On February 17th, 2015, three teenage girls from Bethnal Green, London, boarded a flight at Gatwick Airport for Istanbul, Turkey. The schoolgirls — Amira Abase, Shamima Begum, and Kadiza Sultana — weren’t headed for a Mediterranean holiday; they were en route to Syria to join the Islamic State — otherwise known as ISIS or Daesh.

The news shocked the British public. Though thousands of men — and at least dozens of women — had already traveled from Europe to Syria and Iraq to join jihadist organizations, the idea that three straight-A students would run away from home to join a terrorist syndicate seemed incomprehensible.

So, why did Amira, Shamima, and Kadiza leave their relatively guarded lives in East London to join the Islamic State? What has happened to them in the meantime? And — most important to our discussion of the Syrian Civil War — what is to be done with the ISIS members who remain?

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Sources: https://bit.ly/3bhoMVw