The Unmistakable Truth About the “ISIS Brides”

In recent weeks and months since the Islamic State caliphate has been rolled up by U.S.-backed forces in Syria, the West has been presented with a new phenomenon: Western-origin female residents of the Islamic State caliphate pleading to be allowed to return home to the West, despite having joined ISIS:

• Here in the USA, Hotha Muthana of Hoover, Alabama, left life as an honor student at the University of Alabama at Birmingham to travel to Syria in 2014 and join the Islamic State.

Muthana didn’t just become a resident of the caliphate, she became a social media propagandist for the organization. She also became a so-called “ISIS bride” twice over, marrying a jihadi and bearing a child—and then doing so again after her first husband was killed. Her second husband was also killed and, naturally, Muthana wants to leave Syria and return to Alabama, as if nothing ever happened.

• Then there’s the case of Lisa Smith of Ireland, who left Ireland after converting to Islam in 2015. Smith, whose Muslim name is unknown, married a jihadi, had a child and, now that the sharia paradise has been eliminated, wants to return to Ireland.
• The United Kingdom has received a similar request from Shamima Begum, who left Britain in 2015 for the caliphate and now also wants to come home.
• Umm Usma of Belgium left Belgium to live in the caliphate for 6 years and now wants to go back to Belgium.

These are just a few of the examples of ISIS brides wanting to return home to Western nations.

All of them portray themselves as victims and show little or no remorse for joining a barbaric terrorist organization.

And that’s what’s inescapable. The ISIS brides can claim that they didn’t know what they were getting themselves into all they want, but they can’t claim they didn’t know what they were joining.

From its earliest origins, the Islamic State didn’t just commit atrocities, it broadcast them-widely and loudly. ISIS broadcast beheadings, crucifixions and other gruesome methods of torture and execution all over the internet via social media and jihadi chat rooms and bulletin boards. In many cases, Western media rebroadcast these vile videos.

• Muath al-Kasebeh, a Royal Jordanian Air Force F-16 pilot was put in a cage and burned to death on 3 February 2015.
• On 19 August 2014, American journalist James Foley was beheaded by ISIS.
• On 2 September 2014, Israeli-American journalist Steven Sotloff was beheaded by ISIS.
• On 13 September 2014, ISIS beheaded aide worker David Haines.
• On 24 September 2014, ISIS beheaded Frenchman Herve’ Gourdel.
• On 3 October 2014, ISIS beheaded British aid worker Alan Henning.
• On 6 November 2014, ISIS beheaded American aid worker Peter Edward Kassig.
• In January 2015, Japanese journalist Kenji Goto Jogo and contractor Haruna Yukawa were beheaded by ISIS.

Every one of these executions was distributed on video, along with numerous other brutal actions. And when it comes to ISIS atrocities and war crimes, they were just the tip of the iceberg.

Every single ISIS bride had to know about these barbaric executions and yet they chose to become residents of the ISIS caliphate. They may not have known what they were getting themselves into, but they surely knew what they were joining.

If they are allowed “home,” they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Better yet, though, they should live the rest of their lives in their former sharia paradise.