It’s a story that’s happening across the Western world with increasing regularity. Today, three teenage girls from Denver, Colorado were caught at the Frankfurt, Germany airport en route to Syria, where they hoped to join ISIS.
The girls flew out of Denver and were aiming to get to Istanbul, increasingly a hub for Islamists looking to worm their way into ISIS territory. The parents of two of the girls found out and informed the US Consulate, which got the girls taken off their flight.
It would be a curious story if it were unique, but it’s not. There are reports emerging at an alarming rate of similar incidents across the Western world, with men and women, boys and girls, all drawn to the ISIS Caliphate, and are taking this route through Istanbul.
The number of people who are caught en route is no doubt dwarfed by the number who successfully find their way into ISIS ranks, and while Britain, for instance, estimates that five of its citizens a week are successfully joining ISIS, the reality is that they don’t know, for sure, because those people weren’t caught.
What we do know is that ISIS has become a huge fighting force, and in no small part because of how effectively it has attracted Westerners. The group’s recruitment has continued to escalate as the US and other nations are drawn into the war, and the group’s profile continues to increase.
Let them but don't allow them back after their little vacation. What are they going to do with them, bring them back to Denver so they can go back to their regular lives as if nothing happened?
These kind of "expeditions" regularly happened when the enemy was Russians in Afghanistan. People would leave for a stint at the side of Mujaheddin and be back after a year or so.
I hear even one of Bin Laden's closest handymen, at that time residing in the US and employed by the US intelligence services (being considered an undercover agent and all) went there and bragged about having fought and killed special forces.
Any news about the other people going to fight with the other more potent terrorists in the Area? The IDF?
…I wonder if this is it.
If it's voluntary, and that's really where they're going, I suspect they have a very different perception of what ISIS is and/or what's happening in Iraq than most. E.g., decapitations with small cutlery would seem to be reliably repellent. They would likely have something else in mind. So where's their take on ISIS coming from? Are there local 'ISIS gurus?'
<Heroes of society — Far from the maddening crowd
Three girls, in the pristine beauty and flower of their youth, go off in search of a trophy husband, a real man’s man and not a gutless wonder as is typical of the American male with his sport’s mentality, such a cowardly inability to stand up for anything but with a maddening crowd at a sports car rally.
"Trophy husband"? The 19th century wants its fainting maidens back.
Crikey John. Such mumbo-jumbo nonsense. All we need is a rational immigration policy.
In our corruption we by brutal imperialism plunder half of all the wealth on earth, then when the young women of America can no longer stand the stench of it and join in a violent overthrow of our Empire, we fantasize that the solution be to attack the blow-back while leaving the root cause in full force and effect.
> join in a violent overthrow of our Empire
By joining a medieval sandpeople chickenshit outfit? Good luck overthrowing the empire that way.
I'd like to know the ethnic background of all these supposed "westerners". Not that the media will tell us. "Denver Teens"?
Has anybody interviewed and reported on these "volunteers"? Why are they going over to ISIS? What is their motivation? Do they know something that we don´t about ISIS and western involvement in the ME?
Jeez I thought maybe it was Sally, Debbie and Cheryl heading for jihad but nooooooo….
"Two girls are sisters, ages 15 and 16, of ethnic Somali origin, and the third teen is from Sudan, the Voice of America reported."
Ain't unrestricted immigration from the Third World just great? Sure. c'mon back, girls!!
Thank you Jim. Somebody here gets it.