HOOVER, Ala. — She ran away to join ISIS in Syria, married a small army of jihadis, had a baby, spent years in a war zone surrounded by bloodshed, fled for her life when the terror group was defeated and wound up stuck in a refugee camp.
And now, finally, Alabaman “ISIS bride” Hoda Muthana says she appreciates the “freedoms we have in America.”
In a handwritten letter obtained by The Post Tuesday, the 24-year-old — who once urged American jihadis to plow trucks though Memorial Day parades, but is now begging to be allowed home to the US — blubbered that she was “naive, angry and arrogant” when she left but now realizes she made a “big mistake.
“During my years in Syria I would see and experience a way of life and the terrible effects of war which changed me. Seeing bloodshed up close changed me. Motherhood changed me. Seeing friends, children and the men I married dying changed me. Seeing how different a society could be compared to the beloved America I was born and raised into changed me,” Muthana wrote.
“I would think sometimes of my family, my friends and the life that I knew and 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.”
Muthana ditched her family in Hoover, Ala. in late 2014 and used money meant to pay for her college tuition to buy a ticket to the Middle East so she could join ISIS.
She quickly married her first husband — then became a widow— and began calling for terror attacks on US soil.
“You can look up Obamas schedule on the white house website. Take down that treacherous tyrant!” she tweeted from the now-suspended Twitter account @ZumarulJannah in March 2015, according to a screengrab published by Heavy.com.
The tweet came the same day she exhorted supporters in America to “go on drivebys” and “rent a big truck and drive all over them” at “Veterans, Patriot, Memorial etc Day parades.”
Muthana subsequently wed two more doomed fighters, and had a son with one of them, who is now 18 months old.
But with the last ISIS enclave cornered, she recently fled and was captured by Kurdish forces, then placed into refugee camp — where she’s pleading US officials to bring her back home. A spokesman for her family claims Muthana is ready to “pay her debt to society.”
A State Department spokesman on Tuesday declined to comment on her specific case, but said the government’s position is that American ISIS members captured in Syria should be brought back to the US and prosecuted.
“Repatriating these foreign terrorist fighters to their countries of origin, ensuring that they are prosecuted and detained, that’s the best solution preventing them from returning to the battlefield,” Deputy Spokesperson Robert Palladino told reporters.
Legal experts have told The Post she could potentially be charged with providing material support for terrorism, attempted material support for terrorism and conspiracy — and face consecutive sentences of up to 20 years for each count.
Muthana’s bloodthirsty tweets could also lead to charges of inciting to riot, one lawyer said.
A former high school classmate of Muthana’s said Tuesday that after speaking to the media about her in 2015, he received an Instagram message threatening his life from an account with Muthana’s name on it in 2017.
“It said something like, ‘This kid wasn’t know what he’s talking about. He needs to die,’” said Jordan LaPorta, 24.
He reported it to the FBI, but heard nothing more about the case — until this week, when he learned from the media his old Hoover High School classmate wants to come home.
“That’s not saying that people can’t change, but I was like, wow, we’ve come full circle here,” said LaPorta.
LaPorta, now a law student, said he was actually surprised to learn that she’d survived.
“The fact that we heard she was even alive blew my mind. And now the fact that she wants to come back, you couldn’t have written it even crazier,” he said.
“My philosophy on it is you can always come back, and I think we should forgive those type of people, but you still have to face the consequences of your actions. You materially supported a group that declared war on the United States, and there has to be a price to pay.”
One neighbor of Muthana’s family was less forgiving.
“I’m not sure what she thinks she’ll come home to, if she ever makes it back home. A trial, for sure, and imprisonment,” said the neighbor, who wouldn’t give his name.
“You can’t just run off to Syria to start fighting the infidels, only to decide, when the s–t hits the fan, that ‘Oh, s–t, I made a huge mistake.’ Because once you’ve broken a trust like that, there’s no coming back,” he continued.
“She can’t just come home to mom and fad in quiet old Hoover and sleep in her old bedroom again. This is ISIS we’re talking about. When you join, it’s for keeps. There’s no way she can unburn that passport. “
Additional reporting by Nikki Schwab