SAD: Three British School Girls Run Away From Home To Join ISIS Fighters

Without the knowledge of their parents, these ‘naive’ teenage girls flew out of the UK to join jihadists in Syria.

The trio were at the centre of an international hunt Thursday night after being captured on airport CCTV.

Scotland Yard was facing questions over how the girls – aged 15 and 16 – were able to board a flight to Turkey unchallenged, despite having no parent or guardian with them. They are now believed to be travelling overland to Syria to marry jihadi fighters. But police hope heavy snowfall may have prevented them from travelling all the way.

Thursday night there were growing calls to tighten up security checks on youngsters flying out of the UK. Up to 550 young Britons are thought to have made the journey to join Islamic State. It is understood the three girls – all straight-A pupils – were lured to Syria via social media by a school friend who is already there.

Detectives took the unprecedented step of releasing the names and CCTV images of the girls – who attend the same East London school – in an attempt to save them from the clutches of IS fighters.

Officers attempted to stop the 15-year-old at the time but her family alerted them too late to stop her boarding a flight to Istanbul. Her three missing friends, described as ‘academically bright, straight-A students but naive and very vulnerable’, attended Bethnal Green Academy together and were said to be extremely close to the 15-year-old from East London who has not been heard of since December.

Officers quizzed the group of pupils at the time to see whether they had any information about her disappearance.

But police insisted they had no intelligence to suggest that the trio would subsequently follow in her footsteps.

The missing children, Shamima Begum, 15, Kadiza Sultana, 16, and a 15-year-old German girl, who has not been named at the request of her family, were contacted by counter terrorism officers late last year after their 15-year-old friend left for Syria.

Police are now investigating whether their runaway friend, who is thought to still be in Syria, may have enticed them to join her through social media.

The girls were last seen at around 8am on Tuesday after giving their families ‘plausible reasons’ about why they were out for the day. They travelled to Gatwick Airport together before boarding Turkish Airlines flight TK1966 to Istanbul, landing at 6.40pm.

Police refused to say who bought the tickets for the flight, thought to cost around £120 each.

Source: DailyMail