Man suspected of helping British schoolgirls join Isis arrested in Turkey

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/12/man-british-schoolgirls-join-isis-arrested-turkey

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A man has been arrested in Turkey for allegedly helping three British schoolgirls cross into Syria to join Islamic State militants.

Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, said the man was an intelligence agent working for one of the states in the US-led coalition fighting against Isis.

Shamima Begum, 15, Amira Abase, 15, and Kadiza Sultana, 16, left their homes in east London last month to join the extremist group. Their families have criticised the police for not doing enough to stop them.

Related: London schoolgirls' Syria checklist found in bedroom

On Thursday, Çavuşoğlu told Turkey’s state broadcaster: “Do you know who was the person who helped these girls? This person was caught. It turned out to be someone who worked in the intelligence services of a country in the coalition.”

He said the agent was neither a national of an EU state nor the US, but did not give any further detail about how or where the alleged spy was captured.

Çavuşoğlu said he had informed his British counterpart, Philip Hammond, of the development. “He told me ‘just as usual’,” said Çavuşoğlu, without explaining further.

Some early reports linked the man to Canada but a government source in Ottawa said the person was not a Canadian citizen and was not employed by its intelligence services.

The girls, all pupils from the Bethnal Green academy in east London, crossed into Syria after boarding a flight from London to Istanbul on 17 February. They took a bus from Istanbul to the south-eastern Turkish city of Sanliurfa close to the Syrian border, from where they are believed to have crossed the frontier.

Çavuşoğlu’s comments come amid growing irritation among Turkish officials over repeated criticism from the west that Ankara is not doing enough to stop jihadis and their sympathisers crossing from Turkey into Syria.

Turkey had last month accused Britain of a “reprehensible” delay in informing the Turkish authorities over the departure to its territory of the three teenage girls.

The families said police had failed to tell them that a 15-year-old schoolfriend of the girls, who disappeared two months earlier, had gone to Syria to join Isis. Had they known, they say, they would have been alerted to the fact that their children might be in danger.

The families also said police failed to pass them potentially crucial information 12 days before the three friends boarded a flight for Turkey.

On Thursday, a spokesman for the Met said it had heard the reports of an arrest in Turkey but had yet to verify them.

Thousands of foreigners from more than 80 nations, including Britain, other parts of Europe, China and the US have joined the ranks of Isis and other radical groups in Syria and Iraq, many crossing through Turkey.