The mother of a British jihadist bride called “the first lady of ISIS“She, who had an affair with a US congressman, insisted she was not interested in her life and regretted giving birth to her.
Tanya Joya, a mother of four who grew up in Harrow, Middlesex, but now lives in Plano, Texas with her second husband, she had an affair with Representative Van Taylor after meeting him through her work as a former jihadist, helping to deradicalize extremists.
Earlier this week, Mr. Van Taylor rejected his candidacy for re-election to Congress and apologized for having had a nine-month affair with Ms. Joya.
Tanya Joya (pictured in 2019) had a relationship with Representative Van Taylor after meeting him through her work as a former jihadist, helping to deradicalize extremists
Earlier this week, Mr. Van Taylor (pictured) rejected his candidacy for re-election to Congress and apologized for having a nine-month affair with Ms. Joya.
But her mother, Jahanara Chowdhury, told MailOnline she was unaware of the illicit relationship because she “denied” her daughter nearly 20 years ago when she left the United Kingdom for the United States after marrying her first husband, John Georgelas.
He grew up in Plano, converted to Islam and became a top recruiter for the Islamic State extremist group.
In 2013, he took Ms. Joya and their three children to northern Syria, where, like Yahya Abu Hassan, he became the most important American to fight for ISIS. He was killed in 2017.
Ms. Chowdhury, 65, was angry: “I have nothing to do with her or the rest of the family. We cut off all communication when she married this man.
“I no longer consider her my daughter. She is not part of this family and has not been for a long time. I’m sorry I even gave birth to her.
“She married against our wishes and we broke up with her. I can’t remember the last time I spoke or saw her, but it was many years ago.
Ms Choudhry added that she had not seen any media reports about Joya’s affair with Mr Van Taylor and was “not interested” in hearing about them.
Joya’s ex-husband John Georgelas, who was from Texas but traveled to Syria with his wife and three children to fight for Islamic State. Joya went with him to Syria in 2013, but escaped
She said: “I haven’t read about any of this because I’m not interested. For the first time I hear what she did.
“No one in the family is worried about her. Please understand that she is not important to me or anyone else in the family. She is not my daughter.
Three weeks after Ms. Joya, who was pregnant at the time and Georges arrived in Syria, she fled to Turkey with the children and then to Plano to live near her parents-in-law.
The couple was covered for years by the British tabloids and profiled in American publications, earning the nickname “ISIS First Lady”.
Speaking at the family home in Barking, East London, Ms Chowdhry added: “We did not agree with her policy at the time and that was also an important reason to reject her.
Joya is one of five children born to Nural and Jahanara Chowdhury who raised their children as Muslims, but also encouraged them to pursue a university education and pursue a professional career.
After reports that Taylor cheated on his wife Anne with the “ISIS bride”, the North Texas congressman admitted that he had a relationship and dramatically announced that he was ending his re-election campaign.
“As a family, we have moved forward and she is no longer part of us.”
Following reports that Taylor had cheated on his wife Anne with the “ISIS bride”, the North Texas congressman admitted he had a relationship and dramatically announced that he was ending his re-election campaign on Wednesday.
His statement, shared with supporters, does not mention Joya by name and does not mention her late husband, recruiting ISIS group.
“About a year ago, I made a terrible mistake that caused deep pain and pain among those I love the most in this world,” he wrote. “I had an affair, it was wrong and it was the biggest failure of my life.”
Taylor, a former Marine and Iraq military veteran, was considered one of the most conservative members of the Texas delegation when he was elected in 2018.
But he was sharply criticized by the party’s right wing for voting to certify the election results in 2020 and supporting a commission to investigate the January 6 uprising in the Capitol.
A few days before Tuesday’s primary election, Ms. Joya told The Dallas Morning News that she had an affair with Taylor that lasted from October 2020 to June 2021.
The interview went viral and prompted the congressman to apologize.
Towards the end of the Taylor affair, Ms. Joya said she had asked for help to pay off credit card debt and some other bills. He gave her $ 5,000, she said.
“I needed help.” “I was like, just help me, because that’s the least – the least – he can do,” she told the newspaper.
“To him, it was like, ‘Okay, as long as you don’t tell anyone’ … I didn’t want to tell anyone.”
The Dallas Morning News reported on Wednesday that Ms. Joya had contacted Susan Harp, another candidate who opposes Taylor in the primary, hoping Harp would face Taylor in private and persuade him to drop out. to resign from Congress.
Tanya Joya in the photo with John Georgelas. The two fled to Syria from the United States. Pictured in June 2009
All I wanted was for Susan Harp to just say, “Hey, I know your little scandal with Tanya Joya. Do you want to resign before we embarrass you? But it didn’t happen, “Joya told the newspaper.
Instead, the newspaper reported, Harp sent a supporter to interview the woman, then shared the interview with two right-wing websites.
In a statement, Harp said the revelations were “deeply worrying and I pray for everyone involved.”
“Politics must build our families, our communities and our political parties. This story breaks my heart both as a wife and as an American. “Politics should never tear these sacred institutions apart,” she said.
Taylor garnered 48.7 per cent of the vote on Tuesday, dropping 823 votes to avoid a run-off with 63,981 ballots. It won 26.5% of the vote on its own, while Harp garnered 20.8%.
Ms. Joya’s story begins in Harrow, northwest London, where Joya Jahan Chowdhury was born to “culturally Muslim” parents in Bangladesh.
Her father, Nural Chowdhury, moved between jobs, including a bank clerk and an accountant’s assistant, while her mother ran a catering business. Ms. Joya, one of five children, says she was raised to believe that men are “on a pedestal.”
A few days before Tuesday’s primary election, Ms. Joya (pictured) told The Dallas Morning News that she had an affair with Taylor that lasted from October 2020 to June 2021.
She claims she was radicalized after the family moved to Barking, East London, when she was 17. There, she encountered schoolgirls who “ashamed” her of wearing Western clothes.
Soon she was wearing a veil and a friend told her to celebrate the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York. By her own admission, she has become a “tough jihadist.”
Ms. Joya said, “We believed in jihad, but the jihad we thought about was very rosy.” Islam has become the “solution to everything.”
She joined a Muslim marriage website and met with Georgelas by February 2003. He was the son of Colonel Timothy Georges and his wife, Martha, and had spent part of his childhood in Cambridgeshire.
They were married within a month in a sharia ceremony that was official on the Rochdale Registry in October 2004.
Mrs. Joya had the “escape” she longed for when she and her new husband moved first to a luxury suburb, where she admired the four-bedroom house, five bathrooms, and the Georgelas family pool.
The couple traveled to England and Syria, initially funded by money from their marriage, then settled in California, where Georges got a job as a data technician.
Joya was radicalized in East London and married a jihadist. She went to Syria with him, but fled in 2013. Now she has turned her back on Islam and lives in Dallas, Texas (pictured in 2018)
However, he was caught illegally accessing passwords for the US Israeli Public Affairs Committee and was sentenced to 34 months in prison. He served his sentence, and Miss Joya remained with him again during a further three-year probation in Texas.
By 2011, she gave birth to the couple’s third son and they were free to leave. They moved to Cairo, where, according to Mr Wood, Georgelas met with other jihadists and was a staunch supporter of the “votes for the caliph before the ISIS”.
By 2013, Georgelas was determined to leave for Syria, and in August he took his wife, who was five months pregnant, and three sons across the border into the city of Azaz in northwestern Syria.
After fleeing the war-torn country, she managed to reach Istanbul before heading to London and then eventually to Texas, where she moved in with Georges’ parents. Today, she shares with them the custody of her four children.
She has been in contact with her husband for several years after fleeing Syria, she said, but said they lost contact in 2015 and it was reported that he was killed in 2017.
Ms. Joya remarried in 2015 after meeting with IT CEO Craig Burma within 24 hours of being on a dating website and receiving 1,300 responses to her post, which said: ” I have four children. My husband left me to go and become the next Osama bin Laden.