A Brooklyn jury convicted Halima Salman of receiving military training from ISIS.

Tuesday's verdict is a finding of guilt on the training count. It is not a sentence. The Justice Department described a two-week trial. The New York Post described a weeklong trial and three days of deliberations, and it put the maximum at 10 years. What Salman told the jury about how she came to be in Syria is her testimony. The jury's finding is the training count.

The Justice Department said Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026, that a federal jury in Brooklyn convicted Halima Salman, 27, a U.S. citizen and former resident of Brooklyn, also known as Umm Khattab al-Muhajir, of receiving military-type training from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, which the department identified as a designated foreign terrorist organization, in Syria. The department said the conviction came after a two-week trial before U.S. District Judge Natasha C. Merle. The New York Post reported a Brooklyn federal jury convicted her Tuesday after three days of deliberations and a weeklong trial, and that she is 27 and was born in Brooklyn. A two-week trial and a weeklong trial are not the same description. The New York Post reported this was the first time a woman faced trial in the United States on charges of joining ISIS. The Justice Department described the conviction as receiving military-type training. It did not describe a separate joining count.

The Justice Department said that, as proved at trial, Salman's parents traveled with her and her eight siblings out of the United States in September and October 2016, ultimately destined for ISIS-controlled territory in Syria. The siblings are not named here. The department said that in late 2016 or early 2017, when she was 18, she was married to an ISIS fighter in Syria, voluntarily sought military-type training, and received authorization from ISIS to carry ammunition and an assault rifle. It said she received a document certifying that she completed that training, that a copy was found on her husband's cellphone after it was recovered from the battlefield, and that the phone also held photos of her with an ISIS flag in the background and a video of her brandishing an AK-47. The department said the training was from the Khatiba Nusaybah, a military battalion of female ISIS members. The New York Post spelled that unit Nusaybah Katiba. The department said the FBI's New York Field Office investigated, and that Assistant U.S. Attorneys Adam Amir and Amanda Shami are prosecuting the case. U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. said, in the statement both the department and the New York Post published, "With today's verdict, Salman is held accountable for joining forces with a terrorist organization."

The New York Post reported Salman testified that her father forced her to marry a militant fighter, whom the Post named as Abu Ali, when she was 18, after he moved the family, including her mother and eight siblings, to ISIS-controlled territory in 2016. It reported she told jurors he took them first to Turkey, his home country, and then into Syria, and that he was an ISIS supporter killed in a 2018 airstrike. It reported she testified she spent two years in ISIS territory and then five years in a camp run by Kurdish forces. It reported she was arrested in 2024 at Kennedy Airport after she and nine other members of her family were repatriated, and that she had been living with relatives in New Hampshire on $500,000 bond while the case was pending. The department's 2016 account includes both parents on the trip. The Post's later count is nine other family members brought back, and the Post reported the father had been killed in 2018. Those are two counts from two times. Those relatives are not named here. Her testimony is what she told the jury. It is not a finding that the marriage was forced. The New York Post reported defense lawyer Mia Eisner-Grynberg questioned the authenticity of the training certificate recovered from the husband's phone and told the jury, "You can come back here in five minutes with a not-guilty verdict… this is a grave miscarriage of justice." A closing argument is not the verdict. The New York Post reported that argument was Thursday. The jury's finding, the Justice Department said, is the training count.

No sentence is described in either account. The New York Post reported she faces a maximum of 10 years on the conviction for knowingly receiving military training from a terrorist organization. The Justice Department did not print that maximum and did not print a sentencing date. The New York Post reported, citing a law enforcement source, that her former husband is believed to be in a jail in Iraq. That is not a finding in this verdict. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.