A teenage jihadi bride who fled Melbourne to fight with the Islamic State in Syria boasted at the height of the bloodthirsty group’s reign of terror about how she would only come home to Australia when it was ‘part of the Islamic State’.
Now, four years later, with her husband dead and the so-called Islamic caliphate in ruins, Zehra Duman, 24, is begging to come home, claiming her two children have the right to be treated like any other ‘normal kids’ in Australia.
But in 2015, ISIS fanatic Duman, then just 19 and married to a terrorist known as ‘the Playboy jihadi’, was so sure of the Islamic State’s success she directly threatened Australia – and a Daily Mail Australia reporter’s family.
Duman was a key ISIS recruiter on social media, posing with machine guns and on the bonnets of luxury cars stolen by the terrorists as she urged other Westerners to leave civilisation and join their murderous and twisted Islamic regime.
© Provided by Associated Newspapers Limited Duman left Melbourne aged 19 to join the terror group in 201. She was recently believed to be in a Syrian refugee camp, desperate to come home. Pictured: the woman thought to be Duman alongside aid workers
Duman told Daily Mail Australia at the time: ‘All you have to know is that the next time I will ever step into Australia, is when we come and make it a part of the Islamic State bi’thnillah.
‘Oh and do I miss my family?
‘Well I think you will miss yours soon (sic).
‘Thank you and have a great day mate!’
Duman startled her own relatives when she fled Victoria to join the terrorist group, then known as ISIS, in 2014.
At the time, ISIS had launched a terrifying propaganda campaign largely focused on beheading Westerners.
© Provided by Associated Newspapers Limited Duman, prior to fleeing Australia for Syria
But the situation in Syria has changed dramatically over the past five years with the so-called Islamic State a shadow of its former self.
Duman’s husband and friends have been killed and she is thought to be trapped in a refugee camp in Syria.
Despite her threat, Australia has not become part of the Islamic State.
And Duman is believed to have told an American humanitarian worker she is desperate to come home.
‘I want to go back to my country,’ the woman, who was thought to be Duman but refused to confirm her identity.
‘I think everybody’s asking for that because I’m an Australian citizen.’
© Provided by Associated Newspapers Limited Menacing words from jihadi bride Zehra Duman: The Australian extremist sent this threatening message to a Daily Mail Australia journalist on January 22, 2015
The mother-of-two young children said she understood Australians would be angry with her.
But, in the video obtained by the ABC, she insisted: ‘My kids have a right to be treated like normal kids.
‘I understand the anger that they have towards a lot of us here, but the kids don’t need to suffer.’
The defeat of ISIS last year has displaced thousands of jihadi brides, many of whom are now in refugee camps in Syria.
Hundreds of babies have died and the woman said her two-year-old son and six-month-old daughter are sick and malnourished.
Duman said: ‘I have no money, I’m not allowed to have money, they don’t give us food here and they don’t let us contact our families.’
The woman, 24, claimed she has been trying to leave ISIS for two years but could not because she had no money and would get killed if she were caught.
Zehra’s Islamic State propaganda
Upon arriving in Syria, Duman, a former student at Isik College Keysborough, began to spruik vile Islamic State propaganda on social media.
Her relatives watched on, with her father, Davut Duman, despairing that his daughter had been ‘brainwashed’.
In 2015, a Twitter account believed to be run by Duman posted pictures of ISIS women carrying assault rifles and standing next to luxury cars, head to toe in Islamic dress.
In one tweet, Duman said: ‘US + Australia, how does it feel that all 5 of us were born n raised in your lands, & now here thirsty for ur blood?’
In other tweets, Duman called for violence against ‘kuffars’ or non-Muslims.
‘Stab them and poison them. Poison your teachers, go to haram restaurants and poison the food in large quantities,’ she wrote.
Shortly after arriving in the Middle East, she married fellow Melbourne extremist Mahmoud Abdullatif, known as the ‘playboy jihadi’
When Abullatif died in battle five weeks after their wedding, Duman celebrated his death.
‘You won the race!’ she tweeted, describing him as a ‘green bird’ – the term used to describe a so-called martyr.
It was not long before Duman permanently disappeared from social media.
She has not been heard from in the press until the aid workers discovered her at the refugee camp recently.
© Provided by Associated Newspapers Limited
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has pushed back against the Australian ISIS bride’s pleas for help.
Mr Morrison declared he would not put any Australians at risk by helping home-grown extremists wanting to come home from the Middle East.
Mr Morrison said it was a ‘great tragedy’ Islamic State sympathisers had dragged their children into war zones.
‘They have placed their children in this horrendous position,’ he told reporters in Melbourne on Thursday.
‘They have to take responsibility for those decisions to join up with terrorists who are fighting Australia.
‘I think the children are innocent victims in the terrorist acts of their parents,’ Mr Morrison said.
‘If you’re coming home, you’re coming home to face the full force of the law. The great tragedy is how children get caught up in the crimes against Australia of their parents.’
ISIS brides’ bid to get home: The case of Londoner Shamima Begum
© Provided by Associated Newspapers Limited Last month former London schoolgirl turned ISIS bride Shamima Begum pictured with her son was tracked down to a the Al-Hawl refugee camp in north-eastern Syria Last year ISIS was finally defeated after several years of fighting in Iraq and Syria.
The defeat displaced thousands of jihadi brides who had fled their home countries to join the fight and marry ISIS soldiers.
Last month former London schoolgirl turned ISIS bride Shamima Begum was tracked down to a the Al-Hawl refugee camp in north-eastern Syria.
In an interview with The Times, the 19-year-old demanded to be allowed home to Britain for the sake of her unborn baby son, Jerah.
Ms Begum, from Bethnal Green in east London, was 15 when she and two other schoolgirls went to join the terror group in February 2015.
Her family announced the boy’s birth on February 17 and said they believed he was ‘in good health’.
But Jerah died aged 18 days old last week after suffering pneumonia.
Ms Begum said two of her other children had also died in Syria.
She was moved to another camp after she was threatened by other IS wives for revealing her face during Press interviews.
The British government stripped Miss Begum of her British citizenship. It said it was able to do so because she also held a Bangladeshi passport.
None of those dumb ISIS Brides should not be allowed back into our country Australia stay where you are you’re not wanted or needed stay where you are
ISIS brides are small fry. We should be going for the big fish, like those who organized the fake shootings in Christchurch.