The three young girls who have purportedly fled to Syria

Someone earlier mentioned the Spanish Civil War.
If there any difference in motivation between those from the UK who went to Spain to fight for a cause they believed in and these young people who go off to join the ISIS?

Jess M - there has been very comprehensive coverage across our newspaper spectrum of why European Muslims have gone to Syria. Possibly the press do make things up at times, but I think they would be hard pushed to fabricate photos such as the man being thrown off the top of car park to his death. In any case the Jihadis themselves seem to be the masters of their own publicity machine, they don't need our press, gruesome films of beheadings and the burning of the Jordanian pilot have been specifically put out there to cause revulsion in the West. There are also testaments via social media such as Twitter from some that have gone there, describing their joy in witnessing beheadings, and an Australian Jihadi allowed his young son to be photographed with a severed head. All in all I think it's quite evident that most heading out to Syria have not gone to work in refugee camps. Possibly they did once when they were part of a foreign force committed to defeating Assad's army. ISIS or ISIL or whatever they call themselves seemed to materialise out of nowhere and have put much effort into recruiting people from the west. Whilst their original intentions may have been understandable they have now morphed into an unbelievably repressive, violent and revolting regime that it's impossible to understand why any normal human being would want to be part of that. These girls had allegedly been following umpteen of their propaganda sites and would have been well aware of what was going on in their proposed destination.

I don't criticise the family's reaction, neither do I blame them, I think many teenagers get up to all sorts behind their parents backs, particularly in the technological age we are living in. I understand why the dad was holding the teddy bear it was because his daughter gave it to her mum on Mother's Day and he was demonstrating that as far as he was concerned the family had no knowledge of their plans to go to Syria, just ordinary kids. I have no reason to disbelieve them and thought they all looked thoroughly shattered.

Last year, when my 17 yr old twin grand daughters returned from spending Christmas in Kenya with their mother, they were stopped by Passport Control at Heathrow Airport. We got a phone call and were questioned quite closely before they were allowed through where we were waiting for them. They have been 'accompanied' children until recently as required by the airlines. (BA, Virgin and Kenya Airways).
Young girls are so subject to peer pressure via social media - it is much worse now with broadband than when I looked after my other grand-daughters when it was dial-up modems and no smart phones. We don't allow phones or laptops in bedrooms, only downstairs even though they are 17.

JessM I dont think I was victim blaming, more a case of asking just what anyone could have done to stop them? They are evidently articulate and educated and capable of organising the trip without anyone being aware of it. I have a daughter and I have sympathy for their families who must be in despair, the point I was trying to make was that there was no reason for border agency here in Uk to stop them from boarding their flight; they had tickets and passports, it was half term, many people fly off on holiday, and remember one of them was travelling on her 17 year old sister's passport so they were not a group of vulnerable children. I certainly am not blaming them, I just dont see what could have been done to stop the trip, not unless we all want every single traveller with an Islamic name/Islamic appearance to be questioned? Really? I sincerely hope that they get back home unharmed, and I would hope that efforts are being made to cut off the social media streams that are doing the recruitment of these innocent girls.

Terribull I think the key word in your post is "allegedly".

That Teddy bear was what gave me a clue as to what kind of parents these girls have. My daughters would not have given me-an adult- a teddy bear for Mothers day. It shows the daughter has had no real guidance from such an infantile mother.
I lived opposite, window on window with a muslim family when my children were small. It was like looking back a century to see how they lived, so close, the women huddled together. The children totally unstimulated in the first years of their lives. Just sitting in their cots.
Of course since then they have moved on in 30 years, but the view into their lives remained with me and I saw it all over again in that interview.
it is no wonder the girls were lead astray, I hope they can escape somehow or that the worst can be prevented

infantile mother

that's very harsh Margaret - you have no idea what sort of mother she is. How can you judge from a TV interview?

It wouldn't surprise me, knowing how the press can work, if it was they who suggested to the family to cuddle the teddy and pyjamas - you see it in many newspaper interviews, sad forlorn faces holding up sentimental items.

Were you so harsh on Kate McCann with her hugging the Cuddle Cat in so many interviews?

Retired guy- yes in a word. Franco was trying to overthrow a democratically elected govt. Those who went to help fight against him in the International Brigade were not intending to take over the world which is what ISIS want to do but wanted to defend democracy.

Oh FFS Margaretx when I first met my DH his mother and sisters were always buying each other soft toys. His mum bought me one once. But that fact does not tell you anything else about the kind of family they are.
Soft toys hardly grounds for making sweeping and critical statements about the quality of parenting provided by Muslim families. And neither is the impression you formed from peering into the windows of one family 30 years ago. Does it not occur to you that making remarks like that might offend people? Or are Muslim grans not allowed on here?

I'm starting to think these girls aren't as naive as first thought. The 16 year old, according to the Times today, has ^ 11,000 followers on Twitter and .......had followed 77 accounts many belonging to jihadi fighters, including graphic photos of fighters with dead children.
Her Twitter biography in early January demonstrates, apparently, her intentions. Most of her activity cannot be seen because she has high security settings^, hardly the behaviour of an unsuspecting child, IMO.

GrannyTwice There were recruits from the UK on both sides in the Spanish Civil War and there were also atrocities perpetrated by both sides.

I wish I'd never mentioned the teddy bear in my original post. JessM is right, many families continue to buy each other soft toys throughout life. When my much loved mil died recently, all four of her granddaughters chose one of nan's soft toys as a life long memory of nan. The granddaughters age 28 - 34, they are successful in work and relationships but one of the soft toys was an essential memory.

The point I was trying, clumsily to make, is that as in most families, the parents don't see confident outgoing and deceitful 15/16 year olds, they see their precious children. The gap between parents and teenagers is a difficult one to negotiate, in any culture.

In one sense they certainly knew what they were doing - to get where they have requires a detailed plan and a lot of research.

But at heart they have no idea what they are doing - silly girls - what on earth will happen to them?

This was in the news this morning. If it was too hard for immigration to twig that three young women were about to travel to Turkey, surely the airlines could have informed them before they boarded the plane. Aren't visas used anymore?

Apparently many jihardists are arriving back traumatised from their experience with IS. Unfortunately some are more hard lined.

*margaretx Our next door neighbours are Muslims of Pakistani origin. I don't recognise your description at all.

Makes you wonder doesn't it Eloethan why so many children of Muslim immigrants are making it to university these days to become doctors, pharmacists, lawyers etc. when they are not being looked after properly at home

This article takes a more generous view of these girls than some of the posters on this thread. Her final paragraph is a reminder of how two-faced the press can be.

As loopylou said earlier one of them apparently has 11,000 twitter followers (idiots) and has clearly demonstrated her intentions whilst "following" sites of jihadi fighters etc.

So I'm sorry I really can't see these three as vulnerable children.

We dont know enough about them.

Thank you for the link Anno.

Isn't it possible that those 11,000 only became Twitter followers of one of the girls after her name had appeared in the newspapers?

Thanks for the link anno.
gilly do you at least see these girls as children?

And gillybob what is your view on the child victims of sex-abuse rings in Rochdale etc?

My thoughts are that the child sex abuse cases are somewhat different in that these girls were known to be vulnerable and that was exploited by paedophiles.
The girls who have headed for Syria are, so far as I can tell, from secure family settings, well educated and must surely have been aware of the atrocities played out by ISIS, even to the fact that the school had procedures in place including education about jihadists/extremists and their being questioned at school (doesn't that mean that the school had warning bells going off?) and one had been following umpteen jihadist sites for at least a couple of months.
What concerns me is how many of the 11,000 Twitter followers are considering, or actively seeking, to emulate these girls even if they all started 'following' after this hit the headlines.
ISIS must be keen to exploit all the publicity surely? Sickening thought.....

Absent - yes I thought of that after I d posted and wondered about it. There were about 4000 on the republican side from the UK and I believe very very few on Franco's. Regardless of atrocities, the republican side was pro- democracy and so shared our basic values - they couldn't have been a danger to British society when they returned ( except of course some of them were left wing!). However those who supported Franco were a threat - anti democratic fascists and in fact were a danger to our society when they returned as they supported Hitler who did want to take over the world.