Ciara Kelly is not inclined towards viewing Lisa Smith with sympathy.
I first heard of Isil five or six years ago. Islamist jihadists rampaged across Syria and Iraq, proclaiming a war of terror against the west and imposing Sharia law on those who lived within their caliphate. Often seen whooping and waving black flags from the backs of jeeps, they seemed almost cartoonish in their capacity for medieval levels of violence and barbarity as depicted in our news bulletins.
But I remember clearly the first time I became afraid and was sickened by them. It wasn't after any of the European terrorist attacks, such as Nice, where a truck mowed down civilians taking an evening stroll along the prom.
Or Paris, where young people enjoying a music gig were shot dead in cold blood; an iPhone video of a heavily pregnant woman, hanging from a second-storey window in fear for her life, still stays with me.
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