Thread by @JamesAALongman

Tonight on @ABCWorldNews, Hoda Mothana, the American young woman who went to join ISIS, gives her first TV interview since fleeing the so called Islamic State a month ago

She’s alone with her 18 month old son in a Syrian refugee camp. Full of regret, she’s begging to come home

“I was born and raised in America and I wanted to do American things. My family didn’t get any of that. Those restrictions - the only way out for me was to become more religious.”

She says she became part of a secret Twitter group of ISIS youth numbering over 2,000

She spent a year online - going from a regular 18 year old girl to a 19 year old ‘jihadi,’ believing by 2014 that going to the so called caliphate was an obligation.

She left her family home in Alabama and made her way to Turkey. From there she arrived in Syria - where she says she was shot at crossing over the border.

In Raqqa, she went into a safe house. ‘All the windows and doors had locks. And guards behind the doors.”

Once there, she was told it was her duty to marry. They were offered lists of fighters to choose from

“If you wanted westerners you got a choice of westerners, if you wanted Arabs you got a choice of Arabs.”

JL: does that seem crazy to you now?
HM: yes, very!

I read her infamous tweet to her - about murdering people on Memorial Day

JL: Do you feel shame?
HM: Very much yeah.
I wish I could take it off the net. Out of people’s memory completely. I hope America doesn’t think I’m a threat to them and I hope they can accept me.

JL: Do you expect people to have sympathy for you?
HM: I hope so

JL: I don’t know if you’ve quite grasped how awful Isis was. The yazidi women that were enslaved. The gay men pushed off rooves. Do you feel remorse and sorrow and regret?

HM: Definitely. It’s not Islamic at all