One of Isis’s most senior recruiters lived in Britain and married his British wife in a Yorkshire town hall.
John Georgelas, an American, wed Joya Choudhury, a young Briton of Bengali descent, in Rochdale in 2004 when they were both 19. They had met online after Georgelas converted to Islam.
The American, who uses the Arabic name Yahya Abu Hassan, is now believed to be the most senior westerner in Isis.
He is the son of a former US Air Force doctor and the grandson of an American Second World War veteran but was revealed last month to have become a senior Isis figure who has urged followers to carry out terrorist attacks in the west and lured scores of young Britons to join the terrorist group in Iraq and Syria.
Georgelas spent some of his childhood in Britain, living near Cambridge while his father was serving in the UK. He converted to Islam in 2001, soon after the 9/11 attacks, having befriended a group of Muslim students at his college in Texas.
His wife, Choudhury, is believed to have been radicalised during her A-level studies at a college in East London. She became friends with a group of Algerian Muslims who dressed conservatively and followed a strict interpretation of Islam.
As her new friends began to get married, Choudhury met Georgelas on a Muslim dating website in 2003, according to the Sunday Times.
He travelled to the UK and the pair lived in a number of British towns. It was in London that they became involved with radical Islamic preachers. Some reports suggest they were connected to Anjem Choudary, the jihadi cleric who is now behind bars after being convicted of terrorism offences for supporting Isis.
