American-born “ISIS bride” Hoda Muthana faces a potential terrorism prosecution if she gets her wish to return to the US, legal experts told The Post on Monday. “If I were advising her, I’d tell her coming back to the United States may be risky for her,” former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz said. Muthana could be charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization, Dershowitz said, but he described it as a “close call” if all she did was talk, tweet and send emails. Manhattan defense lawyer Michael Bachrach, who helped represent the first former Guantanamo Bay detainee to be tried in a civilian court, said Muthana “can certainly be charged with attempted material support of terrorism, material support of terrorism, as well as a conspiracy count.” “With each count it could be a 15- to 20-year max, which could run consecutively,” he added, referring to her potential prison sentence. Manhattan defense lawyer Jeffrey Hoffman said Muthana’s “exhortations to drive into crowds to kill people” could also lead the feds to charge her with inciting to riot. Dershowitz and Bachrach both said Muthana’s public embrace of ISIS and a tweet in which she pledged to burn her passport weren’t likely enough to cost her her citizenship. That might keep her from being hauled in front of a military tribunal, Bachrach said. “At least to date, the tribunals have only been used to gain jurisdiction over non-US citizens,” he said. “I don’t know of any legal basis of depriving natural-born citizens of a trial in a traditional federal court.” “Even if the current administration attempted to send her to a military commission, there would be an extensive lawsuit that would prevent it,” he added. Muthana family lawyer Hassan Shibly said she “still considers herself American” and “fully understands the legal risks she has in coming back.” “If there are consequences, she’s willing to face those consequences,” Shibly added.<doc-sep>She married into one of the most brutal terrorist outfits in history, but now Alabama native Hoda Muthana, 24, wants to come home along with the 18-month-son she had with an ISIS husband. The question is weighing heavily among American legislators, law enforcement and intelligence analysts. What to do with the wives of the ISIS fighters and what threat do they pose to the homeland? “They should be brought home and charged criminally under terrorism, murder or other applicable laws. At the very least they should be charged with material support to a terrorist group,” Scott Stewart, VP of Tactical Analysis for Stratfor, a leading geopolitical analysis and forecasting firm, told Fox News. “These women should be held responsible for their choices and actions in support of a genocidal death cult.” But in an odd twist of events on Wednesday, two days after the dramatic pledge, U.S Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed that Muthana "is not a U.S citizen and will not be admitted into the United States." He insisted "she does not have any legal basis, no valid U.S passport, nor any visa to travel to the United States." Yet through her attorney, Hassan Shilby, Muthana this week professed her “deep regret” for having been “ignorant and arrogant” when she first fled her home in Hoover, Alabama in 2014 to become a jihadi bride. Shilby also underscored that his client is ready to face any legal consequences and wants to be a voice to stop others from committing the same mistake. “She is just another victim of these monsters,” Shilby, a lawyer for CAIR Florida who has represented the Muthana family since Hoda left the U.S., told a local Alabama paper this week. WHY I LEFT ISIS: FORMER BAGHDADI 'FRIEND' AND AIDE, OTHERS SPEAK OUT According to The Guardian, Muthana was the currently the only American among an estimated 1,500 foreign women and children inside the sprawling al-Hawl displacement camp, which hosts some 39,000 people displaced by the long-running SIS battle in northern Syria. However, latest reports affirmed that other U.S citizens are also believed to be there. But accurate figures of exactly how many U.S. citizens have left to join the callous terrorist organization, either as fighters or brides, are hard to come by. A report released last year by George Washington University’s Program on Extremism estimated that 300 Americans had purportedly joined ISIS and other related insurgent groups in Iraq and Syria at that stage, but it’s not certain exactly how many actually made it into the ranks. Twelve of those 300 were documented to have returned home. Of those 12, nine were subsequently arrested and remain behind bars. Another two have not been detained, but are known to authorities. The report pointed out that a 12th man returned to the Syrian battlefield for a second time and executed a suicide bombing. None who have come back has committed an attack on American soil. “I'm not sure anyone, even the U.S. government, knows for certain. There are dozens of American citizens who are believed to have joined jihadist groups such as the Islamic State and Hyat Tharir al-Sham,” Stewart noted. “However, nobody really knows how many have survived and are still there, other than the handful who have been captured and identified themselves as American citizens.” The roughly 300 number accounted for about one percent of the overall 30,000 foreign fighters who joined the ISIS ranks in Iraq and Syria, with the vast majority coming from other Middle East countries as well as Europe. At least 50 additional Americans have been apprehended attempting to leave with the intention to join ISIS, never making it beyond U.S. borders. Like many of the ISIS foreign wives who faced the perils of being widowed and abandoned, Muthana married multiple times and is believed to have had three ISIS husbands throughout her tenure. She is also known to have been an ISIS recruiter and promoted the “spilling of American blood.” A 2013 graduate of Hoover High School, Muthana went on, for a short time, to study a business degree at the University of Alabama Birmingham before becoming “inspired” by ISIS radicals she connected with online and subsequently fleeing. Under the 14th Amendment, according to Stewart, native-born citizens – such as Muthana was initially reported to be prior to Pompeo's statement – cannot have their citizenship revoked against their will, although they can renounce citizenship if desired. “A naturalized citizen can be denaturalized if they achieved citizenship via fraud, or if they are members of a subversive group – ISIS and al Qaeda would count as such – within five years of being naturalized,” he observed. “That means the U.S. government cannot prevent the women from entering the U.S. if they get here. However, getting to the U.S. could prove to be a challenge if they have lost or destroyed their passports and/or if they have been added to the no-fly list as potential terrorists.” Muthana is reported to have absconded from ISIS territory just a few weeks ago and surrendered herself to Kurdish fighters. Shilby has said he has contacted the FBI to arrange for her to be taken into custody on return, but claims they have shown “no interest” in her dilemma. And the U.S. is under no obligation to assist the ISIS wife out of Syria and back to the U.S. “Legally, we don’t have an obligation to facilitate travel home, but an American who arrives at the border can’t be barred from entry,” explained Dr. Ardian Shajkovci, the director of research at the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE). “Legally we can only prosecute for laws that were in place at the time of their travel, so no ex post facto prosecution.” THE LIVES OF ISIS WIVES HELD IN SYRIA: INFIGHTING, JEALOUSY - AND REGRETS But if there is evidence enough to prosecute, they are prosecuted as terrorists, Shajkovci said – usually under material support for terrorism laws which allow us to prosecute for giving bodily support, money etc. – they can’t just return home and not face the law. “The U.S. has not thus far refused to take anyone back, but they could,” he continued. “The UK has stripped citizenship and others have as well, especially when there are dual citizenships.” Reports on Tuesday afternoon by ITV News indicated that another ISIS wife, London-born Shamima Begum who, too, had made an appeal to return home, was to be stripped of her British citizenship. Typically, the wives are held in a separate area confined from the rest of the displaced population and are well-guarded by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who are backed by the U.S. Much of the reasoning for keeping them there is less about a security threat stemming from them, and more about avoiding conflict and retaliation by upset locals who have suffered at the hands of and lost loved ones to the terrorist group. However, officials have long complained that the wives are often ungrateful and resentful in their own right – threating camp workers with disrespect and fighting amongst each other with accusations of stealing and parental differences. Several ISIS wives and widows interviewed by Fox News last year said that they wanted to receive visits from representatives from their native governments, but that as of that stage, nobody had reached out to them. It also remains unclear exactly how many western “wives” went voluntarily or were forced to travel to the now crumpled caliphate – and remain there – but approximations suggest the figure is in the thousands and said to represent more than 120 nationalities. The U.S and its SDF fighters are in the final fight to completely rid ISIS of its territorial control in Syria, and the question looms large over what will happen to many fighters and their families apprehended and being watched over in the region. This year alone, two Americans – including one minor – were captured by the SDF fighting for ISIS. President Donald Trump has urged European countries to take back their citizens who fled, but to date the issue seems to be falling flat.<doc-sep>An American jihadi bride living in a refugee camp after fleeing ISIS's last stand in Syria is begging the US to allow her to return home. Hoda Muthana, 24, left Hoover, Alabama in 2014, in order to join ISIS in Syria, where she would later call for US Muslims to 'spill all of the blood' by launching terror attacks during Memorial Day events. Now, having lost two of her three jihadi fighter husbands and living in a squalid refugee camp, she claims to have been brainwashed and made a 'big mistake' when she travelled to Syria. Hoda Muthana, 24, holds her 18-month-old son Adam in-front of one of the administration buildings of the al-Hawl IDP camp where ISIS suspected families, who fled heavy fighting in the city of Baghuz are kept Ms Muthana was 19 years old when she left the US and headed to Raqqa in Syria where she would first marry an Australian jihadist and then a Tunisian man. Both died fighting for ISIS, and she recently married a Syrian, The Guardian reveals. During her time as a jihadi bride in ISIS's then-capital Raqqa in Syria, she would use social media to spread hatred against non-Muslims and call for terror attacks in the US. In a 2015 tweet she wrote: '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. 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.' [sic] Now, she is living in the tent-city that is al-Hol - also known as al-Hawl - a refugee camp in northern Syria some 200 miles away from ISIS's 'last front' near the village of Baghouz by the Iraqi border. Remorseful: Muthana, pictured in her high school year book in 2012, left the US to join ISIS in 2014 and as well as marry three jihadi fighters, she would go on to call for American Muslims to launch terror attacks on 'Veterans, Patriot, Memorial etc Day parades' [sic] Muthana, pictured while in high school, says she 'deeply regrets' leaving the US, and that she believed she was doing what was right according to Islam because she had been brainwashed This photo of female jihadis waving the ISIS flag was found on a now-deactivated Twitter account which reportedly belonged to Ms Muthana Speaking to The Guardian, Ms Muthana claims she 'deeply regrets' leaving the US, and that she believed she was doing what was right according to Islam. 'I thought I was doing things correctly for the sake of God,' adding that she now believes she 'misunderstood' her faith. 'I was really young and ignorant and I was 19 when I decided to leave.' At the time when she left, her family pleaded with her to come home and in an interview with BuzzFeed, her father said she had been 'brainwashed'. The 24-year-old former University of Alabama student says she is worried about the future of her young child, a boy called Adam whose father is her second ISIS husband, and is begging the US and her family for forgiveness. Shamima Begum (pictured in her passport photo, and right before she left aged 15) is now 19 and is alive in Syria - she wants to return to the UK 'I believe that America gives second chances. I want to return and I’ll never come back to the Middle East. America can take my passport and I wouldn’t mind.' Ms Muthana is one of more than 25,000 displaced people who have turned up in al-Hol in recent weeks as US-backed forces closed in on ISIS's final sliver of territory in the Euphrates Valley, 200 miles away from the camp. Another western ISIS bride living in the camp is 19-year-old Shamima Begum, who was just 15 when she and two classmates Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase travelled from London's Bethnal Green to Syria in February 2015. Begum, like Ms Muthana, is pleading with authorities to be allowed to return to her home country as she fears for the future of her son. Conditions in the camp are better than on the road, but the makeshift tents, overcrowding and sparse resources pose a great health risk to children, with at least 29 dying in al-Hol in the past two months, mainly because of hypothermia, the World Health Organization (WHO) said earlier this month.<doc-sep>
The family of the American woman who joined ISIS in Syria — and once called for bloody Memorial Day massacres — wants to bring her home to the US, and claims she’s ready to “pay her debt to society” once she’s here. “They are relieved that she’s finally awoken from [ISIS’] spell and she extremely regrets the mistakes she did while under their spell,” attorney Hassan Shibly, a spokesperson for the family of Hoda Muthana, told The Post on Monday. “She wants to return to the United States and face accountability and hopefully do her part to ensure that nobody else makes the horrible mistakes that she made.” Muthana, 24, fled her home in Hoover, Ala., in late 2014 to join ISIS in Syria, where she married a series of doomed fighters — having a son with one of them — and used Twitter to urge supporters to commit terror attacks on US soil. She says she and her 18-month-old child escaped from ISIS-controlled territory six weeks ago and were captured by Kurdish forces — then placed in a refugee camp, where she’s now begging to be allowed back into the US, saying she made a “big mistake.” But Shibly claims she’s “a vulnerable young woman who was taken advantage of and brainwashed by criminal masterminds” and has actually been trying to escape the terror group for two years. “She tried leaving twice and got caught. She destroyed a cell phone because she feared for her life. They executed a woman right in front of her house for wanting to leave and they placed IEDs on the ground,” said the attorney, who is also the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Florida. When Muthana finally left ISIS a few weeks ago, “she walked for eight hours in the desert with the fear of being blown up by IEDs. ISIS snipers were firing on her,” he claimed. Shibly said her family — who’ve said their daughter was radicalized online as a teen without their knowledge, and that they immediately notified US authorities after learning she’d gone to Syria — is “disgusted that she ever went to join.” “The mother is extremely hurt by the mistakes of her daughter, but she’s still their daughter and they understand it’s going to be a long process. They just want the system to carry its way out,” he said. “She may have a debt to pay to society. I don’t think that debt should be the life of her and her child.” He says the next step for Muthana’s return would be for the US government to ask the Kurdish PKK to turn her over, and “then it’s up to the federal government to determine [what], if any, federal laws she has violated.” “Hoda was brainwashed and she deeply regrets how brainwashed she was. She wants to redeem herself,” he said. “She was a vulnerable woman taken advantage of. Nobody is saying she should get a free pass.”