READ THE REPORT: “From Teenage Colorado Girls to Islamic State Recruits”
Three Arapahoe County girls stopped on their way to join the Islamic State interacted through Twitter with high-level militant recruiters who had already lured several Westerners to Syria, according to a new report from an international terror monitoring group.
The Westerners included a 33-year-old Minnesota man believed to be the first American killed fighting for the Islamic State.
The Search for International Terrorist Entities Intelligence Group, also known as SITE, said Tuesday it also found the teen-agers were sharing militant recruitment videos. Those included a lecture by Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-turned-al-Qaida-leader killed in a 2011 U.S. drone strike in Yemen.
“The girls followed online jihadists from around the world, including the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands and Syria,” Rita Katz, director and co-founder of the Bethesda, Md.-based nongovernmental organization, said in the report.
The report offered new details that highlight the seriousness of their efforts and how close the girls came to joining other Westerners who were drawn to Syria and jihad — some of whom died and others who launched attacks.
German authorities, acting on a tip from the FBI, stopped the three girls, a 16-year-old girl of Sudanese descent, and two 15- and 17-year-old sisters of Somali descent, in Frankfurt before they reached their intended destination in Syria. The girls used stolen and saved funds to pay cash for airline tickets and were reported missing by their parents Oct. 17.
The teens were escorted back to the U.S. by federal agents two days later. The Denver Post is not identifying the girls out of concerns for their safety.
In addition to conversing with recruiters, one of the girls also followed a Twitter account called “Jihadi News,” the report found. The same account was avidly followed by Martin Rouleau, 25, who last month drove his car into two Canadian soldiers in Quebec, killing one before committing suicide by cop.
Jihadi News retweeted one of the girls’ tweets asking for prayers and posted hours before the three left on their trip to Syria.
“The process they underwent — from use of social media, radicalization, recruitment online, even through the actual travel route to join the Islamic State — all follow the exact same pattern shared by several hundred Westerners,” wrote Katz, who has called the girls’ attempted trip a “case study.”
An earlier SITE report found the girls had radicalized over a period of months on social media sites, quickly rejecting western culture for jihadi ideals.
The new report found further signs of their radicalization, including a message from one of the girls who shared a Tweet from a recruiter: “I love my mother, but my love for jihad and my lord (is) greater.”
Several months before the girls left the country, one said she hoped to get married “as soon as possible, (God willing).”
The father of the Sudanese girl, who spoke to The Post on the condition of anonymity, relayed a similar account of his daughter’s interest in radical Islam, as did officials from the Cherry Creek School District where the girls attend high school.
“She’s OK,” the father said of his daughter on Tuesday. “Things are getting better but slowly. We are moving forward.”
Social media accounts associated with the girls have been deleted.
Farah Mohamed Shirdon, a top Islamic State recruiter who was interacting on Twitter with one of the girls, also helped encourage Douglas McAuthur McCain, 33, of Minnesota, to go to Syria, the report says.
McCain had apparently entered Syria and into Islamic State territory by way of Turkey, according to Voice of America. McCain — who last lived in San Diego where he worked at a restaurant before he left for Syria — was killed in August during a battle with the Free Syrian Army, according to the Associated Press.
“What it really demonstrates is the tremendous power of social media,” said Jonathan Adelman, a professor at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies. “They are out there on Facebook. They are out there on Twitter. They are reaching out without any intermediaries.”
SITE analyzed the girls’ social media postings because of its interest in threat analysis and terrorists’ increasing use of social media for recruitment, Katz said. The findings are for academic and industry use and were posted on the group’s blog, which provided daily analysis of militant postings, focusing recently on the Islamic State.
Federal officials estimate there are roughly 100 Americans fighting for the Islamic State in the Middle East.
Charges against the teens have not been filed and experts say they are extremely unlikely because juveniles are rarely federally charged.
Jesse Paul: 303-954-1733, jpaul@denverpost.com or twitter.com/JesseAPaul
Staff librarian Vickie Makings contributed to this story.
