One of ISIS' biggest propaganda coups was the beheadings of the aid workers and journalists. Is [Emni], the group that is exporting fighters overseas, also the one that was holding James Foley and John Cantlie and Kayla Mueller?

I've had countless jihadis shut me down straightaway and say, I'm not allowed to speak to any woman who is not my relative. But among the few I'm able to get through to, I think that being female makes me more approachable, soft, all the stereotypes of what female means.

The systemic failure in the media in covering ISIS is that the majority of reporters are doing it in a semaphore fashion.