Gill Rosenberg,Israeli-Canadian says ISIS kidnapping reports untrue: ‘I’m totally safe and secure‘
J,Post 02/12/14/After reports of her kidnapping by Islamic State surfaced, the Israeli-Canadian woman fighting the extremist group seemed to have relayed a message on social media reassuring of her well-being on Monday night.
A Kurdish official in Syria also denied on Monday that Gill Rosenberg was captured by Islamic State
Rosenberg, 31, apparently posted on her Facebook that she was safe but had not been able to communicate with the outside world for safety reasons.
“Guys, I’m totally safe and secure. I don’t have Internet access or any communication devices with me for my safety and security. I can’t reply regularly and only happened to have a chance to log in and see these buklshit news stories. Ignore the reports I’ve been captured. Yalla, Acharai!,” read a message on her Facebook.
Idris Nassan, a local official in the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, said his people in the field reported that she had not been captured and dismissed it as propaganda.
On Sunday, Islamist websites – some of them known to be close to, or even serving as a front for, the terrorist organization – posted soon-disputed reports that Rosenberg had been captured during fierce battles with Kurdish fighters in unspecified areas.
The websites gave no further details regarding the circumstances of the capture, nor provided any proof of it.
The Islamic State claims did not make clear whether Rosenberg was in Iraq or in Syria. The main battlefield between the Kurds and Islamic State is in the Syrian-Turkish border town of Kobani.
Kurdish sources approached by Israel Radio reporter Eran Cicurel expressed doubt over the Islamic State report. They said Rosenberg was not in Kobani. In the assessment of these Kurdish sources, the reports of Rosenberg’s capture are probably the terrorists’ propaganda.
The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) told The Jerusalem Post that “there are no further details at this stage.”
Rosenberg wrote on her Facebook page on November 20 that she was handing over management of her account to “someone else” and would be without Internet access for at least two weeks, until December 8, she wrote. It is not clear where she went at this time.
Rosenberg was born in Vancouver, and experienced a family crisis after her parents divorced. In an interview with Ma’ariv in 2009, she said that already at the age of 22 she was pursuing a promising career as a pilot of Boeing passenger planes, but decided to leave everything behind and immigrate in 2006. In Israel, she joined the IDF, serving as an instructor for Kenyan soldiers who came to Israel for home front search and rescue training.
Rosenberg said she had ambitions to join the Mossad, but was hurt during her military training and afterwards had money problems.
She met an American friend in an ulpan Hebrew language course who led her into crime, she said.
She joined a group of Israelis who were accused of setting up a ring to cheat elderly Americans and steal their money through a fake lottery scheme. According to the indictments filed against them, they stole hundreds of thousands of dollars, perhaps even millions, from the unknowing pensioners.
Reuters contributed to this report.
