This Scottish teenager went from reading Harry Potter to recruiting for ISIS in Syria

Handout photo Little more than a year after she left her family behind in Scotland, 20-year-old Aqsa Mahmood has become one of the Islamic State terror group's biggest recruiters of young British women, The New York Times reports . 

She's thought to have helped convince a teenage girl from London to leave the UK and travel to Syria with two other young girls to join the Islamic State (also known as ISIS), according to BBC.

Mahmood's family is shocked at her involvement with terrorists, and said they had no idea that she had become radicalized, according to the Times.

Her family characterized her as a bright, popular girl who typical teenage girl stuff, including  Harry Potter and Coldplay.

The family's lawyer, Aamer Anwar, described Mahmood as "very intelligent, very liked, very bubbly, kind, [and] caring," according to the Times.

But she did, at some point, start wearing a hijab and vocalizing her anger about what was happening in Syria, the Times notes. Still, her family didn't see it as anything that was extremely out of the ordinary.

She was 19 years old in November 2013 when she left her home in Glasgow to travel to Turkey and then on to Syria. Mahmood now goes by the name Umm Layth, or "Mother of the Lion."

Mahmood once wanted to be a doctor or a pharmacist. She is now married to a radical and acts as the "den mother" of those who seek to leave their home countries to join ISIS, according to the Times. The Daily Beast has referred to her as the "Bride of ISIS."