“We so relieved, so happy that she has not gone abroad,” says her mother, and so now Assia Saidi is safely still in France instead of joining the jihad in Syria. What could possibly go wrong?
Neither al-Qaeda nor any other jihadist group ever had the appeal that the Islamic State has for young Muslims in the West. This demonstrates the power of its claim to have restored the caliphate.
“French teen girl stopped ‘on way to jihad in Syria,’” AFP, October 5, 2014:
A 15-year-old French girl was in police custody Sunday after she disappeared from her family home in southern France, suspected of wanting to travel to Syria to wage jihad.
Assia Saidi was “found on Saturday night by her parents in a bar, near Marseille station, where she had been working for a few days,” a source close to the investigation told AFP.
Investigators discovered a Facebook page under a pseudonym which “unequivocally” showed she was planning “to leave France and wage jihad,” according to prosecutors.
“That was the goal,” the girl told LCI television, before admitting she had quickly changed her mind….
Her mother told BFMTV: “We decided to go to Marseille. We looked for her all day … she threw herself into our arms. We’re so happy. Everyone hugged, cried, laughed.”
“We so relieved, so happy that she has not gone abroad,” the mother said.