Hoover Woman Who Joined ISIS Not Allowed Back In U.S.

AL HAWL CAMP, Syria - More than four years have passed since Hoover resident Hoda Muthana left Birmingham to join the Islamic State in Syria. Now, she says she is ready to return home, lamenting her decision to join ISIS. However, a return to the U.S. is not likely.

In November 2014, Muthana abandoned her family and fled to Syria to join the radical Islamic group, according to Alabama Media Group. She was a 2013 graduate of Hoover High School and briefly attended the University of Alabama at Birmingham before leaving the country.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday Muthana is not a U.S. citizen and does not have a valid visa to come back to America.

“Ms. Hoda Muthana is not a U.S. citizen and will not be admitted into the United States. She does not have any legal basis, no valid U.S. passport, no right to a passport, nor any visa to travel to the United States. We continue to strongly advise all U.S. citizens not to travel to Syria,” Pompeo said in a statement.

In an interview with the New York Times, Muthana said, “Once I look back on it, I can’t stress how much of a crazy idea it was,” she said. “I can’t believe it. I ruined my life. I ruined my future.”

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Muthana, whose family is Muslim but does not agree with the extreme views of ISIS, began delving more into jihadist interpretations of Islam that she found on the Internet after she graduated from Hoover High School and started college at UAB, according to an article published on BuzzFeed.

Muthana was married three times to Islamic State fighters while in Syria, and said she witnessed executions like those she had once cheered on social media. She served ISIS as a recruiter via Twitter, according to sources. Muthana has an 18-month-old child.

Alabama Media Group reported in 2015 that s family spokesperson, Hassan Shibly spoke at the mosque where the Muthana family attends after the woman fled. He said the family was “extremely traumatized” for months and had been in contact with law enforcement and government officials since she disappeared, while also pleading with their daughter to return home.

The NYT report said Muthana surrendered last month to the coalition forces fighting ISIS, and now spends her days as a detainee in a refugee camp in northeastern Syria. She is joined there by another woman, Kimberly Gwen Polman, 46, who had studied legal administration in Canada before joining the caliphate and who possesses dual United States and Canadian citizenship.

“I don’t know, I thought I was doing things correctly for the sake of God,” Muthana said. “And when I came here and saw everything with my own eyes I realized I’ve made a big mistake.”

A spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation declined to comment on Muthana's case, but said that agents would typically work to build a criminal case against any American who joined the Islamic State, a designated terrorist organization.

Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images