Pompeo Rejects Lawsuit by ISIS Wife’s Family: ‘She’s Not Coming Back’

Hoda Muthana, now 25, in a 2012 yearbook picture. Hoover High School

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rejected a lawsuit filed by the father of a woman who left the United States to join the ISIS terror group years ago.

Pompeo told Fox News on Feb. 24 that she is a “non-citizen terrorist,” adding she’s “not coming back.”

Ahmed Ali Muthana, the father, claimed his daughter, 24-year-old Hoda Muthana is an American citizen, and that the White House should recognize her citizenship.

“She’s a non-citizen terrorist; she has no legal basis for a claim of U.S. citizenship,” Pompeo told the news outlet.

“She’s not coming back to the United States to create the risk that someday she'd return to the battlefield and continue to put at risk American people, American kids, American boys and girls that were sent to help defeat ISIS—she put them at risk, she’s not a U.S. citizen. She’s not coming back.”

According to reports, she was born in Hackensack, New Jersey, in 1994. Huthana said she expects to receive jail time for her actions.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attends a news conference with Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto in Budapest, Hungary, Feb. 11, 2019. REUTERS/Tamas Kaszas

“Even though she was born in the U.S.—I’m just trying to get understand the issue—is the issue that her father was a diplomat at the time?” Fox News’ Chris Wallace then asked him. “Because they say he had stopped being a diplomat before she was born.”

“So there’s litigation ongoing,” Pompeo responded. “Here’s what I can tell you: we have a strong legal basis for our claim that she’s not a citizen, and she’s not coming back.”

President Donald Trump last week wrote on Twitter that he had instructed Pompeo to deny her attempt to come back.

According to her father’s lawsuit, Muthana “publicly acknowledged her actions and accepted full responsibility,” the BBC reported. “In Ms Muthana’s words, she recognizes that she has ‘ruined’ her own life, but she does not want to ruin the life of her young child.”

Muthana and her son are in a Kurdish camp in Syria.

In a statement to CNN last week, she claimed she was a “naive, angry and arrogant young woman” when she left years ago to join an international terrorist organization.

“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,” she said.

Women and children exit the back of a truck, part of a convoy evacuating hundreds out of the last territory held by Islamic State militants in Baghouz, eastern Syria, on Feb. 22, 2019. Felipe Dana/AP Photo

But there have been reports she posted messages on social media calling for terrorist attacks against Americans on holidays.

“Americans wake up! Men and women altogether. You have much to do while you live under our greatest enemy, enough of your sleeping!” she once wrote.

Muthana also wrote: “Go on drivebys, and spill all of their blood, or rent a big truck and drive all over them. Veterans, Patriots, Memorial, etc day … Kill them.”