Two teenage twin sisters from Manchester are being searched for by police who believe them to have fled the country to join their brother in the fight against government forces in Syria.
The 16-year-old girls crept out of their home in the middle of the night and flew from Manchester International airport to Istanbul in Turkey. Their parents awoke at 8am to find them missing. The 'extremely religious' pair called relatives to say that they had reached Syria; it is believed that they are there to join ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) a terrorist organisation that has just declared itself a caliphate – a Muslim state run by a caliph, who is, in this case, terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi – in Syria and Iraq. They are believed to be following their brother, who recently left to become a jihadist fighter in Syria. At present, up to 1,500 Britons might have travelled to Syria to fight, one Cardiff resident recently posting a video on social media encouraging other young people to go out there and join him.
The girls wouldn't be fighting alongside their brother, though, as ISIS are an ultra-conservative group that, a bit like Al-Qaeda, don't believe in equal rights for women. So the police suspect that the girls would likely be used as wives for jihadists. However, they are also considering a possibility that the girls are being trained to be suicide bombers.
A police source told the Daily Mail: 'We’ve seized their computers and not found any videos or statements of intent, but are not ruling anything out.'
Mohammed Shafiq, head of Muslim group the Ramadhan Foundation, said that the girls' parents – who are 'moderate' Muslims – were shocked: 'I've spoken to the mosque where the family worship and others in the community where they live and people are saying they are a decent family. We know they have gone to follow their brother, but they are putting themselves in danger and I'm sure that the moment they arrive in such a savage country they will regret it.'
Sir Peter Fahy, chief constable for Greater Manchester police, who also sits on a counter-terrorism committee, warned earlier this week that young women as much as boys would be 'brainwashed' into joining terrorists abroad: 'We’ve got some information about girls trying to get to Syria and some we believe may have gone out there on the idea of being a jihad bride. So there are a number of absolutely perverted messages, which can brainwash impressionable young people, and parents are feeling desperate about this.'
A spokesperson for the police, who are tracking the girls down said, about this particular case: 'The family are very worried. We don't know exactly where they are but their parents are obviously very keen to have them returned home.'
Picture: Getty
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.