Racism drove my jihad, says British Isil wife

THE British wife of a top American Isil fighter has said she was radicalised by the racism she experienced while growing up in England.

Tania Georgelas, 33, said her upbringing led her to marry a Christian convert to Islam from Texas and leave for Syria to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).

Mrs Georgelas, who is of Bangladeshi descent, said that growing up in Harrow, north-west London, she experienced “a lot of racism” which pushed her towards radical Islam. “We had bad neighbours, they used to smash our windows,” she told The Atlantic magazine. “But generally I just felt like an outsider. I was looking for a way to retaliate and I wanted honour again.”

Mrs Georgelas said the terror attacks of Sept 11 2001 were a turning point. “I was 17, I saw the towers being crashed into and I went to school the next day,” she recalled. “I said to my friend: ‘Oh isn’t it dreadful what happened?’ and she looked at me and said: ‘Is it really?’ At that point I became really jihadi hardcore.”

She met John Georgelas through a Muslim matchmaking website and they married in a civil ceremony in Oct 2004 in Rochdale, before moving to the US.

Georgelas wanted the family to move to Syria and live under the caliphate. After a month there she and her two children, with another on the way, became ill and Georgelas agreed to let them return to the US without him. He became the head producer of Isil propaganda and magazines. It is reported he took over as spokesman from Abu Mohammed al-adnani, who was killed in 2016, but it is not clear if he is still alive.

Back in Texas, Mrs Georgelas was questioned by security services but later released.