Robert McFadden Quoted on Newsweek: How a Teenager Travels to Join the Islamic State

March 3, 2015

How a Teenager Travels to Join the Islamic State

Newsweek
By: Polly Mosendz

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“Did you know that we as Turkish Airlines carry thousands of unattended child passengers to their loved ones in safety each year?” asks the company’s website. Of those thousands of unattended passengers, four were British teenage girls who took advantage of the airline’s minor policy to book one-way tickets from London-area airports to Istanbul between December 2014 and February 2015. From Istanbul, they made their way to the Syrian border to join the Islamic State, also known as ISIS…

SITE Intel Group, The Soufan Group and other intelligence groups determined Aqsa Mahmood, a teenage runaway herself, recruited Begum, Abase and Sultana. Mahmood left Scotland in 2013 and maintained a social media identity under the name “Umm Layth.” Umm Layth published an online travel manual for female recruits in April 2014 that was provided to Newsweek by SITE, a jihadist watchdog. Before Begum left with her friends, she was in touch with Mahmood via Twitter. Both of the Twitter accounts disappeared after news broke about the London girls. Twitter declined to comment on the matter or provide location information for the last known logins of the teenagers, citing privacy regulations.

Robert McFadden, senior vice president of The Soufan Group, a security intelligence organization that works with a number of governments, stressed Mahmood’s role in the logistical process of recruiting. “Mahmood has established herself and once she has earned a recruit’s trust, she helps provide the lily pads to get into Syria,” McFadden explained. “Once the girls made contact with her, she would have directed them where to take the car and how to cross the border…”

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To read the full article please click on the link below:
http://www.newsweek.com/how-teenager-travels-join-islamic-state-310710

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