Zahra
Halane, 16, poses with an AK-47, an Isis flag, knife and grenade. A
series of tweets about her kitten, thrown out by her husband, betray her
youth.
Hundreds of young women and girls are
leaving their homes in western countries to join Islamic fighters in the
Middle East, causing increasing concern among counter-terrorism
investigators.
Girls as young as 14 or
15 are travelling mainly to Syria to marry jihadis, bear their children
and join communities of fighters, with a small number taking up arms.
Many are recruited via social media.
Women
and girls appear to make up about 10% of those leaving Europe, North
America and Australia to link up with jihadi groups, including Islamic
State (Isis). France has the highest number of female jihadi recruits,
with 63 in the region – about 25% of the total – and at least another 60
believed to be considering the move.
In most cases, women and girls appear to have left home to marry jihadis, drawn to the idea of supporting their “brother fighters” and having “jihadist children to continue the spread of Islam”, said Louis Caprioli, former head of the French security agency Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire. “If their husband dies, they will be given adulation as the wife of a martyr.”
Five
people, including a sister and brother, were arrested in France earlier
this month suspected of belonging to a ring in central France that
specialised in recruiting young French women, according to Bernard
Cazeneuve, the interior minister.
Counter-terrorism
experts in the UK believe about 50 British girls and women have joined
Isis, about a tenth of those known to have travelled to Syria to fight.
Many are believed to be based in Raqqa, the eastern Syrian city that has
become an Isis stronghold.
Those
identified by researchers at the International Centre for the Study of
Radicalisation at Kings College London are mainly aged between 16 and
24. Many are university graduates, and have left behind caring families
in their home countries. At least 40 women have left Germany to join
Isis in Syria and Iraq in what appears to be a growing trend of
teenagers becoming radicalised and travelling to the Middle East without
their parents’ permission.
“The
youngest was 13-years-old,” Hans-Georg Maassen, president of the Federal
Office for the Protection of the Constitution, told the Rheinische
Post. “Four underage women left with a romantic idea of jihad marriage
and married young male fighters who they had got to know via the
internet.”
Samra Kesinovic, 16. Her school said she had been speaking out for
‘holy war’, writing ‘I love al-Qaida’ around the building. Photograph:
Interpol
In Austria,
the case of two teenage friends, Samra Kesinovic, 16, and Sabina
Selimovic, 15, who ran away from their homes in Vienna to join jihadis
in Syria, may be “only the tip of the iceberg”, said Heinz Gärtner,
director of the Austrian Institute for International Politics. An
estimated 14 women and girls are known to have left Austria to fight in
the Middle East, according to the interior ministry.
The
US does not have available data on women and girls joining Isis
fighters in Syria, a senior intelligence official said in an emailed
statement. “We do not have numbers to share on the number of women
linked to [Isis] or fighting for them,” the official said.
Daveed
Gartenstein-Ross, a counter-terrorism expert at the Washington-based
Foundation for Defense of Democracies, downplayed the issue in the US,
saying the number of women and girls joining Isis was of concern, but
not an epidemic. “It’s a threat, but it’s [one] among many potential
threats coming out of Syria,” he said.
Karim
Pakzad, of the French Institute of International and Strategic
Relations, said some young women had “an almost romantic idea of war and
warriors.
“There’s a certain
fascination even with the head and throat-cutting. It’s an adventure.”
Some may feel more respected and important than in their home countries,
he added.
But Shaista Gohir, of the
UK Muslim Women’s Network, said little was known about the young women’s
motivation or what happened to them after leaving home. “Some of these
girls are very young and naive, they don’t understand the conflict or
their faith, and they are easily manipulated. Some of them are taking
young children with them; some may believe they are taking part in a
humanitarian mission,” she said.
Social media plays a crucial role in recruiting young women to join Isis in the Middle East, according to many experts.
Some
British women and girls have posted pictures of themselves carrying
AK-47s, grenades and in one case a severed head, as they pledge
allegiance to Isis. But they are also tweeting pictures of food,
restaurants and sunsets to present a positive picture of the life
awaiting young women in an attempt to lure more from the UK.
Mia
Bloom, a security studies professor at Massachusetts University and
author of ‘Bombshell: Women and Terrorism’, said the recruitment
campaign painted a “Disney-like” picture of life in the caliphate. Some
young women were offered financial incentives, such as travel expenses
or compensation for bearing children.
Women
already living amid Isis fighters used social media adeptly to portray
Syria as a utopia and to attract foreign women to join their “sisterhood
in the caliphate”, she said. “The idea of living in the caliphate is a
very positive and powerful one that these women hold dear to their
heart.”
But the reality was very
different, she said. Both Bloom and Rolf Tophoven, director of Germany’s
Institute for Terrorism Research and Security Policy, said reports
indicated that women had been raped, abused, sold into slavery or forced
to marry. “[Isis] is a strictly Islamist, brutal movement … the power,
the leadership structure, are clearly a male domain,” said Tophoven.
Messages
between a British Isis fighter in Syria and his common-law wife, read
in a UK court last month, revealed that many fighters are taking several
wives.
In an article in Foreign Policy focusing on Isis’s attitudes to women,
former CIA analysts Aki Peritz and Tara Maller said fighters were
“committing horrific sexual violence on a seemingly industrial scale.
“For
example, the United Nations last month estimated that [Isis] has forced
some 1,500 women, teenage girls and boys into sexual slavery. Amnesty
International released a blistering document noting that [Isis] abducts
whole families in northern Iraq for sexual assault and worse.
“Even
in the first few days following the fall of Mosul in June, women’s
rights activists reported multiple incidents of [Isis] fighters going
door to door, kidnapping and raping Mosul’s women.”
Jihadi poster girls
FRANCE
• Nora el-Bathy
was an ordinary French schoolgirl who wanted to be a doctor. She was 15
but looked young for her age: a slight, smiling youngster in jeans and
trainers posing for a photograph under the Eiffel Tower.
When
Nora left her family home in the southern French city of Avignon one
morning last January, with her school bag, nothing seemed out of the
ordinary. But, when her classes ended that day, Nora did not return
home. Instead, she took a train to Paris, withdrew €550 (£430) from her
savings account and changed her mobile phone to cover her tracks. She
boarded a flight for flew to Istanbul, and from there took an second
internal flight to the Syrian border.
Back in Avignon, her parents – practising but not strict Muslims – reported Nora missing to the police.
Her
eldest brother, Fouad, trawled local hospitals convinced she had been
in an accident, searched his sister’s bedroom, and examined her Facebook
account for clues. There were none, except her hijab, which she had
started wearing a few months before, in the wardrobe.
It was only when Fouad quizzed her closest school friends that the reason for Nora’s disappearance emerged.
The
el-Bathy family discovered that found she had opened a second Facebook
account where she was in contact with “jihad recruiters” in the Paris
region and had posted videos of women appealing for recruits to go to
Syria. In one picture, a completely veiled woman, brandishing a
Kalashnikov, appeared with the caption: “Yes, kill! In the name of
Allah,” in French.
Fouad, a former
French soldier, was devastated. “She had a second Facebook account on
which she spoke of making hijra [going to live in an Islamic country],
and a second mobile phone to call the ‘sisters’,” Fouad told his local
paper.
Nora had begun talking of
wearing the full veil and of helping the wounded in Syria, particularly
children; and shortly before she disappeared, she asked her parents if
she could have her passport, claiming she had lost her identity card.
But
nobody in the el-Bathy family imagined she was planning to run away to
war. “We absolutely didn’t see what was coming,” Fouad said.
Three
days after her disappearance, Nora telephoned her family. Police traced
the calls to the Turkish-Syrian border. She told them she was fine,
eating well, happy and that she did not want to return to France.
She
also sent Fouad a text message to say she had arrived in Aleppo, Syria,
and that she “preferred being there”. The family received two further
phone calls: one from a man speaking Arabic and a second from a man
speaking French. The caller asked them to give their permission for Nora
to marry. Her parents refused.
Fouad
decided to go to Syria to rescue his sister, but was turned back at the
Turkish border. While there, he received a call from Nora. In the brief
conversation, she described how she had learned to shoot, but promised
she would not be fighting.
Another man
who claimed to be in charge of the French fighters in Syria called
Fouad to say: “Your sister is safe and she is here by choice. She’s not
being kept here against her will by force. If she says she wants to go,
she can go, but she wants to stay,” the man said.
Fouad
later succeeded in getting to Syria and seeing Nora. Afterwards, he
said she had told him: “‘I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life.’
“She
was thin and sick. She never sees any light. With other women she has
to look after young children, orphans, but she lives surrounded by armed
men.”
The el-Bathy family is now
taking legal action for their daughter’s kidnap, believing that while
Nora went to Syria of her own free will, she had been brainwashed by
extremists.
Their lawyer, Guy Guénoun,
told journalists that her recruitment and disappearance appeared to
have been well planned. “It’s obvious she’s been taken in hand by a very
intelligent and structured network,” he said.
UK
Salma Halane, who is now reportedly married to an Isis fighter
• Twin sisters Zahra and Salma Halane, 16, left their home in Chorlton, Manchester, in July without their parents’ knowledge to follow their brother to Syria.
The
girls – whose parents came to the UK as refugees from Somalia – passed
their GCSEs last summer after attending Whalley Range high school for
girls in Manchester and went on to study at Connell sixth-form college.
They
left home in the middle of the night and were reported missing by their
parents. Now both are reportedly married to Isis fighters.
A
social-media account believed to belong to Zahra shows her in a full
veil posing with an AK-47 and kneeling in front of the Isis flag. Recent
postings describe how she had lost her kitten, after her husband threw
it outside.
• Aqsa Mahmood – also known as Umm Layth – left Glasgow
for Syria last November and has married an Isis fighter. She is a
prolific social-media user and writes a blog in which she advises other
young women about the best way to travel to Syria and marry a fighter.
Mahmood,
20, has described the difficulty of telephoning her parents from the
Turkish border to tell them she wanted to become a martyr and would see
them again on judgment day.
In her
blog she wrote: “The first phone call you make once you cross the
borders is one of the most difficult things you will ever have to do.
Your parents are already worried enough over where you are, wether [sic]
you are okay and what’s happened.
“How
does a parent who has little Islamic knowledge and understanding
comprehend why their son or daughter has left their well-off life,
education and a bright future behind to go live in a war-torn country.”
In a post earlier this month she described the type of young women who, like her, had joined Isis from all over the world.
“Most
sisters I have come across have been in university studying courses
with many promising paths, with big, happy families and friends, and
everything in the Dunyah [material world] to persuade one to stay behind
and enjoy the luxury. If we had stayed behind, we could have been
blessed with it all from a relaxing and comfortable life and lots of
money. Wallahi [I swear] that’s not what we want.”
She
made a direct appeal on 11 September this year for others to join her.
“To those who are able and can still make your way, hasten hasten to our
lands … This is a war against Islam and it is known that either ‘you’re
with them or with us’. So pick a side.”
Earlier
this month her parents, Muzaffar and Khalida Mahmood, publicly appealed
for their daughter, who was privately educated and went to university,
to return home. Her father said: “If our daughter, who had all the
chances and freedom in life, could become a bedroom radical then it’s
possible for this to happen to any family.”
US
Shannon Conley before she became radicalised. Photograph: Interpol
Shannon
Conley’s plan to serve as a nurse for Islamic State militants in Syria
ended in April when the Colorado teenager was arrested on the runway at
Denver airport.
A 19-year-old nurse’s
aide, Conley had converted to Islam. According to court documents, her
family was shocked to find she was interested in “violent jihad”.
Conley
was reported to police in October 2013 by a local pastor, after church
staff became suspicious of her. For the next five months, Conley had a
series of open conversations with undisguised federal agents, during
which she repeatedly told them she intended to “wage jihad” overseas.
“She also intended to train Islamic jihadi fighters in US military
tactics,” the complaint said.
Agents
said they attempted to dissuade her from taking up the violent cause,
even suggesting she turn to humanitarian efforts instead.
And Conley when she went to a US army cadet camp to learn basic military skills
Conley
told investigators she planned to marry an Isis member she met online
in early 2014. Agents believe this man is 32-year-old Yousr Mouelhi of
Tunisia.
Mouelhi reportedly encouraged
her to receive additional training so she could assist fighters once
she arrived in Syria. In February, she attended a US army Explorers
cadet training camp in Texas to learn US military tactics and practice
shooting. In March, Mouelhi organised Conley’s flight, arranging for her
to travel from Denver to Germany, and then to Turkey. At the time of
her arrest, Conley was carrying a list of contacts, a National Rifle
Association certificate and a first aid manual. In her bedroom,
investigators found literature on al-Qaida and other jihadi groups.
Earlier
this month, Conley pleaded guilty to providing material support to
al-Qaida and other terror groups such as Isis. She faces up to five
years in a US prison and a $250,000 (£154,000) fine.
AUSTRIA
The
images of two young smiling schoolgirls – Samra Kesinovic, 16, and her
friend Sabina Selimovic, 15 – have become symbols of Austria’s concern
about young people being radicalised and going to fight in Syria.
The
girls, whose families came to Austria from Bosnia, ran away from their
Vienna homes in April to fight in the “holy war”, telling their families
in a note: “Don’t look for us. We will serve Allah – and we will die
for him.”
Sabrina Selimovic, 15, who is believed to be pregnant after marrying a Chechen fighter on arrival in Syria. Photograph: Interpol
It
is thought the girls were radicalised after attending a local mosque
run by a radical preacher, Ebu Tejma. Samra’s school confirmed that
before her disappearance she had been a vocal advocate of the “holy
war”’, writing “I love al-Qaida” around the school.
Recent
reports in Austrian media suggested that one of the girls had died,
although police have not been able to confirm this and it was
contradicted by a WhatsApp message from Sabina to friends that said:
“Neither of us are dead.”
Police
believe both the girls were married to Chechen fighters shortly after
arriving in Syria and it is suspected that they are both now pregnant,
as their names on social media have been changed to include Umm, the
Arabic word for ‘“mother”. However, Austrian police have warned that it
is likely their social media accounts are being controlled by men.
Samra
and Sabina have been described as “jihad poster girls” whose story is
inspiring other young women to join the holy war; earlier in September
the government said they stopped two other young girls – a 14- and
15-year-old – from leaving the country on their way to fight.
Authorities said they had been lured by “false promises” of a beautiful
country and houses and had no intention of carrying out terrorist acts,
although it was reported that one of the girls said she wanted “to
support Isis – it doesn’t matter where”.
GERMANY
In
October 2013, Sarah O, 15, did not come home from school in Konstanz,
southern Germany. Her father reported her missing two days later. Soon
after, she posted pictures of herself on various social-media sites
holding a machine gun, wearing a burqa and black gloves. She said she
was being trained to use the gun, and that her day consisted of
“Sleeping, eating, shooting, learning, listening to lectures.” She also
wrote: “By the way, I’ve joined al-Qaida.”
Sarah, who is half
German, half Algerian, called her father a few weeks later with a young
man, Ismail S, an Isis fighter from Germany. He asked her father for
permission to marry Sarah; the father refused, demanding that she return
home. She stayed in Syria and married Ismail in January.Source : The Guardian
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