom. There is so much to catch up after all these years.
What about your four children, after all they’ve been through?
– I do not want to talk so much about or for, them. But they are strong and energetic.
For nearly a year ago she learned that Said Arif, who had escaped from captivity in France, had been killed. There is in any case credible information that he died in a US airstrike in Syria, where he led an Islamist rebel group.
Self liver Anna is currently a fairly common life – a such as she shunned once.
What is your current friends on your book and your story?
– I’ve talked a lot with my colleagues and received good response. How others react we will see. This is my truth and I want to tell you about the terrible choice I made. Hopefully, the book can help anyone to think over where to have ended – and get out of there.
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