JUST one message was ever sent from Shamima Begum’s Twitter account: “@muhajirah—follow me so i can dm you back.” Sent on February 15th to Aqsa Mahmood, a Scottish woman who joined the Islamic State (IS) in Syria in 2013, it shows that Ms Begum, a 15-year-old Londoner, wanted to send private messages to a known go-between in the region. A few days later she flew to Turkey with two friends. British authorities think they have already crossed into Syria.
Some 10-15% of the Westerners who have gone to Syria and Iraq to join IS are women, reckons Peter Neumann of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR), a think-tank in London. That is a higher share than joined the jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Some travelling today are known to be from America, Britain, Finland, France, Germany and Sweden. As in the past, most are following their men. But many are single—a new trend.
In a study of female IS recruits, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), also London-based, quotes Umm Khattab, a woman thought to be British who writes on social media from Syria: she describes meeting “other sisters” in Turkey, some with children, at least one married, before they reached IS territory. Others seek partners among the fighters. Single women may not live unsupervised. “I really need sisters to stop dreaming about coming...
from The Economist: International http://ift.tt/1DecwfV
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