Are schoolgirl jihadi brides in training to be suicide bombers?
Woman IS defector says trio are likely to die in Middle East
THREE British schoolgirls who ran away to become Islamic State jihadi brides are being trained for ‘special missions’ and are likely to die in the Middle East, a senior IS defector has claimed.
The female former commander, who fled the terror group just days ago, mentored the giggling teenagers whom she described as naive and unprepared for life in Syria.
The 22-year-old, known as Um Asmah, said she met Amira Abase, 15, Kadiza Sultana, 16, and Shamima Begum, 15, who crossed into Syria in February, before taking them to an IS base. She said they were likely to die in Syria or Iraq, suggesting that they were being trained as suicide bombers.
She said the girls, who all attended the same school in Bethnal Green, East London, had been groomed by an IS team of social media experts and persuaded to travel to Turkey.
Um Asmah said the girls were ‘very, very happy’ on arrival and had been laughing and smiling, but they were unprepared and had little experience of living permanently veiled and under the strict regime. ‘They knew little on how we are living here,’ the IS defector told Sky News after fleeing to Turkey.
She told how one of the girls clumsily revealed her face to a driver and was immediately reprimanded and lectured on IS etiquette.
The defector’s role in IS meant she was the first person to come into contact with foreign girls sneaking their way into war-torn Syria to become jihadi brides. Um Asmah, whose relatives are also senior IS commanders, explained that her job was to introduce the young recruits to life under IS’s strict and brutal laws.
She said she delivered the Bethnal Green girls to a base in the northern Syria city of Raqqa, where they started a four- month training regime for ‘special missions’.
The former commander said the young girls will ‘never’ be able to return to their homes, and that they were likely to die in the Middle East, suggesting they were being lined up for a suicide mission.
Um Asmah says she is unsure where the teenagers are now, but doubts they will have been married off to IS fighters ‘unless they wanted to’. Their fate has already been determined by the terror group, she explained, adding: ‘Everything is already decided for you and you cannot evade it or refuse it. You cannot have a mind of your own.’
Her revelations come just weeks after an anonymous blogger
‘They will never return’
claimed that the young girls had escaped the clutches of IS and were on the run.
The commander also revealed that foreign fighters are taught to fight in Syria and Iraq – but with the aim of travelling back to Europe to carry out attacks there. Speaking to Sky News from a secret location, she revealed it was possible that some fighters are already being trained in Europe.
The defector added that IS has a well-structured grooming system to target vulnerable foreign youngsters such as the three British girls.
‘IS have educated people who know how to deal with the psychology of others, how to deal with the human being,’ she explained.
The Sky News report exposed IS’s grooming headquarters – an internet cafe in Raqqa – where its operatives work shifts coordinated with the time zones of countries in which they have the most influence. ‘They have ways to attract people – especially foreigners,’ said Um Asmah. ‘Otherwise young British people wouldn’t come and say they will change the flag on Buckingham Palace.
‘If they can convince foreigners, it is even easier to convince Arabs and Syrians. They [the recruits] have no need to come to Syria but they do.’
She said the Bethnal Green trio are special to IS, but the regime has plenty more foreign girls – with more joining each month.
Now on the run, Um Asmah says she will be killed if she is ever tracked down by IS fighters. ‘I am a traitor and an unbeliever now,’ she said. ‘I am scared every minute and of everyone I meet.
‘I am a young girl. I want to travel, meet friends like any normal girl.’