How IS uses social media to attract female recruits
The family of a British woman who travelled to Syria to marry an Islamic State fighter say they are angry that she may have tried to recruit three missing schoolgirls to the militant group.
At least one of the girls, who attended Bethnal Green Academy in east London, was reportedly in contact on Twitter with Aqsa Mahmood, who left her Glasgow home in November 2013 after becoming radicalised.
In a statement released through their lawyer Aamer Anwar, Ms Mahmood’s family said they were “full of horror and anger” that she may have had a role to play in “the recruitment of these young girls to Isis”.
Umm Layth
In a direct message to Ms Mahmood, they said: “You are a disgrace to your family and the people of Scotland, your actions are a perverted and evil distortion of Islam. You are killing your family every day with your actions, they are begging you stop if you ever loved them.”
Privately-educated Ms Mahmood is reported to have encouraged terrorist acts via a Twitter account under the name Umm Layth.
She travelled through Turkey to Aleppo in Syria in November 2013 and was reported missing to police. Before disappearing she attended Craigholme School, then university and was “well integrated into society”, her parents said.
Ms Mahmood’s family said security services had “serious questions to answer” over her alleged contact with the missing girls because her social media has been monitored since her disappearance.