One of three UK schoolgirls who ran away to become ‘jihadi brides’ has confirmed she successfully entered Syria by tweeting a picture.
Amira Abase, 15, has tweeted for the first time since her departure two months ago and is believed to be in the Syrian city of Raqqa.
She posted a picture of fried chicken and chips, flatbread and kebab earlier this month with the caption “dawla takeaway”.
Dawla refers to Isis-controlled territory.
She reportedly shared the meal with a 16-year-old girl known as Um Ayoub, who wrote: “Wanna behead some kafirs [non-Muslims] now.”
Amira’s Twitter account was private, but appears to have recently been made public.
In February, the 15-year-old left her East London home with Shamima Begum 15, and Kadiza Sultana, 16.
Read: The creepy social media ‘inspo’ enticing young women into joining ISIS.
Mamamia previously reported:
Three teenage girls packed their bras, makeup and epilators for a big adventure. But that “adventure” was a journey to the Middle East to join ISIS.
Earlier this year, British schoolgirls Shamima Begum, Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase went shopping together, as teenage girls are apt to do, at the local Westfield.
You can imagine them together: excited, skittish, flicking through rows of bras and knickers, running their hands across the backs of coats — buying the items on their travel shopping list.
They were gearing up for a big adventure. Which may seem like no big deal — except that adventure was to Syria, where they would become Jihadi brides.
One fateful day in February, Begum, 15, Sultana, 16, and Abase, 15 told their parents they were going out for the day to a wedding — but instead, travelled to Istanbul and then made the crossing into Syria.
Now, a heartbreaking, handwritten pre-departure shopping list has been found in the bedroom of one of the schoolgirls. The details in the document are deliberate, definite and exacting — a list in keeping with an Islamic State online guide for potential recruits.
It reveals the girls calculated costings, lists and plane tickets to Turkey, The Guardian reports. The list also included ranging from boots and a mobile phone to underwear, makeup, a bag, socks and an epilator.
Related content: A father’s heartbreaking message to his radicalised daughter.
Before the three school girls left, their families had no idea they had been lured into the clutches of Islamic State.
While the girls secretly wrote lists and spoke in hidden online chat rooms to IS recruiters, on the outside they went on with their normal lives, fighting with their siblings, gossiping about celebrities.
The relatives have said they had no idea how the girls had money to pay for their flights.
“My sister did not have access to that kind of money,” Ms Begum’s sister Sahima said yesterday.
“My sister was into normal teenage things. She used to watch Keeping Up With The Kardashians.”
The girls are now understood to be in a house “controlled another British girl”, Aqsa Mohammed, who first made contact with them online.
Sky News Correspondent Stuart Ramsay reports they are now “in a house that is owned or controlled – or at least hosted by – (the) British girl, who had been in contact with them through the internet, and had brought them through Turkey and into Syria.
“We are told by… good sources within the city of al Raqqa that they are there, that they are safe,” he reports.
Family members yesterday testified before the home affairs committee of MPs, The Guardian reports.
The father of 16-year old Amira Abase told the Home Affairs Select Committee in British Parliament that his daughter was ” the kind of girl that, if it is sunset, she will call me to pick her up”.
He added: “So how on earth can she travel abroad to join ISIS?”
It is now reported that these children – just 15 and 16 — face becoming jihadi brides, joining 500 foreign women who have similarly travelled to the area.
It is not a phenomenon removed from our own society: Foreign minister Julie Bishop recently announced that around 40 Australian women had either travelled to or were supporting IS.
“Some of the most vicious and inhuman acts committed by this barbaric terrorist organisation have been directed at women and girls,” Ms Bishop wrote for Mamamia last week.
“There are reports of women and girls being abducted, tortured, raped, imprisoned and enslaved for sex and given to Da’esh militants as brides,” she said.
A recent article in The Guardian urged us not to view these Jihadi brides merely as victims, and instead to realise that, for many of these young women, leaving was motivated by an urge similar to that of the young men who leave to fight for Islamic State.
The article cited a study by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue entitled Becoming Mulan. The report highlighted three distinct reasons women gave: because they believe that Islam is under attack; because they want to contribute to the building of a new society and establishment of the Caliphate; and because they believe in their individual duty to migrate to the Islamic State and a sense of sisterhood among those who do.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has said it’s time more was done to stop young people falling victim to the lure of the group.
“When you have got educated British schoolgirls at an outstanding school in Greenwich finding it somehow attractive to get on a plane to travel to Syria to go and live in a country where gay people are being thrown off buildings and British citizens are being beheaded, and appalling brutality is being meted out, we have a problem,” he said. “Let’s not pretend this is simply a problem that can be dealt with by policing.”
How it will be dealt with, though, is yet to be seen.
Top Comments
Somehow I don't think the makeup and epilators will get much use
You know what lots of teenagers go through a confused or even rebellious stage and do silly things, but what most teenagers don't do is go and join a fighting force that butchers people! Unless they have been living under a rock they surely must have seen some coverage of the terrible atrocities that ISIS is committing. Even the silliest teen would have heard of ISIS and their brutality. Anyone who travels to join them male or female obviously gets their rocks off thinking about how they can participate in such brutality. They are probably giggling on the plane gossiping about how much they are looking forward to witnessing a beheading.
These kids are no different from teens who go into schools and shoot people, or go out and kill people on a thrill kill.
The unfortunate reality is some people have a sadistic side and some of those people would never commit a crime simply because they know the consequences are they would end up in jail, so these same people are excited to join ISIS because they know they can indulge in brutality with carte blanche.
Unless these girls have been specifically duped into thinking that they were going to instanbul for a holiday or employment or similar ruse, then that is different. But the indication is they knew they were joining ISIS. and if that is the case I have no sympathy for them. I don't care if they are pretty young things a sadist is a sadist.
Oh and BTW so much for the whole Muslim idea of women not having to worry about their appearance, and only us shallow sex obsessed westerns caring about these things if they have to pack epilators!