A business student from Alabama whose family came to America decades ago to build a better life abruptly abandoned her loved ones and fled to Syria to join the Islamic State last November, with the startling details of her story shocking her suburban community.
Hoda Muthana, 20, of Hoover, Alabama, graduated high school in 2013 and
went on to study at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, before executing an elaborate plan to secretly leave for Syria,
according to BuzzFeed.
“It seems bizarre just because she was so quiet and kind of kept to herself,” Jordan LaPorta, who graduated high school with Muthana,
told AL.com. “But we’ve kind of learned over the years that sometimes it’s people just like that who are most susceptible to extremist groups.”
The unsuspecting young woman was reportedly radicalized via the Internet after she left high school, abandoning her family’s moderate Islamic views for the extremist brand of the faith that is embraced by the Islamic State.
Her official joining with the Islamic State came after she told her father that she would be taking a school trip to Atlanta.
But rather than go to Georgia, she reportedly traveled to Syria, instead, where
she connected with the terror group and married a jihadist after just one month; less than three months later, her new husband died on the battlefield, though that hasn’t dissuaded her from perpetuating the Islamic State’s mission.
In a recent interview with BuzzFeed, Muthana, whose parents came to the U.S. from Yemen in 1992 before the birth of their children,
spoke out about her decision to join the Islamic State and to leave her life in the U.S. behind.
“I started getting interested in my deen [religious life] around 2012,” she told BuzzFeed in an interview conducted over the messaging service Kik. “I felt like my life was so bland without it. Life has much more meaning when u know why ur here.”
It was through watching online lectures that her religious views began to transform, with her use of social media perpetuating an alternative persona — one that at least one source said was more extreme than Muthana actually was in person.
This
intensified after she joined Twitter in 2013, as she began spreading hateful messages and encountering Islamic State members.
After orchestrating an elaborate plan to register for classes and immediately withdraw, Muthana used the money she would have paid to her university to travel to Syria and join the Islamic State. Since leaving, her father, Mohammad, has repeatedly begged her to come home, telling BuzzFeed that he immediately contacted the FBI when he realized that she had left to join the Islamic State.
“I want to apologize for what my daughter did,” he told the outlet. “I believe [she’s] been brainwashed. She’s not that kind of girl. They brainwashed her.”
Muthana said that she has no plans to return home and that she is happy that she joined the radical extremist group, despite her family’s desperate pleas. Joining the Islamic State, she believes, is in accordance with the true version of the Islamic faith.
“I’m not going to come back,” she texted her father upon his request for
her to return home. “This is the right place for me to live and I am really ready to die, to meet my God as a
true Muslim.”
Muthana’s Twitter messages on her now-suspended account @ZamuraIJannah show her terrifying level of devotion to the Islamic State, as she encouraged Muslims in America to “terrorize” non-believers,
according to BuzzFeed.
“Americans wake up! Men and women altogether. You have much to do while you live under our greatest enemy, enough of your sleeping!” she wrote on March 19. “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..go on drive by’s + spill all of their blood or rent a big truck n drive all over them. Kill them.”
Mohammad fears for his family’s safety in Alabama, though he said he also worries for his other children — that they will not be able to get jobs and that he and his wife will be blamed for his daughter’s actions….
SAN DIEGO — Two 21-year-old Minnesota men, who allegedly traveled to San Diego over the weekend for fake passports to travel via Mexico to Syria to support the terrorist group ISIS, made their initial appearance in federal court Monday and were ordered held without bail.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Karen Crawford informed Abdirahman Yasin Daud and Mohamed Abdihamid Farah that they are charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist group and attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
A prosecutor moved for detention on both defendants, alleging they were a danger to the community and were flight risks. A bail hearing was set for Friday in San Diego and an identification/removal hearing was scheduled for April 30.
Daud and Farah were arrested Sunday after allegedly driving from Minneapolis to San Diego to obtain fake passports, according to the criminal complaint.
Arrested in Minneapolis on Sunday were Zacharia Yusuf Abdurahman, Adnan Farah, and Hanad Mustafe Musse, all 19 years old, and Guled Ali Omar, 20.
“The six defendants charged in the complaint allegedly planned to travel to Syria as part of their conspiracy to provide material support to ISIL,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John P. Carlin said.
The administration refers to ISIS as ISIL.
“One of the National Security Division’s highest priorities is to identify, disrupt and hold accountable those who provide or attempt to provide material support to designated foreign terrorist organizations,” Carlin said….
“As described in the criminal complaint, these men worked over the course of the last 10 months to join ISIL,” said Andrew Luger, U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota. “Even when their co-conspirators were caught and charged, they continued to seek new and creative ways to leave Minnesota to fight for a terror group.”
ISIA: Isis In America
She was “radicalized via the Internet after she left high school, abandoning her family’s moderate Islamic views for the extremist brand of the faith that is embraced by the Islamic State.” Has anyone investigated and verified that her family and her mosque actually teach “moderate Islamic views”? Or is everyone just taking their word for it? Why was all the moderation that she learned from her family and at the mosque not able to withstand the appeal of the Internet radicalizers? Why don’t mosques in the U.S. have any programs to teach young Muslims why they should reject this understanding of Islam?
Neither law enforcement officials nor the mainstream media seem to have any curiosity about why so many Muslims from the U.S. try to join the Islamic State.
Reply With Quote