British teen who ran away to Islamic State said killed in airstrike

Kadiza Sultana’s story, together with those of fellow IS-inspired youth, showcases the lure of the jihadist group for some Muslim youth

British media on Thursday reported that a 15-year-old schoolgirl from east London was killed in airstrikes after she fled England for Syria to marry an Islamic State fighter.

Kadiza Sultana went to Syria in February 2015, together with school friends Shamima Begum and Amira Abase, according to The Guardian newspaper.

The UK daily describes the three school friends as “gifted students at the Bethnal Green academy before being lured by Isis [IS] propaganda.”

ITV News reported that Sultana likely died in a May airstrike by a Russian bomber on a residential building where she lived in the jihadist group’s de facto Syrian capital of Raqqa.

ITV quoted her sister Halima Khanom as saying, “We were expecting this, in a way. But at least we know she is in a better place.”

The channel spoke to locals in Syria and family members in London who said Sultana was disillusioned with life under the Islamic State and was planning an escape back to the West when she was killed in the bombing.

“It is believed she was killed before she could flee, after the property she was staying in was obliterated by the airstrike in May,” the report claimed.

According to the Guardian, British officials could not confirm the report, but said the Foreign Office said in a statement that “the UK has advised for some time against all travel to Syria. As all UK consular services there are suspended, it is extremely difficult to confirm the status and whereabouts of British nationals in Syria. Anyone who does travel to these areas, for whatever reason, is putting themselves in considerable danger.”

Security footage of three British schoolgirls, left tor right, Kadiza Sultana, Shamima Begum, and Amira Abase, passing through security checks at Gatwick airport. (London Metropolitan Police) — Security footage of three British schoolgirls (left to right), Kadiza Sultana, Shamima Begum, and Amira Abase, passing through security checks at Gatwick Airport. (London Metropolitan Police)

Tasnime Akunjee, an attorney for Sultana’s family, told the daily that “the family are devastated. A number of sources have said that she has been killed and she has not been in contact with the family for several weeks. Over a year ago, she had been talking about leaving. There was a plan to get her out.”

Attempting to leave the group can be dangerous, even life-threatening, as it seeks to stem the tide of manpower losses and disillusionment amid a year-long retreat in the face of concerted international and local military efforts to push back the Sunni extremist group.

“One European female caught trying to flee is reported to have been publicly beaten to death by Isis,” the Guardian noted.

ITV aired a phone call between Sultana and her sister before her death in which Sultana is heard saying, “I don’t have a good feeling. I feel scared…. If something goes wrong, that’s it. I will never be with you…. You know the borders are closed right now, so how am I going to get out?”

The girls’ stories — all three were married to IS-chosen fighters, while two were widows within months — highlight the powerful attraction that IS’s puritanical, violent form of Islam held for some young Muslims in the West.

“Perhaps the only benefit out of this is as a tombstone and a testimony for others of the risks of actually going to a war zone, to dissuade people from ever making that choice,” said Akunjee.