Bethnal Green trio

On 17 February 2015, Abase, Begum, and Sultana flew via Turkish Airlines from Gatwick Airport in West Sussex, England, to Istanbul, Turkey. Their families went to Turkey in March to investigate their disappearance, deeming the police investigation inadequate. Their disappearance has been attributed to Aqsa Mahmood, a woman from Glasgow who joined ISIL in 2013. There were electronic communications between the girls and Mahmood. Mahmood denies the allegations. In March 2015, footage was circulated of Abase Hussen, father of Amira Abase, at a 2012 rally led by Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary against the film Innocence of Muslims. The Metropolitan Police examined the footage but said that it was unlikely that offences had been committed. Hussen said in April that he felt ashamed of his involvement in the rally, as he did not know who had organised it. Begum married Dutch Islamic convert and IS jihadi fighter Yago Riedijk just days after arriving in Raqqa. They had three children who died from malnutrition and disease. ==Aftermath==

In the UK, the disappearance resulted in the Metropolitan Police giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons on its circumstances in March 2015. British Prime Minister David Cameron said that individual institutions should not be made into "scapegoats" for the disappearance of the three girls. Contrary to the stance of the Metropolitan Police, Cameron said, "Whoever has gone out to join a terrorist organisation is breaking the law and has to face the consequences of breaking the law and we have to let the law take its course in the proper way". In March 2015, a travel ban was imposed upon five girls from the Bethnal Green Academy due to concerns from social services that the girls attend the same school as the three who had already joined the group, stating that it was in the public interest. It was reported that the Bethnal Green Trio were married to foreign jihadists, and that they then moved into the homes of their new husbands in ISIL's de facto capital of Raqqa. Sultana was said to have married an American ISIL fighter with Somali heritage, but wanted to return to the UK after he was killed in battle. She married a second time after her first husband was killed, and died with her second husband in a Russian airstrike. Her family said in a phone interview with ITV in August 2016 she died in an airstrike in May 2016 at the age of 17 while planning to escape. The lawyer who represents the family of the teenagers, Tasnime Akunjee, told ITV that she became too scared of making an escape attempt after another girl, Samra Kesinovic, was beaten to death for trying to escape. Abase married an 18-year-old Australian jihadist, Abdullah Elmir, in July 2016 who was reported by Australian intelligence agencies to have been killed in coalition airstrikes. Abase is also believed to be dead. Her nom de guerre was found online, on a document titled "In loving memory of the shahada", a collection of English-language obituaries of ISIL members, along with those of Sultana and her husband. Per the document, during ISIL's last stand at Al-Baghuz Fawqani, Abase was killed by artillery fire while in a trench with other ISIL women and children after they refused to surrender. They had three children, all now dead. As of 11 November 2022, Begum was being held in a detention camp in the northeastern part of Syria near her imprisoned husband. ==See also==