SANAA: Abeer Al-Hassani’s ex-husband was famed for his beautiful voice. He used it, she says, singing poetic hymns to martyrdom and jihad to try to draw youth from their neighborhood of the Yemeni capital into joining Al-Qaeda. He sang at weddings of fellow members of the terror group, and held discussions with young men at local mosques.

“One woman complained to me that her son wanted to go fight in Iraq after speaking with him,” the 25-year-old Al-Hassani recalled in an interview with The Associated Press.

For most of her young life, Al-Hassani has been entangled with Al-Qaeda through family bonds she has tried to shake off. Three of her brothers became fighters for the group, and all three are now dead, two of them killed by US drone strikes on consecutive days in January 2013.

Her story provides a rare look into one of the most dangerous branches of the terror network, which has withstood successive blows and yet continues to thrive. It has moved to fueling conflict elsewhere in the region, sending fighters and expertise to Syria and to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

Her ex-husband, Omar Al-Hebishi, backed up his recruiting with cash. During their four-year marriage, she says, he received large bank transfers or cash delivered overland — money, he told her, that was to support the families of “martyrs.” She and Al-Hebishi divorced in 2010.

A month ago, he left for Syria to fight alongside Al-Qaeda-inspired extremists — but not before trying to recruit the older of their two sons, 8-year-old Aws, to come with him by showing the boy videos of Al-Qaeda fighters jogging and swimming.

“Mom, I want to go because they have a swimming pool,” Aws told her, Al-Hassani said. Al-Hassani’s tale illustrates the pull that Al-Qaeda has in a society where poverty is rife, the population is deeply conservative and many resent a corrupt government and abuses by security forces.

“I can guarantee you that my two sons, Aws and Hamza, will follow in the footsteps of their father if we stay in Yemen,” Al-Hassani said. “We need to get out of Yemen.”

Diminutive and soft-spoken, wearing an enveloping black niqab veil and robes that leave only her large dark eyes visible, Al-Hassani has lived under the full weight of Yemen’s patriarchal society. She was first married off at the age of 15, but she kept running away from her husband, so they divorced after only a month.

Soon after, her older brother Bandar brought home a new husband for her — Al-Hebishi, a man 20 years her senior.

Al-Hebishi, known by his nom de guerre Abu Osayed Al-Madani, is renowned in extremist circles as a “munshid,” or singer of Islamic hymns and anthems. His voice is often heard singing in Al-Qaeda propaganda videos showing footage from their attacks and of martyrs. The Yemeni security officials confirmed to AP that he works in the media branch of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

A veteran jihadi who fought in Bosnia in the 1990s, he was a secretive man who didn’t like having his picture taken, Al-Hassani said. She showed one of the few photos she has of him — their wedding picture, where he stands grim-faced. “He was unhappy my mother was photographing him,” she said.

“He was so courteous and convincing when he spoke to teenagers he wanted to recruit,” said Al-Hassani. In one case, she said, he used the money he received to buy a car and house for a Yemeni who lost both his legs while fighting alongside miltiants in Iraq, she said.

She said she received word two weeks ago that her ex-husband was now in Syria.

A Twitter account in the name of Abu Osayed Al-Madani, apparently belonging to her ex-husband, is full of tweets from Syria about the conflict. Among them are appeals for reconciliation between Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

During and after her marriage, Al-Hassani watched helplessly as her three brothers, Bandar, Abdullah and Abdel-Meguid, were drawn one by one into Al-Qaeda.