to think they should charge the Syria girls

[adsy]

If they are indeed with terrorists in Syria then when a small chink of sense comes back to them and they want to come home, I hope they will be charged.

so as long as you don't join a proscribed organisation, it is completely legit to travel overseas with the express aim of killing people?

really?

every day's a school day i guess

there you go then chibi the man won't be charged as Dwekh Nawsha I noton the list. The girls in question, however will be charged if the are found to have joined IS as that is on the list.

like I say chibi th French foreign legion has been going for years. governments are within their rights to use mercenaries in legitimate warfare.
A mercenary is basically an extra fighter but who isn't in that country's army. They still have to abide by the same laws as everyone else but are effectively a part of the country's army the same as all the other soldiers

Think the lesson to be learnt here is going to be the same lesson in every other case of Internet grooming of children - take an interest in what your children are doing both in real life and especially online. CHeck their online Facebook , twitter etc regularly. If you don't have the skills to keep up with the technology then learn them. And now I would also add, keep their passports locked up.

rambunctious, that's a good question, they probably want them to set up sleeper cells when/if they get back to Britain and pretend that they were sorry they ran away. they will be on a security watch list if they get back here, so will their families, their mosque and their school.

adsy the issues in Israel?
What do you mean?

What issues in Israel? I never mentioned Israel, did I?

If we want to look at the reasons behind the decisions made by these girls, to explore what they might be

How about looking at the supremacist Islamic ideology that IS spouts that also lured 15 year old Austrian Sabina Selimovic.

Unless the underlying theology is addressed, Jihadi terrorism will continue indefinitely.

adsy apology, no you did not - I misread it was lokibear
It struck me as a throwaway comment, with no explanation so I was intrigued

"so as long as you don't join a proscribed organisation, it is completely legit to travel overseas with the express aim of killing people"

No, I don't think that's necessarily the case.

But as the thread (started off at least) about whether these girls should be charged should they succeed in being with terrorists, then it seems reasonable to referring to the offence they are (on the face of it) committing and thus could/should be charged with if they ever return.

Other people's actions may indeed be separate offences. But from what's been posted here about the other example, it doesn't seem that it's the same type of offence and I don't know if it's an offence at all. Unless there is specific inclusion of extra-territoriality (such as there is in the Terrorism Act) then actions of Brit overseas are governed by the laws of the country in which the action takes place.

These girls have been groomed for sexual exploitation on the net. It's not much different from a more westernised girl being groomed in to being sexually exploited by drug dealers and their friends or peadophiles.

There are a lot of girls with low self esteem/unhappy who are prime targets for adults with bad intentions who groom them with promises of a happier life, excitement, freedom from family, being part of a group etc. Goodness knows what these terrorists promise them but I guess they are trained to manipulate. It's interesting that they used an adult female to groom them so they'd trust her more.

It's sad they were so gullible and have ruined their lives. Of course now they are there, they can only be allowed back under strict rules with ban on Internet access, curfews, monitoring as we will no longer be able to trust them. If after that they are caught fraternising with terrorists, they must be jailed.

Rambunctious it adds credence to endorsing their regime and ideology. Bit like going to live in North Korea. These girls have not gone to find husbands. First and foremost they knew they were going to join a regime and ideology and at 15 they are old enough to have questioned that. Nevertheless IMO they were probably well groomed and do not understand what they are getting into. I do not think their families come with clean hands. Either way, by our rules they are children travelling into the hands of paedophiles and the PM and security services must do everything they can to get them back. What then happens is for later.

Whilst I don't at all believe that the school played any part in this, it's indicative of the kind of environment and creed this girls were growing up in

We obviously can't know at the moment whether the school played any part in this, but it seems to me dangerous to assume it hasn't - that's what I meant about it perhaps being wise to take a look, especially given that school is such a big part of childrens' days

Now that it appears the girls have entered Syria, I also worry about exactly what contact they have with friends back home, and what kind of messages are being sent back ...

School is less than 8 hours a day if you take out lunch which is largely a time for friends. They have 16 other hours a day in which to tweet, facebook etc...

of which about 10 hours are spent sleeping so the majority of their waking time is spent at school.

I agree with Puzzledandpissedoff. Close attention needs to be paid to their friends at home as I'm guessing the runaways will be used to recruit new members with bullshit promises of a better life. If I were the parent of one of their friends I'd be watching my child very carefully.

It's not their RL friends at home or school that need investigating. It's their online ones.

From LRB site (about women online and IS generally, not these girls specifically):

"The women sound very young and earnest, their posts punctuated by memes and photos like any exchange on social media. They record their journeys and adjustment to life in the Caliphate. They justify beheadings and encourage other young women to follow them using the same kind of motivational language you’d find on dieting forums, except with more references to God’s will."

Did anyone hear the Belgian chap on the news. Dimitri Bontinck went to fetch his son back from Syria. He was successful and I believe he brought more youngsters out of there. He said the parents of the three girls need to get out there to try to get them back. It was the only way, he said. Now he has to be conciliatory and careful in what he says in order to be able to negotiate again, I'm sure. He also said that ISIS are very respectful of parents, especially Muslim parents. He's a former soldier. Unfortunately, none of the parental pleadings stopped the beheadings or the burning alive of people being held. He must mean the release of the westerners who join ISIS.

One of the girls was noted in today's times as re/tweeting pro Isis crap and using derogatory terms for non Muslims. The parents and siblings really had no idea the hatred within this young woman?

In my family, you couldn't break wind without everyone knowing about it, discussing it indepth and advising you on future prevention. And we aren't a very 'touchy feely in each others pockets' kind of family.

In my family, you couldn't break wind without everyone knowing about it, discussing it indepth and advising you on future prevention

Sorry but I'm howling at that - guess it's the "future prevention" which really got me

Worrying if it's true about the girl's tweets, though - is this something she'd done before, do you know, or has it come from her current location?

It's grooming by the people luring them and possibly by their families who may have inadvertently given them the impression that because of their faith and lifestyle they are special and now can't claw it back having fed the monster.

They are idiots but they are 15 and 16. At that age, many of us were. It goes with the territory of being a teenager.

But hats off to the posters on this thread who weren't.

I know the parents of teenagers who have zero idea of what their kids are up to on social media. One set of parents befriended their DD on facebook as they were worried about boys so she's barely on Facebook now. they don't understand snapchat and these other sites. I thought I was savvy on the net but I don't know a lot of the sites kids are on (my own DD is a pre-schooler so I don't have to worry yet).

limited I disagree. Being an idiot isn't part of being a teenager at all. Being less experienced, needing guidance and help with decisions and life choices, yes. Being an idiot, no.

Having just listened to an interview with Amiras dad I do now feel sorry for him. He obviously didn't understand many of the questions asked, something as simple as 'do you hope she is stlll in Turkey, and he replied - I don't know.

Ive struggled greatly with trying to learn a foreign language and after a lifetime here I can just get by, and there was this poor man trying to be interviewed in English.

Poor man.

Being an idiot isn't part of being a teenager at all. Being less experienced, needing guidance and help with decisions and life choices, yes. Being an idiot, no.

fatlazymummy I agree with your eloquent appraisal of teenagehood, but being an idiot is the way I chose to express it. I expect I'm more childish than you.

I agree with you that teenagers, which is what these girls are, need guidance rather than punishment.

Particularly since they don't appear to have committed any crimes.

Is that what you meant, or have I got that wrong too?