Hoda Muthana exhorted Americans to commit mass murder and terror attacks. Her journey to the heart of ISIS in Syria has confounded friends and family.
ROJ CAMP, Syria – Hoda Muthana is pushing a stroller in the middle of a conflict zone here and if there's a textbook example of extremism, this probably isn't it.
"They don’t seem to want to understand what happened in my life that led me to this depraved path. I didn’t just wake up in the morning and decide to join the most horrendous jihadist group in history," Muthana said, speaking to USA TODAY from the camp in northern Syria where she has been detained by a U.S.-backed Kurdish militia since last year amid the collapse of the Islamic State group's self-proclaimed caliphate.
Trump on Muthana:Should Muthana be allowed to return from ISIS for trial in the U.S.? President says noFor many, it is about testing the limits of American compassion. Outside, the melodious chirps and trills of birdsong could be heard and pockets of green meadows interspersed with oil fields stretched to the horizon. 'Okay, 9:11'The young woman, her head wrapped in a scarf revealing only her brown eyes, picks up the phone and begins to speak.
But seen today in a new context, the video, exclusively obtained by USA TODAY, offers a glimpse into the activities of a young woman who three years later would use social media to call on Muslims in the U.S. to"go on drive-bys and spill all of their blood, or rent a big truck and drive all over them. Veterans, Patriot, Memorial etc Day parades.
Muthana's father, Ahmed Ali, came to the U.S. in 1990 to work as a Yemeni diplomat to the United Nations. His wife, Basma Mohamed Eshayri, already had relatives in Alabama and on the East Coast, including her father, a U.S. citizen living in Buffalo. Mixed with announcements of youth soccer, family picnics and a ladies' stretch class on the center's website are messages rejecting extremism.
For a while, Muthana shared a tent with Shamima Begum, a British teenager who left London for Syria to join ISIS at age 15. Begum's three-week-old infant son died in Camp Roj in early March from a suspected combination of malnutrition and hypothermia. Two more children of Begum's born to ISIS fighters also died in infancy from malnutrition.Adam, Muthana's son, suffers from chronic bronchitis.
The program on extremism at George Washington University has identified 76 Americans, 13 of them women, who traveled to Iraq and Syria to join jihadist groups since 2011. About 50 Americans attempted to do so but were prevented by law enforcement, typically arrested at an airport. The average age is 28.
John Georgelas, 34, was born into a Greek-American family. He went to high school in Colorado. Friends described him as"philosophical" and"normal." He was the son of a U.S. Air Force doctor. Georgelas converted to Islam and traveled alone to Syria to fight for ISIS in 2013. His whereabouts are unknown.
Muthana's classmates remember a young woman who, like many teenagers, sometimes made dark comments or talked back, but only under her breath, and nothing serious. Ogburn said he remembers Muthana was strictly limited by her family to just a few friends. She never showed up at parties and rarely socialized outside school.In a WhatsApp message sent to USA TODAY, Muthana's father, Ahmed, would say only that he repeatedly told his daughter not to do any media interviews because they inevitably lead to"more difficulties" for her family. He didn't elaborate.
Hassan Shibly, a Florida-based civil rights lawyer whom Muthana's parents enlisted to try to persuade their daughter to come home, said "this was just a girl who was unhappy with her life and was given an opportunity for an adventure." "They knew the mosque would have helped her get away from them," he said, a characterization of events that Muthana confirmed in Syria.
"There was me and bunch of Russians in the car. We’d keep changing into different vehicles every now and then to avoid being caught," she said, describing that time.Muthana was taken to the"House of Women" in Raqqa, a tightly guarded building that she said contained"what seemed like a 100 women and a 100 kids." The building's windows were always shut, its doors always locked. She also learned there was a way out: marriage.
He told her that U.S. prosecutors probably had a sealed indictment against her on terrorism-related charges, and the only thing he could do was help her surrender. 'She’s a terrorist'In the legal case, the State Department argues Muthana never qualified for U.S. citizenship because, although her father left his diplomatic post before her birth, the U.S. government hadn’t yet been notified of his change in status. The Trump administration contends that means her father was still a diplomat, and foreign diplomats are immune from U.S. laws and their children are not granted automatic U.S. citizenship at birth.
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