16 year olds Salma (centre left) and Zahra
Halane (centre right), who were among the top
20 students at their girls' school in Manchester,
left their parents' home in the middle of the night
and caught a flight to Turkey, before crossing
the border. Police said the pair are thought to
have followed their elder brother, who ditched his
own 'excellent' academic career to join the ISIS
terror group around a year ago. Friends said the
twins had appeared to be typical teenagers,
pouting for selfies & shopping at Primark - but
they are now feared to be training for battle.
Pictured left are visitors arriving at the family's
home. Continue to read full story...
Twin schoolgirls who followed their jihadi brother
to Syria were hard-working students who hoped
to train as doctors.
Sixteen-year-olds Salma and Zahra Halane, who
last summer achieved 28 GCSEs between them,
left their parents’ home in the middle of the night
and caught a flight to Turkey, before crossing
the border.
Police said the pair are thought to have followed
their elder brother, who ditched his own
‘excellent’ academic career to join the ISIS terror
group around a year ago.
Friends said the twins had appeared to be
typical teenagers, pouting for selfies and
shopping at Primark – but they are now feared
to be training for battle.
Last night a rebel fighter boasted that he was
teaching girls as young as 16 how to fight.
Yilmaz, a Dutch national who has been in Syria
for two years, told Sky News: ‘It’s extremely
easy to get here. People go on holiday ... they
end up in Syria.’
The twins’ parents raised the alarm last month,
after finding the girls’ beds empty and their
passports and clothes missing.
A former neighbour said the couple had been
‘quite strict’, and did not allow the girls to ‘mix
with other children on the street’. Others recalled
that the twins wore headscarves when they were
as young as nine. But Rhea Headlam, who sat
next to Zahra in primary school, said they were
‘just normal teenage girls’.
‘I’m really shocked – I used to bump into them
at Primark,’ she added. ‘They were both really
clever.’
Last summer Salma achieved 13 GCSEs – 11 of
them at grades A* to C – while Zahra passed
15, of which 12 were A*-C. The results put them
in the top 10 per cent of their year group at
Whalley Range High School for Girls in
Manchester.
They went on to study at Connell Sixth Form
College, where fellow students said they hoped
to follow in the footsteps of their elder sister
Hafsa, 25, who is at medical school in Denmark
after graduating from Manchester University.
‘The twins both have aspirations to become
doctors – that is their ambition,’ said one.
Another claimed it was ‘typical’ of the girls to
head to Syria ‘after they had finished term’,
adding: ‘They wouldn’t want to mess up their
education.
‘I’m shocked they have gone. They didn’t seem
to be radical or extremist in their views.’
It emerged yesterday that the girls’ devoutly
Muslim Somali refugee parents and their 11
children had been moved from an estate made
famous by the TV series Shameless to an
upmarket suburb, after telling the council they
needed more bedrooms.
They were given a six-bedroom end-terrace
despite the protests of the existing tenant.
Yesterday the large back and front gardens were
strewn with discarded household items and
children’s plastic toys.
The house's previous resident - a 40-year-old
Army heroine who served in Bosnia - said last
night she had been booted out of the house by
Manchester City Council so the twins and their
family could move in.
Former lance corporal Dawn Benjamin told The
Sun she had thought the house - her childhood
home - would be 'going to a good family'.
She added: 'I lost my life, memories, everything
I'd grown up with, to house jihadi wannabes'.
Ms Benjamin and her young son had to move out
after they were served with a court order. The
council confirmed the house had been needed for
a larger family.
Neighbours said the twins’ parents were keen to
share elements of Somalian culture with them,
taking round dishes of traditional delicacies for
them to try. The twins’ father Ibrahim is
understood to teach at a nearby mosque, where
leaders this week issued a statement repudiating
extremism and opposing violence of all kinds.
Mohammed Shafiq, of the Ramadan Foundation,
said the family were moderate Muslims who
know all about the dangers of war-torn
countries. ‘They were desperately unhappy to
discover [their son] had gone to Syria, and they
thought they were keeping a watchful eye on
their other children. Then this happens,’ he said.
Sources believe Salma and Zahra were inspired
by their brother’s transformation into a jihadi
fighter, and became radicalised themselves while
viewing extremist Islamist material online.
According to police sources, their brother also
travelled to the family’s native Somalia, where
he may have linked up with another Islamist
terror group al-Shabab.
A friend told The Sun the brother was known for
his ability to recite long passages of the Koran.
Officers are investigating how the girls funded
their own trip, over fears they have been
bankrolled by jihadi fighters who want them as
their wives.
Culled from UK Daily Mail
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