Another ISIS bride, matchmaker Tooba Gondal who recruited Shamima Begum, begs to return to UK: 'I am a changed person'
Tooba Gondal, also known as the ISIS 'matchmaker', a female ISIS recruiter who allegedly lured Shamima Begum to Syria is alive and is asking to return to the UK with her two children.
According to Daily Mail, she moved from Walthamstow in London to the terrorist group's former caliphate of Eaqqa in 2015. Earlier this year, she was trying to make her way back to Britain but was stopped by Kurdish forces and sent to the Ain Issa detention camp with her children.
According to a report by LadBible, Gondal, in an open letter, has made a plea to the government of her former country to allow her back. A report in the Sunday Times stated that she wrote: "I desperately wish for the British government to take us back."
"I want to prove that I am a changed person; a much better individual for society. I want to face justice in a British court. I wish to redeem myself. I would like Britain to accept my apology and to give me another chance," she shared.
This comes as a major difference from the Twitter statements back in 2015 when she posted under the name Umm Muthanna al-Britannia.
She had uploaded an image of her with an AK-47 captioning it, "Living the Life". She later posted: "Everyone around me is getting shahadah, when will it be my turn?"
However, in the detention camp, Gondal insisted she isn't a threat to the UK and said she was "manipulated" into traveling to Syria.
"I was a vulnerable target to ISIS recruiters. I was manipulated and persuaded that it was an obligation as a Muslim to travel to Syria," she explained.
"I never became a member of ISIS. I was forced at many stages to marry and I can't say how many times I tried to escape. I wanted to leave from the start, but it became impossible. These criminals threatened to kill my babies."
According to Daily Mail, her propaganda fell quiet in 2016, leading to speculation as to her whereabouts. The Rojava Information Centre said she had married once again after the death of her first husband, a Lebanese recruiter.
The second husband, a Pakistani fighter was killed as well. She said: "We didn’t know who’s on the left attacking us, who’s on the right... who are we even with... it was a complete mess."
Gondal has reportedly offered to help in averting vulnerable Muslims to be radicalized and also said her children were "completely innocent".
Still considered a threat to national security, Gondal has been denied permission to return by the British Government. Her outcome is quite similar to Shamima Begum, her alleged recruit whose hopes of ever returning to the UK were quashed by Home Secretary Priti Patel.