Aminah Mohamad, an 8-year-old girl born in Chattanooga but raised under ISIS control, has been rescued and is in a secure location in northeast Syria more than two years after her mother, a Chattanooga native, was killed in an airstrike.
Peter Galbraith, a 70-year-old former U.S. diplomat, told BuzzFeed News this week that the girl was interviewed Saturday by a member of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism about her life under the control of ISIS, the Islamic State terrorist group.
According to BuzzFeed, Galbraith has worked to “repatriate foreign women and children” from detention camps that hold tens of thousands of people linked to ISIS. Aminah’s mother, Ariel Bradley, was a Hixson-born evangelical Christian who eventually joined ISIS.
Aminah Mohamad’s path back to the United States is uncertain at this time. She has lived most of her life in a war-torn country. Both of her parents are dead, according to Buzzfeed. One of her brothers was also killed in an airstrike and her second brother is reportedly missing.
Bradley was among the first activists working with Chattanooga Organized for Action in 2010, a group that pushes for racial equality, fair housing policy and empathy for the poor. During the same year, she became interested in The Twelve Tribes, a religious sect that owns and runs The Yellow Deli restaurant and lives communally. She started to dress more modestly, pulled cardigans over her bare shoulders and wore skirts below her knees.