3 girls skipped school to sneak off and join ISIS

Story highlights

All three girls skipped school and took a flight to Germany, wanted to go to Turkey

Officials say they were trying to make it to Syria to join ISIS

Two of the girls, of Somali descent, stole $2,000 from their parents

The trio was caught at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany

(CNN) —

The FBI, which is investigating why the girls left, is “aware of the situation and assisted with bringing the individuals back to Denver. That is all the information we can provide at this time,” said agency spokeswoman Sue Payne in Denver.

He dialed her cell. And she answered. But, officials say, she didn’t tell him that she was on her way to Syria to join ISIS.

She was just late for class, that’s all, Ibrahim’s daughter told him on Friday, according to the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office, which filed a runaway report.

The American girl of Sudanese descent also kept quiet about her two girlfriends, Americans of Somali descent, who were flying with her to Turkey by way of Germany.

Two more girls, sisters

Those two had told their father, Ali Farah, that they were going to the library.

But when Farah got home from work, a visitor came calling, according to the documents. Apparently, it was Ibrahim.

Farah should check to see if his daughters’ passports were missing, the visitor told him – just like his daughter’s passport was.

Sure enough, they were gone, along with $2,000 in cash.

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The two families called the FBI. They said they thought the girls were on their way to Turkey.

The agency put out a notice on their passports.

German authorities intercepted the trio, ages 15, 16 and 17, at Frankfurt airport and put them on a plane back to the United States, where they were greeted by FBI agents.

The three girls were questioned and released. Two U.S. officials say they had planned to join militants with ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Out of the blue

The girls’ parents say they had no idea their children planned to travel. None of them had ever run away before.

Their disappearance hit them out of the blue, the way other ISIS related incidents are popping up in the Western world. Two more turned up in tandem with the girls’ runaway attempt.

On Monday, a radical convert to Islam in Canada ran down two soldiers in his car, killing one of them. Martin Rouleau Couture, 25, then led police on a chase before his car rolled into a ditch in the town of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, southeast of Montreal.

He exited the car, and police shot him dead.

Back in July, Couture, too, had tried to join foreign jihad, and Canadian police arrested him on his way to Turkey. But they could not charge him and had to let him go.

And this week, a video turned up of a 17-year-old Australian boy standing with ISIS fighters and threatening to behead Western leaders, including President Obama, then fly the ISIS flag over the White House.

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ISIS’ draw

ISIS has, for an anti-Western organization, been surprisingly attractive to young recruits from the West, as well as to some young women.

More than 100 of the foreign fighters have come from the United States, according to intelligence estimates; hundreds more from Europe, which is geographically closer to the fight.

Every week, five more people from the UK alone join ISIS, a British police commissioner said Tuesday. And that’s a conservative estimate.

“We know that over 500 British nationals traveled to join the conflict,” said Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe from the Metropolitan Police.

“Five a week doesn’t sound much, but when you realize there are 50 weeks in a year, 250 more would be 50% more than we think have gone already,” he said.

To put things into perspective, though, thousands more come from the Middle East and Africa. More than 3,000 have joined from Tunisia.

Sense of belonging

It’s more than just a radical interpretation of Islam that is drawing teens to the extremely bloodthirsty militant group, a former CIA officer says.

“They’re often times searching for an identity, because what the jihadis are actually pushing is a specific narrative, which is: Your people (Muslims) are being oppressed in this place called Syria; your government is doing nothing; we’re the only ones who are actually going to help you out,” said Aki Peritz. “Why don’t you join the fight?”

Richard Barrett of The Soufan Group says many of the teens lack a sense of belonging where they live, and they believe ISIS can give it to them.

“The general picture provided by foreign fighters of their lives in Syria suggests camaraderie, good morale and purposeful activity, all mixed in with a sense of understated heroism, designed to attract their friends as well as to boost their own self-esteem,” he says.

And ISIS constantly cranks the PR machine, making expert use of slick videos and social media.