Parents Of Bristol Girl Heartbroken That She May Have Crossed To Syria To Become An ISIS Jihadi
She was missing from Bristol and believed to have run from U.K. to go to Syria to become an "Islamist fighter." The cops believe that she has become "radicalized." Yusra Hussein, whose parents could not trace her after last Wednesday, said that she had left her family's house in Bristol in the morning to go to school, but was not there when her father, Mohammed, a youth member, came to pick her up in the afternoon. Instead, she went to London, where she ran into another 17-year-old girl from Lambeth, South London. They both got into a plane that took them from London Heathrow Airport to Istanbul, according to Daily Mail.
Her parents, Mohammed, a youth worker and Safiya, his wife, were devastated. Avon and Somerset detectives are working with Scotland Yard anti-terrorist police and Turkish authorities to trace her, according to The Guardian.
Police are afraid that the Somali girl may have become "radicalized" and will reach Syria through Turkey so that she can grapple with Islamic extremists. Louisa Rolfe, Avon and Somerset's assistant chief constable confirmed that the 15-year-old from Bristol is trying to reach Turkey through Syria. As her parents had not found her, they said that they were pursuing a lot of effort to find her from the time she left home till she arrived in Istanbul, Turkey. "There are indications that she may have been radicalized, but at the moment our priority is to find her before she crosses the border to Syria and make sure she is safe. We must all be vigilant and ready to spot the signs of radicalization," she said, according to rt.com. Imams and elders of the community are worried about the "radicalisation." The pain that accompanied the family after she was missing was unbearable. The mother kept sitting and sighing to herself, wondering where she had gone wrong. The teenager, who wears a headscarf, did not ask for funds to book her ticket. How did she manage to travel by plane? A friend called Afzal Shah, who spent a lot of time with the family, felt that the person who had recruited her must have got her tickets. Yusra had, after all, used her phone and computer a lot, which meant that she would have networked with someone to get her ticket, according to Daily Mail. There are so many chatrooms on the Internet, that it would not have been difficult to contact recruiters through websites. He added, "IS is a menace to the whole of society and have nothing to do with the Muslim faith. They're violent and extortionist thugs. It's absolutely tragic." Distress over the incident has been expressed over Twitter:
Police fear missing Bristol girl is heading for #Syria to join #ISIS http://t.co/qzgvXI2qE8 pic.twitter.com/AbkGt2fmCC — RT (@RT_com) September 30, 2014The family of the teen has sent out a message pleading with her to return. A spokeswoman called Hibaq Jama wrote that she was being missed heavily, and was not in any "trouble" They were just worried that she should be safe, said Hibaq. They knew that she was "incredibly bright, incredibly articulate, popular, gifted young lady," who had been appreciated and looked up to by all her classmates, according to telegraph.
Her parents recalled that she was "aspirational" and wanted to become a dentist. It has now stunned them. They rued that she might convert into a jihadi bride, according to Haras Rafiq from the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism organization to Good Morning Britain. They feared that being 15, she will marry whoever she thinks is a "holy warrior" that will make her contribute to jihad.
Earlier, in June, Greater Manchester had lost 16-year-old twins Zahra and Salma Halane, who had joined the fold of ISIS in Syria. Being "stellar students," they had plans of taking medicine.
Worryingly, about 500 Britons have joined the extremists in Iraq and Syria. Up to 50 British girls and young women are among them. Yusra is believed to have got introduced to the London Somali extremist by another girl who also seems to have vanished.
