Two American women are trying to return home to North America after realizing they don’t want to be a part of the Islamic State anymore.
More than four years ago, Hoda Muthana, then a college student in Alabama, bought a plane ticket to Turkey with her tuition money and was smuggled into the caliphate in Syria. She’s been married to three ISIS fighters over the years and gave birth to a son, the New York Times reported Tuesday.
Last month, she surrendered to American troops and is being held in a detainee camp in northeastern Syria.
“I realized how I didn’t appreciate or maybe even really understand how important the freedoms that we have in America are. I do now,” she wrote to a lawyer trying to help her return to the United States. “To say that I regret my past words, any pain that I caused my family and any concerns I would cause my country would be hard for me to really express properly.”
After joining ISIS, Muthana witnessed executions and urged others to join the group in social media posts.
“Americans wake up!” she wrote on Twitter on March 15, 2015. “You have much to do while you live under our greatest enemy, enough of your sleeping! Go on drive-bys and spill all of their blood, or rent a big truck and drive all over them.”
Muthana now says she “can’t believe” what she’s done.
“I ruined my life. I ruined my future,” she said.
Another woman, Kimberly Gwen Polman, who lived in Canada before joining ISIS but has dual citizenship in the U.S., also expressed regret about joining the terrorist group and wants to return to North America.
“I don’t have words for how much regret I have,” the 46-year-old said. “How do you go from burning a passport to crying yourself to sleep because you have so much deep regret? How do you do that? How do you show people that?”
It’s unclear if both women will brought back to their home countries. The women said they have not been visited by American officials since they were captured in January.
These women are the latest example of women who joined ISIS wanting to return home.
A London schoolgirl said last week she wants to “come home” after joining the terrorist group four years ago. Shamima Begum, 19, told the Times of London she did not regret running away to Syria, but fears for her newborn’s life. Begum gave birth over the weekend and has had two other children die in Syria.
The United Kingdom plans on revoking her British citizenship to prevent Begum from returning, her family’s lawyer said Tuesday.
