Syria captors threaten to kill Kurdish-German girl if family fails to pay $100k
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Unidentified individuals kidnapped a Kurdish-German girl in northern Syria over the weekend, demanding a $100,000 ransom from her family and threatening to kill her if they fail to comply, the family told Rudaw English on Wednesday.
Norman Jalal had returned to Kobane in northern Syria from Germany earlier this year. She was supposed to return to Hanover in the coming days. However, she and her friend, Fatima Salih, were abducted by an unidentified group on Saturday, while en route to Aleppo city where the esthetician wanted to buy supplies for her work.
While some media reported that Fatima is also a German citizen, Rudaw English confirmed she only holds a Syrian nationality.
Mustafa Adil, Norman’s relative, told Rudaw English on Wednesday that one of the captors contacted him via the social media app Instagram on Sunday, through her personal account.
“One of the members of the militia group reached out to me via Instagram using Norman’s account because they have access to her mobile. They confirmed to me that they were holding Norman captive," Adil said.
He believes that Norman is being held by the Suleiman Shah brigades, otherwise known as the al-Amshat - a notorious US-sanctioned militia group.
Rudaw English could not independently confirm the identity of the captors.
When Adil asked the abductors how much money they wanted to release her, the unidentified individual initially said $30,000. The next day, he messaged Adil again, saying because the family had informed the German government the ransom was raised to $150,000.
The abductor further threatened to kill Norman if the family failed to pay the ransom money.
“When I said the amount requested is too high, he replied, ‘Would you pay it or should we kill Norman?’ I said that we would definitely pay the amount. He later said they would accept $100,000 too,” Adil said.
Norman’s relative further confirmed to Rudaw English that the family worked with the German government to locate the captors by tracking the device used to access her Instagram account. He added that the results showed she was being kept in Afrin, a region where Amshat militants maintain influence despite the deployment of Damascus-affiliated forces to the Kurdish-majority region.
Adel further told Rudaw English that he had received audio messages allegedly recorded by Norman, in which she is reportedly heard pleading for help in a broken voice.
"Mustafa [Adil], everything I see is red... They are going to execute me ... My life is in danger... Tell them [family] and dad to pay 25,000 [dollars]," she purportedly said.
Rudaw English on Tuesday reached out to the German foreign ministry to raise Norman's voice, but has yet to receive a response. On the same day, Rudaw also notified the Syrian interior ministry, which said it “would investigate the case.”
The backdrop
Norman and her friend Fatima were abducted on Saturday after crossing a Kurdish-held part of Deir Hafer district east of Aleppo, and upon entering areas under the control of Syrian state forces. However, despite the interim government's pledges to integrate all armed groups into a unified national security force, militia groups remain active in those areas.
Deir Hafer is a strategic area that has recently witnessed intermittent clashes between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and armed factions aligned with the Damascus government. It is largely under SDF.
Adil said that Norman's car, which has been confiscated by the captors, is worth around $15,000 and she was carrying €2,000 (around $2,370) her father had wired her from Germany to buy the work supplies from Aleppo.
Efforts by Rudaw English to reach the family of Norman’s friend, Fatima, have until the time of this report, been unsuccessful.
Importantly, Norman and Fatima were not the only Kurdish girls from Kobane abducted in Deir Hafer on Saturday. Another girl, Haifa Adil Taher, was also captured the same day and in the same area.
Ibrahim Shekho, a prominent Kurdish human rights activist in Rojava, told Rudaw English on Tuesday that the 25-year-old is from the village of Khirabe Ato in Kobane.
“On Saturday, around 9 and 10 am [local time], Haifa was travelling from Kobane to Aleppo to visit her family in the [Kurdish-majority] Sheikh Maqsood neighborhood in [northern] Aleppo.”
However, “she was abducted at a checkpoint located between Aleppo [city] and Deir Hafir,” Shekho said, adding that “her family has reached out to the SDF to help secure her release, but her fate remains unknown.”
Given that all three girls were abducted within hours of each other in the same region raises serious concerns that the cases may be connected and possibly the work of the same armed militia.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that some 1,647 persons have been abducted or disappeared since the start of 2025.
Rami Abdulrahman, head of SOHR, told Rudaw on Tuesday that “292 kidnappings were recorded in areas controlled by the Damascus government, while 63 occurred in territories held by the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA)."