News Digest

Families of London girls en route to Syria beg them to come home

Families of two of the three London teenage girls believed to be on their way to Syria to join the Islamic State have begged their daughters to return home. UK schoolgirls Shamima  Kadiza Sultana, 16, and Amira Abase, 15, left their homes Tuesday morning and boarded a Turkish Airlines flight from Gatwick Airport to Istanbul. It has emerged they were questioned just two months ago after one of their classmates, also 15, travelled to Syria and yet they were still able to board a Turkish Airlines flight at Gatwick which landed at Istanbul on Tuesday evening.

Syria is a dangerous place and we don’t want you to go there. Get in touch with the police and they will help to bring you home. You are not in any trouble.

Family statement

Meanwhile, Sky News has discovered a tweet sent from Begum’s Twitter account two days earlier, asking a friend already in Syria to follow her so they can start messaging privately. The friend is understood to be a former private school pupil from Glasgow who travelled to Syria to marry a fighter. In a statement the Metropolitan Police said they found “nothing” in December to indicate the girls were likely to flee.