ISIS bride Lisa Smith yesterday begged to be rescued from her Syrian hellhole “prison” and brought home to Ireland.
Clutching her toddler son, the former Irish soldier from Dundalk, Co Louth, revealed she is desperate to escape the camp in war-torn Baghouz.
Speaking to a CNN journalist the 37-year-old said: “I think people should just realise that all the people here are not terrorists. I want to go home.”
Smith, dressed from head to toe in a niqab with only her eyes visible during the TV interview, is seen cradling her two-year-old boy.
Asked if she was aware she could possibly be prosecuted or end up in jail, Ms Smith said: “I know they’d strip me of my passport and I wouldn’t travel and I’d be watched kind of, but prisons I don’t know?
Plans to rescue 'ISIS bride' Lisa Smith from Syria being drawn up by Government and Defence Forces
“I’m already in prison.”
Prosecutions by home countries can very often be quite complicated because of a lack of evidence.
Smith went to Syria as an ISIS bride but she is now a widow – although both she and her son are Irish citizens.
During the weekend it emerged top-level meetings have taken place between the Defence Forces and the Department of Foreign Affairs to draw up a plan to bring Smith home.
She was formerly a flight attendant in the Air Corps who served high-level politicians including then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern on the Government jet.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has previously said about 800 ISIS militants and more than 2,000 wives and children are being held but that figure is believed to have surged in recent weeks.
The SDF announced on Saturday that ISIS had lost its final Syrian stronghold on Saturday abruptly ending the so-called caliphate declared five years ago. It was announced ISIS had been defeated and Baghouuz had been fully liberated by the coalition of Kurdish and Arab soldiers.
Irish ISIS bride Lisa Smith 'could easily have detonated bomb on Government jet'
They had been backed by US, British and French special forces.
In a paper statement the SDF said 11,000 “forces, leaders and fighters” had been lost during their battle with the militant group.
But it stressed it will continue to fight against any ISIS elements which “still pose a great danger on our region and the whole world”.
