A young woman who fled Manchester to join Islamic State with her twin sister has been moved to a high-security Syrian detention camp with her young son.
Twin sisters Salma and Zahra Halane fled their home in Chorlton when they were 16 years old to travel to Syria in June 2014.
They were described as academically gifted but were said to have become radicalised and ran away overnight to join a so-called ISIS ‘caliphate’.
But after ISIS lost its last territory to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in March 2019, the fate of the two young women was unknown.
Zahra Halane (above), who fled to Syria when she was 16 with her twin sister in June 2014, has reportedly been moved after trying to escape from Al Hol camp
Sources in northeast Syria have told The Telegraph that Zahra was recently caught trying to escape from the Al Hol camp, where she had spent 16 months.
Ten thousand foreign women and children live in Al Hol, in a crowded annex separate from more than 55,000 Syrian and Iraqi citizens in the camp.
Last week, Zahra was reportedly transferred out of a women’s prison to a new high-security extension to Roj camp in northeast Syria with her son Ismail, who is thought to be four or five years old.
But there are concerns from humanitarians that some of the most dangerous ISIS supporters have been moved to the new extension, camp sources told The Telegraph.
Zahra and Salma, who have become known in Britain as the ‘terror twins’, remain committed ISIS supporters, women in Al Hol camp have claimed.
Salma’s whereabouts are unknown but it is believed that she is still alive, while her son was reportedly killed in fighting at Baghouz.
In December 2013, Salma was caught viewing ISIS propaganda at their sixth form college, which included images of a suicide vest, a boy with a machine gun and a British jihadist in Syria.
The whereabouts of Salma Halane are unknown but it is believed that she is still alive, while her son was reportedly killed in fighting at Baghouz
Zahra has been moved to a high-security extension of Roj camp (above) in Hasakah, northeast Syria, which is controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)
The college did not alert the police at the time because she claimed that she was trying to find her older brother, who had previously travelled to Syria to fight.
The twins, who have an older sister and seven brothers, left their fled their family home having stolen £840 from their father and crossed into Syria in July 2014.
Both young women moved to Raqqa, the capital of the caliphate, and married Islamic State fighters.
Last month, Russia Today Arabic interviewed an unnamed woman after she was caught trying to escape from Al Hol camp. The Telegraph have reportedly identified the woman as Zahra.
Speaking Arabic, the woman said: ‘I want to go back home.
‘If you have money, there are different ways [of escaping] and it happens very fast. You can get to Turkey easily.’
The twin sisters whereabouts became unknown after ISIS lost its last territory in March 2019. Pictured, an unidentified woman walks in Roj camp in March 2019
Corrupt guards and drivers have reportedly used hidden compartments inside water tanks to smuggle people out of Al Hol and into Turkey.
A Turkish woman who escaped from Al Hol said she knew the twins for ‘over five years’, both in the Islamic State and in the camp.
Speaking of Zahra’s escape attempt, she anonymously told The Telegraph: ‘I don’t know where the other one might be honestly but they left together.’
The twins, who lived in Denmark before moving to Manchester when they were young, are believed to have told camp authorities they want to return there.
The UK Government is believed to have subjected the sisters to an exclusion order and revoked their residency, according to their mother Khadra Jama.