British 'ISIS matchmaker', 25, feared her two young children would be murdered if she tried to flee the terror group, family reveal
- Tooba Gondal, 25, 'the ISIS matchmaker', in Ain Issa camp, northern Syria
- The former Goldsmiths student left Britain and lived in ISIS-controlled Raqqa
- Gondal and her two children sent to the camp after she tried to cross border
- She was told her two young children would be killed if she escaped, sister says
A gun-toting jihadi known as 'the ISIS matchmaker' was told her two young children would be killed if she tried to leave the terrorist group, her family have revealed.
Tooba Gondal, now 25, left her home in Britain and went to live in the group’s de facto capital of Raqqa in 2015.
But despite repeated attempts to leave Syria over the last three years she felt 'trapped', according to her 20-year-old sister Maryam.
Tooba Gondal, now 25, left her home in Britain and went to live in the group’s de facto capital of Raqqa
The former student, who used the pseudonym Umm Muthanna Al Britaniyah, is now in Ain Issa camp in northern Syria after a failed escape attempt two months ago.
She made a break for the Turkish border when her children were on the brink of starvation during ISIS' last redoubt in Baghuz.
But she was stopped and handed over to western-backed Kurdish forces.
Her children, Ibrahim, two, and Aslya, one, were malnourished when they arrived at the camp and reportedly clapped and cheered when they were given bananas for the first time in a year.
Gondal, pictured holding an AK-47 in Syria, encouraged young girls to flee to Syria and marry ISIS killers
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Gondal's family have broken their silence to plead for the mother and her 'innocent' children to be allowed back to the UK.
'For the last three years she tried to leave but they threatened to kill her children.
'She tried to leave two or three times. But she had no money and no means of escape. She was trapped,' her sister Maryam told The Times.
Tooba Gondal, 25, was a Jihadi 'matchmaker' who groomed British girls for ISIS fighters in Syria
And she suffered a shrapnel wound to her leg after an airstrike, according to her family.
Gondal travelled to Syria in 2015 at the age of 21 after her family believe she was 'brainwashed' online.
She later became known as 'the ISIS matchmaker' after she was accused of encouraging other young girls to marry ISIS fighters.
Her children are from two husbands - both were killed in fighting and the children's nationalities are unknown.
Her father, Mohammed, 59, said Gondal was served with a Home Office exclusion order last November.
She was given 39 days to appeal but the letter was dated October 2017.
Speaking from the camp, Gondal told the Rojava Information Centre she wanted to come home. According to the centre, which published the interview on Twitter, she said: ‘The British public are scared, they don’t want to deal with us. But they must.
‘We can’t stay in this camp for the rest of our lives, they must deal with us. We are not threat to their society, we just want a normal life again.’
She said she wanted to be repatriated back to the UK, adding: ‘The women and the children [of ISIS] became the victims… if I did not harm anyone, if I committed no harm in Syria for four years, what kind of threat can I be to Britain?’
In 2016 the Mail on Sunday reported how her poisonous outpourings on the internet had glorified the murderous acts of Islamic State terrorists.
They were meant to lure young British Muslim women to travel to Syria as ‘Jihadi brides’.
Through her prolific output on social media, she was said to have commanded a powerful influence on her following of largely young girls. In her rants, she called Britain a ‘filthy country’ and praised the 2015 terror attack on a Paris theatre.
Gondal, who lived in Walthamstow, east London, and was a student at Goldsmiths, University of London, is the eldest daughter of a successful London businessman.
She lived in the ISIS-controlled city of Raqqa, pictured, from early 2015
Her propaganda fell quiet in 2016, leading to speculation as to her whereabouts. The Rojava Information Centre said after the death of her first husband, a Lebanese recruiter, she married at least one more man, a Pakistani fighter who was also killed.
Following his death, she spent ‘a year and a half… always having to move from one village to another’ in the Deir Ezzor region as ISIS was eradicated. 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.’
She was stopped at a checkpoint close to the Turkish border, detained and taken to the refugee camp.
Gondal has a strong presence on social media from Syria, pictured, and often posts inflammatory messages about the UK, taunting security forces for not catching her
Runaway schoolgirl Shamima Begum has said she now regrets moving to Syria and was ‘brainwashed’ by ISIS.
Her latest interview contrasts sharply with her unrepentant comments after she was found in a refugee camp in February, when she said ‘a lot of people should have sympathy for me’.
But following criticism, the schoolgirl from Bethnal Green, east London, has softened her tone, now saying: ‘When I first came out ... I was still in the brainwashed mentality.
‘I really regretted everything I did, and I want to go back to the UK for a second chance to start my life over again.’
