Meet Hoda Muthana, a young woman born and raised in America.
After high school, Muthana attended the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), where she pursued an undergraduate business degree. In November 2014 at the age of 20, Muthana made the decision to follow another course. She didn’t merely change majors, however. Instead, she became a recruiter — for ISIS in Syria.
Muthana’s radicalization is featured in a report titled “ISIS in America” written by Lorenzo Vidino and Seamus Hughes, students at George Washington University. The report was prepared for the University’s Program on Extremism.
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Vidino and Hughes write that at age 17, Muthana “created an alter-ego on Twitter, gaining thousands of followers and interacting with like-minded Muslims across the world.” After arriving in Syria they note, “within a month … she married an Australian foreign fighter named Suhan al Rahman.”
BuzzFeed reports that Muthana, using a now defunct Twitter handle, @ZumarulJannah, tweeted: “Soooo many Aussies and Brits here. But where are the Americans, wake up u cowards.”
Among her tweets were messages aimed at American supporters of ISIS who couldn’t travel to Syria, urging them to “terrorize the kuffar [derogatory term for non-Muslims] at home.”
BuzzFeed excluded tweets that the Australian Herald Sun published, which encouraged American Muslims to poison their teachers and to assassinate Barack Obama. She tweeted: “You can look up Obama’s schedule on the White House website. Take down that treacherous tyrant!
On March 19, Muthana wrote:
Americans wake up! Men and women altogether. 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.
In response to the accusation that she had been brainwashed, Muthana told BuzzFeed:
Everyone’s parents or family members says that about those who have come here. To that I say, ‘Fear Allah, fear Allah with what you accuse us of.’
Cross-posted at Constitution.com
