A Norwegian Islamist fighting in Syria murdered the two-year-old son of a rival, after marrying the man's ex-wife, journalist Åsne Seierstad has claimed in her new book, Two Sisters.
According to Seierstad, Bastian Vasquez killed the son of Arfan Bhatti, a leading figure in the Norwegian Islamist group Profetens Ummah, after the boy came to Syria with his mother to engage in Jihad. Vasquez was then executed by ISIS for the crime.
The sensational new claim about the Chilean-Norwegian Islamist, who before his death last year was believed to be one of the most senior European figures in the Islamic State hierarchy, is a side-story to Seierstad’s investigation into the two teenage sisters who went from Norway to Syria in 2013.
According to the book, the boy’s mother Aisha Shezadi, was first married to Bhatti, but then went voluntarily to Syria where she she became Vasquez’s second wife.
Before his death, Vasquez presented some of ISIS’s most disturbing propaganda videos. In one, he first shows a group of captives imprisoned in a building, and then shows the building being blown up as he laughs and praises Allah. After the videos were published, Vasquez was charged under Norway's anti-terror laws.
Bhatti as a teenager was a member of Oslo's Young Guns gang, and in 2006 was charged for firing shots at the Oslo Synagogue and the Israeli and US embassies. He resurfaced as an Islamist in 2012.