Methodology
The authors monitored the financial and propaganda activities of IS women and ISKP propagandists on Telegram, and Instagram between December 2024 and February 2025. We specifically tracked the discussion groups, channels, and social media accounts on these platforms, where primarily Central Asian and Russian female IS supporters coordinated their online fundraising activities with ISKP propagandists. The authors also monitored the wallet addresses and related transactions that were part of these fundraising campaigns using various open-source tools, including TronScan, BlockChair, and Arkham Intelligence.
Introduction
The toppling of the Assad regime in Syria in early December and the subsequent installation of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)-led government sparked mixed reactions from an array of militant jihadist movements. In particular, Islamic State (IS) and its supporters have focused their post-December 8 narratives on several core topics that IS aims to exploit to delegitimize the new transitional government in Damascus. One of the most widely discussed topics in the IS media ecosystem is that of the fate of the families of IS militants held in the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) detention facilities in northeastern Syria.
In this context, the authors witnessed an uptick in propaganda and crowdfunding activities of Russian-, Uzbek-, and Tajik networks of the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP). These networks have been aggressively endorsing the cause of freeing and financially supporting detained IS families—primarily female IS supporters—while spearheading a new wave of financial activities in their favour. With cryptocurrency becoming prominent in terror financing, the authors also observed the widespread use of the Tether (USDT) in these crowdfunding campaigns. Tether (USDT), also known as a stablecoin, is pegged to the US dollar to maintain its stable value and is available on multiple blockchain networks, including TRON and Ethereum. TRC20-USDT refers to USDT issued on the TRON network, which has been used by IS and linked networks due to its low transaction fees in contrast to Bitcoin’s volatility.
As a part of this study, the authors tracked TRC20 wallets tied to the IS fundraising ecosystem and found that some of the TRC 20 addresses were commonly used by both ISKP-linked entities and IS women. While TRC 20 transfers remain the mainstay of their fundraising efforts, donations were also encouraged through digital payment applications like PayPal, Qiwi, and direct bank transfers. This Insight examines these synchronized fundraising efforts that are mainly focused on soliciting cryptocurrency donations primarily to raise smuggling capital to facilitate the escape of IS women out of these camps.
Narratives of Foreign Female IS Detainee Supporters in the SDF-held Syrian Detention Camps
Ahmed al-Sharaa’s (al-Jolani) rising stature in Islamist circles and his role as the de facto leader of Syria through the new HTS-led transitional government has drawn the ire of many foreign IS women detainees, particularly the Russian, Uzbek, and Tajik-speaking women. Some of these have doubled down on their support for IS by re-pledging and circulating their pledge of allegiance to the IS caliph, Abu Hafs Al Qureshi, while distancing themselves from the alleged pro-HTS demonstrations that called for HTS takeover of the SDF-held camps. They also claimed not only to be in contact with IS militants on the battlefield but also to have received assurances from them regarding their release. Additionally, those IS women who managed to be smuggled out from these camps have launched new crowdfunding efforts to smuggle themselves into Turkey. Some of those who did manage to escape have been helping other female IS detainees in their crowdfunding efforts.
After the collapse of the Syrian regime, the pro-IS women, mainly the Uzbek ones, have been aggressively commenting on the increase in alleged abuses by SDF soldiers against women and children. They have accused them of shooting innocent civilians while also claiming that IS Syrian families who were allowed to go or who managed to escape from the SDF-held camps would facilitate the escape of other foreign IS women. Meanwhile, the Russian and Central Asian IS-speaking detainees were also aiming to raise $4,500 in financial aid for IS cadres who might have escaped or been freed after HTS-led rebel groups throughout Syria released thousands from former Assad-controlled prisons. Other Russian IS women who also managed to escape similarly amidst this chaos, invoked the brutal treatment they faced in Assad’s prisons to elicit sympathy and raise funds for their daily sustenance.
Now, with the newly inked agreement between the SDF and the new transitional government under Al Shara — which includes the SDF’s handover of detention camps and prisons holding IS fighters to the new government — there have been rising concerns among IS women about their imminent repatriation to their home countries. This is a prospect they are desperate to evade at any cost, hoping to quickly amass the smuggling fees needed for their escape. Additionally, they allege that the Kurds are rejoicing at the prospect of reconciliation and cooperation with their “master Al-Shara”, willingly handing over control of these facilities without resistance. They argue that this transition marks the end of the SDF’s ability to use the detention of thousands of IS women and fighters as a bargaining chip with the West in exchange for substantial aid or for advancing their territorial ambitions. On the other hand, the majority of Uzbek female prisoners have expressed concern over their future, while some more hardline members argue that nothing will change for them.
Unlike many foreign IS women who want to return, many pro-IS Russian and Central Asian women supporters oppose their repatriation. This resistance comes amid efforts by the US and Turkey to facilitate their return and growing pressure on the SDF to surrender control of IS detention facilities to the new HTS-led transitional government. However, they argue that camp life—governed by Sharia with religious dictates like modest dressing, absence of television, “malign” Western influences, and regular prayers— provides a conducive environment to raise their children with a puritanical ideology that strengthens their faith.” Consequently they claim life in the open air camps is preferable to returning to their homelands, which they view as “lands of disbelievers”, where once returned, they fear separation from their children and restrictions on their religious freedom. Echoing ISKP’s media propaganda, Russian and Central Asian IS women have lately emphasized the religious duty to support “captives women and children.”
Further, drawing a dichotomous parallel between “IS’s utopian caliphate” of 2014—eulogizing and glorifying foreign IS commanders, especially from Russia and Central Asia and HTS, the women mock HTS’s abject failure to establish Sharia in post-Assad Syria. Adhering to IS’s official narratives, they accuse HTS of conducting daily religious transgressions, such as accommodating Shia interests. Rebuking Al-Sharaa for offering surrender and refuge to Assad’s military personnel and allied Shia and tribal militias, the women criticised him for deliberately turning a blind eye to the Assad regime’s historical oppression of Sunni Muslims throughout the Syrian civil war.
Lamenting al-Sharaa’s betrayal of IS and the ideological dilution of his organisation, the pro-IS women accused him of monopolizing power in post-Assad Syria while ruthlessly suppressing “IS monotheists”. They claim that the transition of power in Syria has “moved from one tyrant to another.” Within pro-IS detainee circles, fatwas issued by religious scholars circulated, declaring anyone who endorses al-Sharaa’s “flawed ideology” as an apostate. They also criticized al-Sharaa of acting as a pawn of Turkish intelligence and the US, saying that HTS is colluding with the US to eliminate IS in Syria.
One key narrative in the pro-IS detainee Uzbek and Tajik channels is the US’s suspension and budget cuts to international aid organisations under the Trump administration. They see this as a turning point for IS families in camps, citing dwindling funds for SDF soldiers and worsening humanitarian aid shortages. Some women claim SDF soldiers have already abandoned their posts, creating opportunities for escape or smuggling children into IS training camps in the Syrian desert.
Uzbek-Tajik ISKP Networks Spearheading Crowdfunding Efforts for Central Asian Female IS Supporters
While ISKP officials remain secretive about their own fundraising activities, they simultaneously seek to help other propagandists and supporters by promoting fundraising campaigns run by Uzbek, Tajik, and Russian IS women. The authors identified at least seven fundraising channels on Telegram that claim to be supporting IS families in al-Roj, al-Hol, and Baghdad prisons, which ISKP officials have endorsed and that appear to be run by a network of ISKP-linked networks that coordinate these fundraising activities.
There are two key IS female managers, Munisa and Maryam, in the camps of Al-Hol and Al-Roj, respectively, who coordinate with ISKP for related funding activities. Munisa runs three channels on Telegram, where she collects crypto funds by giving out a USDT-TRC20 wallet address. Her deeper ties to ISKP are evident from a 256-page book she authored, published by ISKP’s al-Azaim Foundation, narrating the stories of IS women from Central Asia and Russia who travelled to the IS caliphate and witnessed its final resistance in Baghouz, Syria. Maryam, on the other hand, manages a Telegram fundraising channel through a dedicated bot, widely recirculating posts published by ISKP Uzbek propagandists on the recent security situation in Syria. In late December 2024, her Telegram channel shared an audio lesson published by al-Azaim’s Uzbek branch emphasizing being steadfast in the face of trials while patiently waiting for victory. Monitoring of the crypto transactions revealed that Wallet addresses employed by Maryam and Munisa occasionally transferred funds between themselves as part of coordinated crowdfunding efforts.
Figure 1: Screenshot of the donations collected by Maryam in the first week of January.
Furthermore, in early January, a nascent pro-ISKP Ubzek propaganda outlet that was also collecting funds for detainees was acknowledged by ISKP’s official Uzbek media after questioning its ties with the group. With this recognition, this ISKP propagandist was authorized to provide al-Azaim Foundation’s official contact bot for funds and hijra on his Telegram channel. Interestingly, in a discussion channel on Telegram, the authors discovered that he had tasked Maryam from Al Roj camp with receiving transfers to the TRC 20 address provided by him, further demonstrating close connections between female IS detainees and ISKP propagandists. Since December, ISKP’s Uzbek official media representatives have also endorsed two other key crowdfunding initiatives run by Uzbek IS detainees, thus showing direct involvement in supporting, coordinating, and bolstering their fundraising efforts. The TRC 20 wallets address provided for sending transfers to one of the above fundraisers recognized by Uzbek al-Azaim media revealed a huge flow of funds amounting to $7500 between June 2024 and January 2025 through a combination of centralized exchanges like Binance, Bybit, and MEXC.
The authors have also discovered the growing interconnections between ISKP propagandists running crowdfunding initiatives for IS women and those directing funds to ISKP operatives in Afghanistan or elsewhere. The Uzbek pro-IS women, in fact, slammed those who questioned their united fundraising efforts admitting that “almost all Uzbek-speaking caliphate supporters are connected to “Khurasan” referring to ISKP. While many TRC 20 crypto addresses were individually used by these entities, —one of the addresses, observed by the authors, has been consistently used by both Uzbek ISKP actors and IS women for accepting donations. This suggests it may serve as one of the key nodes in their united fundraising operations with funds being possibly diverted to ISKP’s Uzbek media wing. Between September 2024 and January 2025, nearly $3,000 was channelled through this commonly used TRC 20 address through centralised exchanges like Binance, Huobi, MEXC, and Bybit.
Figure 2: Screenshot of alleged donations collected via a crypto wallet endorsed by al-Azaim Foundation’s Uzbek branch.
Further highlighting the transnational nature of these financial networks is a Russian-Uzbek-language IS advocacy account on Instagram with over 9,000 followers is running a fundraising campaign for Central Asian IS women supporters. Contrary to the Uzbek counterparts, there have been fewer Tajik IS women-related fundraisers online following the digital crackdown on the Tajik ISKP financial network after its involvement in the Moscow Crocus City Hall attack came to the fore. However, ISKP Tajik supporters on Instagram also interact with Russian IS accounts responsible for soliciting donations for the IS women detainees. Since Russian serves as a lingua franca for the fundraising environment between Central Asian and Russian ISKP financial networks, Tajik IS women also likely rely on similar Russian and Uzbek networks to secure financial aid. The authors also identified an active Telegram account purportedly belonging to a Tajik IS woman detainee in the camps who was often given as a point of contact in the pro-ISKP Tajik discussion groups on Telegram and was closely linked to the Tajik wing of the al-Azaim media.
Surge in the Crowdfunding Campaigns for the Escape of Female IS Detainees Post-HTS Takeover
Although in the past two months, women have largely described conditions in the camps as relatively stable, ISKP acolytes and female detainees have intensified calls for garnering smuggling capital, arguing that the SDF’s handing over of the camps to the new government will hinder the chances of their escape. For instance, a female pro-IS Russian account on Telegram posted a fundraising campaign, raising $5,000 for a family that escaped from Al-Hol in mid-January and wanted to cross the border into Turkey to reunite with IS operatives there.
Smuggling crowdfunding pleas were promoted for children suffering from chronic diseases like tuberculosis, claiming that if they didn’t escape, they would be left to die in these squalid camps. In January after SDF allegedly transferred teenage boys back from “rehabilitation centers” into Al-hol camp, Central Asian IS women celebrated this reunification with their children hoping for another chance of escape. Smuggling crowdfunding pleas were promoted for children suffering from chronic diseases like tuberculosis, claiming that if they didn’t escape, they would be left to die in these squalid camps. A donation plea was thus circulated in January for a 12-year-old boy and his family to raise the remaining $4,000 needed for their release. Pro-IS Russian women online claim that the smuggling costs for teenage boys now range between $3000 to $4,000, with Uzbek women claiming that the current fluid security dynamics in northern Syria could be exploited to facilitate their escapes saying that the smuggling fees have reduced from $25,000 to $10,000- 15,000 for each individual.
Figure 3: A new smuggling crowdfunding plea posted on Telegram by an Uzbek IS Supporter in Al-Hol camp.
Russian and Uzbek ISKP networks, since January on their Telegram channels, have also circulated video tutorials on safely executing TRC 20 transfers via the YooMoney terminals and other channels to earn the trust of potential donors and facilitate their transfers. Supporters with no knowledge or access to cryptocurrencies are provided contact of the hawala money transfer operators in Russia or Turkey who asked them to send Western Union transfers. These funds are then sent in the form of cash handouts to the IS women in Syrian camps.
Conclusion and Recommendations
The fundraising networks for female IS loyalists and children held in SDF-held camps are deliberately designed to appear deceptive and decentralized on the surface, obscuring any ties to ISKP-linked entities. However, the monitoring of their financial networks reveals a deeply interconnected system, where IS female detainee supporters closely align their financial operations with ISKP propagandists. This blurring of boundaries makes it increasingly difficult to distinguish between genuine humanitarian aid for IS families and that of funds being illicitly redirected to ISKP’s terror plots. As documented, they are increasingly growing adept at exploiting Tether to move illicit funds through centralized crypto platforms, which have been increasingly employed by illicit actors alongside reportedly experimenting with decentralized crypto platforms and mixers.
Of the nearly 15 Russian, Tajik, Uzbek, ISKP, and IS female detainee channels and discussion groups monitored on Telegram, some have remained active for six months, while others have been repeatedly deleted by Telegram for violating community guidelines. Despite this, their parallel propaganda dissemination and fundraising efforts remain uninterrupted on Instagram and Facebook, with Central Asian IS fundraising channels maintaining a sustainable presence on Instagram for a period of over two years now. There is an urgent need on the part of tech companies to develop AI models trained in multiple languages, including dialects, to detect extremist content. Further, there is a dire need for native-speaking moderators with knowledge of cultural context to review flagged extremist content in Tajik, Russian and Uzbek Cyrillic- scripts.
Additionally, crypto exchanges, in partnership with blockchain intelligence firms, should deploy automated wallet blacklisting systems to distinguish high-risk wallet addresses associated with terrorist groups. Law enforcement agencies must also regularly crack down on hawala networks that enable illicit crypto cash-outs, with stablecoin issuers like Tron blockchain proactively blacklisting wallet addresses used by IS and other militant groups by working in collaboration with counterterrorism researchers and blockchain forensic experts. By integrating these multifaceted targeted, tech-driven countermeasures, crypto exchanges, regulators, and social media platforms can significantly disrupt IS’ and ISKP’s ability to securely move illicit funds and sustain their financial operations through cryptocurrency.
Mona Thakkar is a Research Fellow at ICSVE, where she focuses on monitoring militant jihadist groups and their financial networks. X: t16_mona
Riccardo Valle is an Italy-based researcher and the founder of Militancy Chowk. He conducts research on international jihadi non-state actors in different areas, particularly but not exclusively in Afghanistan and Pakistan. X: @Valle_Riccardo_