Kimberley Gwen Polman

Kimberly Gwen Polman (born September 29, 1972) is a dual Canadian-U.S. citizen who travelled to ISIS occupied territory in 2015 and married an ISIS militant she had befriended online.

Early life Polman was born September 29, 1972, in Hamilton, Ontario, to an American mother and a Canadian father. She was raised as a Reformed Mennonite but later converted to Islam.

Ian Austen, one of The New York Times's Canadian correspondents wrote about Polman, after discussing her with Rukmini Callimachi, The New York Times reporter who first found her in the refugee camp in Syria. He wrote that Callimachi speculated that Polman first identified herself as a Canadian to her American captors because she would be treated more leniently as a Canadian, only to realize that Canadians were much more likely to become stuck "in limbo". She further speculated that Polman then started to identify as an American as she realized that while Americans might face prosecution upon repatriation, at least they were being repatriated.