A missing 15-year-old British girl from Bristol, identified in newspaper reports as Yusra Hussein, is believed to have flown from the United Kingdom to Turkey in efforts to cross into Syria to join the ISIS, also known as the Islamic State, Today's Zaman reported. Around 500 Britons have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join the terrorist group, the British government said.
"There are indications she may have been radicalized but at the moment our priority is to find her before she crosses the border to Syria and make sure she is safe," Assistant Chief Constable Louisa Rolfe said in a statement.
On Sept. 24, Hussein, of Somali origin, left her family house to go to school, but the teenager was nowhere to be found when her father arrived to pick her up at the end of the day, Sky News reported.
Instead, she is believed to have traveled to London, where she met another 17-year-old girl from South London, also of Somali descent, before they boarded a plane from London Heathrow Airport to Istanbul.
Now, Avon and Somerset police, working with the London-based Metropolitan Police and their network of international liaison officers, are in a race to find the missing teenager before she crosses the border into Syria, Rolfe said.
"We can confirm that a 15-year-old student from Bristol has traveled to Turkey and we understand she may be attempting to make her way to Syria," Avon and Somerset's assistant chief constable said.
"Since she was reported missing by her parents we've carried out extensive work to trace her footsteps from the time she left home to her arrival in Istanbul, Turkey."
Described as "incredibly bright, articulate and popular," her family has issued a statement through Hibaq Jama, a spokesman, urging her to come home, according to RT.
"Please come back, we miss you very much. You are not in any trouble. We just want you to be safe and to come home as soon as possible."
"She was very aspirational, wanting to go on and become a dentist, so it has come as a complete shock to the parents," Jama added.
"We must all be vigilant and ready to stop the signs of radicalization. Often, young people who go to Syria can be naïve and don't recognize that they are being sucked into joining extremist groups," Wolfe said.
"This is not about criminalizing these young people, it's about preventing tragedies."
Meanwhile, Haras Rafiq from the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism think tank, told Good Morning Britain, "It's more than likely that she will actually go and become a jihadi bride. At the age of 15, she will marry somebody who she considers to be a holy warrior and that's how she will play a part in the jihad."
Earlier this year, 16-year-old Samra Kesinovic and 15-year-old Sabina Selimovic went missing from their homes in the Austrian capital Vienna. Soon after, they posted disturbing images of themselves dressed in traditional Muslim clothing while surrounded by armed men, branding Kalashnikov rifles.
Their alarming tale of having fled their country to join the Islamic State in Syria is now allegedly encouraging other teenagers to attempt the same.
