Kadiza Sultana: Schoolgirl who joined IS feared dead
Bethnal Green teenager who ran away to Syria reportedly 'died in an air strike weeks ago'

A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Thank you for signing up to TheWeek. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.
A London schoolgirl who travelled to Syria to join Islamic State is thought to have been killed by a Russian air strike in Raqqa, her family's solicitor said.
Kadiza Sultana was 16 when she and friends Shamima Begum and Amira Abase, both 15, left Bethnal Green in February 2015, telling their parents they were going out for the day. Instead, they travelled to Syria via Turkey.
The three girls, who were pupils at Bethnal Green Academy, were later said to have reached the IS stronghold of Raqqa, where two of them were said to have married.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
In phone calls to her sister, filmed for ITV News, Sultana said she had been married to an IS fighter who had later been killed and that she wanted to return to the UK but was "scared".
The family's solicitor, Tasnime Akunjee, told the BBC they had heard reports of Sultana's death weeks ago but had not been able to independently verify them.
The family was "devastated" and Sultana's death was a "great loss to us all", he continued, adding that Sultana had been disenchanted with what she found in Syria and had wanted to return to the UK.
He said: "The problem with that was the risk factors around leaving are quite terminal also, in that if [IS] were able to detect and capture you then their punishment is quite brutal for trying to leave.
"In the week where she was thinking of these issues, a young Austrian girl had been caught trying to leave ISIS territory and was by all reports beaten to death publicly, so - given that that was circulated in the region as well as outside - I think Kadiza took that as a bad omen and decided not to take the risk."
He added: "I think she found out pretty quickly that the propaganda doesn't match up with the reality."
The headteacher of Bethnal Green Academy, Mark Keary, said there was no evidence the three girls had been radicalised within the school and that they had not been able to access Twitter or Facebook from school computers.
Another girl from the academy is believed to have travelled to Syria in December 2014.
UK Police in Turkey to find girls 'hoping to joing Islamic State'
23 February
British police have arrived in Turkey to search for the three London schoolgirls believed to be travelling to Syria to join Islamic State.
The families of Shamima Begum, Amira Abase, both 15, and Kadiza Sultana, 16, have issued emotional appeals for the girls to return home after they flew to Turkey last week.
All three were studying for their GCSEs at Bethnal Green Academy in London and were last seen on Tuesday morning. They left their homes before 8.00am giving their families "plausible reasons" why they would be out for the day before travelling from Gatwick to Istanbul on a Turkish Airlines flight, said police.
Abase told her family she was going to a wedding and gave them "no sign to suspect her at all", said her father.
Officers from Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command have been working with authorities in Turkey to trace them.
Police spoke to the girls last December during an investigation into the disappearance of their friend, who is believed to be in Syria, but the Metropolitan Police said there was "nothing to suggest at the time that the girls themselves were at risk" and that their disappearance had "come as a great surprise, not least to their own families".
According to the BBC, Begum had sent a tweet to Aqsa Mahmood, a Glaswegian woman who travelled to Syria in 2013 to marry an IS militant. Mahmood's family say her Twitter account was being monitored by police, who should have taken action when Begum sent the message.
The Sunday Times suggests Kadiza Sultana had also sent out pro-IS messages on Twitter. A source at the Department for Education told the newspaper that counter-terrorism officers should have considered the risk that other girls from the academy might be tempted to follow their friend.
The Daily Telegraph says the girls are feared to have already crossed the Turkish border into Syria. A Turkish intelligence source told the newspaper that the girls had been seen in the Syrian border town of Tal Abyad on Friday, aided by a militant "smuggler".
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
Sign up to our 10 Things You Need to Know Today newsletter
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
-
Dodgy cash disguised as sandwiches
Tall Tales And other stories from the stranger side of life
By Chas Newkey-Burden Published
-
Argentinian police arrest biggest online distributor of Nazi propaganda
Speed Reads Officials seized hundreds of texts glorifying Adolf Hitler, denying Holocaust and bearing swastikas
By Harriet Marsden Published
-
How North Korean hackers stole billions in crypto
Speed Read Pyongyang-backed cyber gangs use ‘mixers’ to launder their criminal proceeds
By Chas Newkey-Burden Published
-
Brain-damaged seals attack bathers
feature And other stories from the stranger side of life
By Chas Newkey-Burden Published
-
Chinese secret police stations around the globe
feature Report claims Chinese citizens in exile are monitored and coerced by their own authorities
By The Week Staff Published
-
Turkish government blames Kurdish separatists for Istanbul bombing
Speed Read Blast in busy street on Sunday killed six people and wounded scores more
By Chas Newkey-Burden Published
-
Thousands attend vigils for Cassius Turvey in Australia
In Pictures Case of murdered Aboriginal schoolboy has ‘shocked’ the nation
By Chas Newkey-Burden Published
-
Multiple explosions in Kyiv after Crimea bridge attack
Speed Read President Zelenskyy says Moscow is ‘trying to wipe us off the face of the Earth’
By Chas Newkey-Burden Published