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As their parents slept, they snuck out of their beds in the middle of the night in July last year, and flew from Manchester airport to Istanbul in Turkey.
From there, they slipped into Syria. It was feared that they had answered the call for Britons to join terror networks operating in Syria and Iraq, such as the Islamic State and Al Sham, an Al Qaeda splinter group.
The fears were not unfounded.
Twins Zahra and Salma Halane, 17, fled to Syria to marry Islamic State fighters posted pictures of themselves ‘training for self-defence’ on the social media. The picture she tweeted shows four veiled women training with AK-47 rifles, and handguns.
“I love the nickname terror twin… I sound scary,” tweeted one of the sisters.
The sisters were hard-working students, and were hoping to train as doctors. It was suspected that they had followed their elder brother, who also ditched his own academic career to join the IS around a year ago.
The ‘terror twins’ are believed to be a part of an all-female religious police brigade who enforce Sharia law on the streets of Raqqa in Syria.
Both of them have since been widowed.
They have previously tweeted a slew of fanatical messages, suggested one of her tweets, “I support the executions of Syrian soldiers.” It is still being investigated how the girls funded their trip, over fears they were bankrolled by jihadi fighters.
It is believed that as many as 1,000 Europeans may have travelled to Syria to fight alongside rebels. Many of them have posted messages online promising to use their ‘terror skills’ if they return to Britain.