“Officials at the Cherry Creek School District, where all three attended high school, said it appeared the girls were victims of online predators.” It seems from news reports that every young Muslim from a Western country who tries to join the Islamic State has been “radicalized on the Internet.” That has become an easy way for authorities to avoid asking tough questions of the mosques in their own countries that they have been assiduously cultivating with “outreach” programs instead of monitoring or investigating.
But the question remains: why were these girls, and other young men and women like them, so susceptible to these online blandishments? Why didn’t they stop and say to the Islamic State recruiters, “You must be one of those Hijackers of Islam I have heard so much about, twisting my beautiful Religion of Peace and distorting its true, peaceful teachings”? Why didn’t they say, “No, no, no, you’re misunderstanding Islam, here are all the peaceful, tolerant Qur’anic teachings that I have learned at my local mosque”?
And why does it never seem to occur to law enforcement authorities to ask questions like these?
“Colorado teens talked to high-level ISIS terrorists before allegedly trying to join its ranks: analyst report,” by Deborah Hastings, New York Daily News, October 31, 2014:
The Denver teenagers who allegedly wanted to join ISIS had been conversing with Islamic State terrorists for nearly a year, according to a report released by a monitoring group.
The three girls had spoken via the Internet with at least two jihadists and a high-level handler and were quickly indoctrinated into radical views, the Denver Post reported, citing a new report by the Search for International Terrorist Entities Intelligence Group, also known as SITE.
The group looked at thousands of postings by the girls, ages 15, 16 and 17, over the past year. On Sept. 11, one of the girls tweeted “Muslims handing out apologies because of 9/11 are a disgrace to the (Muslim Nation),” the paper reported.
The teens were apprehended by German authorities in Frankfurt on Oct. 21, based on information supplied by the FBI. Two are sisters of Somali descent, the third is of Sudanese descent. They had stolen money from their parents and paid cash for their tickets, officials said. They were bound for Syria via stops in Frankfurt and Turkey….
Officials at the Cherry Creek School District, where all three attended high school, said it appeared the girls were victims of online predators. Fellow students alerted administrators of the girls’ tweets….
Federal authorities are examining the teenagers’ computers. No charges have been filed. The girls are back with their families.