American woman who joined ISIS begs to come back home
An American woman who fled her home in Alabama to join ISIS in Syria now admits she made “a big mistake” and wants to return to her family in the US.
“We were basically in the time of ignorance…and then became jihadi, if you like to describe it that way,” 24-year-old Hoda Muthana told The Guardian in an interview, speaking from al-Hawl refugee camp in northeastern Syria.
Muthana, who was married three times in Syria to Islamic State fighters and lives at the refugee camp with her 18-month-old son, Adam, says she “deeply regrets” joining the terrorist group and claims she was “brainwashed.”
“I look back now and I think I was very arrogant,” Muthana told the news outlet. “Now I’m worried about my son’s future. In the end, I didn’t have many friends left, because the more I talked about the oppression of ISIS, the more I lost friends. I was brainwashed once and my friends are still brainwashed.”
Muthana left her home in Hoover in 2014 in order to join the terror group.
According to The Guardian, Muthana fled the Syrian village of Susa six weeks ago before being captured by Kurdish forces who transferred her to al-Hawl.
Muthana is believed to be the only American among an estimated 1,500 foreign women and children inside the al-Hawl refugee camp of 39,000 people.
Also living at the camp is Shamima Begum, 19, who recently gave birth to a baby boy.
She told a British news outlet in a report published last week that she, too, wants to return to her home in London.
“I was weak,” Begum, who fled the collapse of the terror group’s self-styled caliphate, told The Times of London. “In the end, I just could not endure any more.”
Begum said her two previous children died in the past three months — a daughter, Sarayah, who had become sick, and a son, Jerah, whose death was linked to malnutrition.
She told Sky News in an interview published Monday that “a lot of people should have sympathy for me for everything I have been through.”
“I didn’t know what I was getting into when I left,” she said. “I was hoping that maybe for the sake of me and my child they’d let me come back … Because I can’t live in this camp forever.”
Muthana, who said she has not been in contact with US officials since her capture, is seeking the same outcome.
“I would tell [US officials] please forgive me for being so ignorant, and I was really young and ignorant and I was 19 when I decided to leave,” Muthana told The Guardian.
“I believe that America gives second chances,” she said. “I want to return and I’ll never come back to the Middle East. America can take my passport and I wouldn’t mind.”
According to the report, Muthana’s first two husbands were killed fighting for ISIS. Her second husband and the father of her son was killed in Mosul.
She described her experience with ISIS as “very mind-blowing.”
“It was like a movie,” Muthana said. “You read one book and think you know everything. I’m really traumatized by my experience. We starved and we literally ate grass.”
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She should never be allowed back in this country...she can suffer the consequences of her actions.
Maybe that's true, but, really? What the hell propaganda was she looking at?
Statement may be insight into why she believed she was traveling to the land of milk and honey. I've never "told" for someone's forgiveness in my life. In her world, she must have become accustomed to simply speaking things into existence, such as her misplaced belief that the ISIS life was the caviar dream Robin Leach used to tell us about.
More like "you see one movie, you think you know everything in the book." Come on, everyone knows that movies are notorious for taking artistic liberties.
I feel sorry for the infant.
Of course Hoda Muthana made a mistake. Everyone who falls into the web of religious extremism are in error.
Should America turn its back on her? Perhaps not and done so with conditions. Besides, Muthana may have information and could be used in the fight against religious extremism of all stripes.
She's the one who turned her back on America! Not the other way around...
I never implied that.
Which part? You stated, "Should America turn it's back on her? Perhaps not and done so with conditions." Perhaps you can clarify. Your comment sounded fairly straight forward.
It was and still is.
She willingly joined a genocidal group actively at war with the US, which makes her a traitor. Give her the sentence for treason and be done with it. Saying "I'm a dumb ass" doesn't excuse a damn thing.
She can come home and be tried for treason. How about that?
Maybe she'd like to supply us with intel on how to hunt down all the other terrorists she's been hanging out with.
As a Muslim woman I have my doubts she'd have any info of value
She could probably identify specific individuals and locations.
Oh I agree, but she could probably describe the sweaty pig who was breeding her and what town or building or back alley they might have been in.
That was my thought too
she was dumb enough to voluntary put herself in that position,
After much back and forth with the hubby, the answer is no, unless she wants to face a treason charge. I do feel badly for her kid. Sadly he had no choice in the matter.
Fuck her, let her rot.
The most she could be charged with might be aiding and abetting. A charge of treason has to be somewhat specific. Did she provide secrets or classified info to a foreign national or government. I doubt she was in a position to know or provide such info. Was she a active combatant against U.S. forces in the Middle East. I do not think so. I think she is scum for turning her back on her country and now she is trying to worm her way back in.
Let her take up residence in that little camp in Cuba.
that would be a waste of tax money
Good point.
If she comes back, enemy combatant seems an appropriate charge.
Her son, an innocent in this matter, should be reunited with other family members in this country...with mandatory counseling.
Seems reasonable, for the son.
There are foreigners illegally sneaking across our border, I don't want them here. She is worse than them, she left and joined our enemy.
Nope..... I think her ship has sailed on residing freely in the United States.
I don't see rehabilitation for this woman being a viable option, thus repatriation isn't either. While I feel for her son as well, it is quite possible that in time his resentment could also be cultured into becoming an enemy of the United States. If that were to happen, I would just as soon it happen over there, than over here.
Pretty harsh, but choices made have consequences.
Wish I could vote this up a hundred times
"Hell hath no fury like a hustler with a literary agent. "
Frank Sinatra
Didn't Obama's administration revoke her passport in 2016 when she tried to re-enter the country?
YES
I'm becoming more resolute in this.
She's not American, she may have a paper that say "made in America" but, she was born on Yemeni soil as the daughter of a diplomat. If she had been born after he left diplomatic life and stayed here.....