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Officials: 3 Denver girls played hooky from school and tried to join ISIS

(CNN) -- The first indication that something was wrong was a phone call from his daughter's Denver area school to let Assad Ibrahim know that she had not come to class.

He dialed her cell. And she answered. But, officials say, she didn't tell him that she was on her way to Syria to join ISIS.[I can sympathize; it's awfully tough sometimes to get a teenager to give you all the details...]

She was just late for class, that's all, Ibrahim's daughter told him on Friday, according to the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office, which filed a runaway report.

The American girl of Sudanese descent also kept quiet about her two girlfriends, Americans of Somali descent, who were flying with her to Turkey by way of Germany.

Those two had told their father, Ali Farah, that they were going to the library.

But when Farah got home from work, a visitor came calling, according to the documents. Apparently, it was Ibrahim.

Farah should check to see if his daughters' passports were missing, the visitor told him -- just like his daughter's passport was.

Sure enough, they were gone, along with $2,000 in cash.

The two families called the FBI. They said they thought the girls were on their way to Turkey.

The agency put out a notice on their passports.

German authorities intercepted the trio, ages 15, 16 and 17, at Frankfurt airport and put them on a plane back to the United States, where they were greeted by FBI agents.

The three girls were questioned and released. Two U.S. officials say they had planned to join militants with ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

In Denver, the 17-year-old girl was apparently the instigator of the trip, having planned it for months, two U.S. officials said.

But all three researched the plan online, visiting websites where extremists discuss how to get to Syria. The online activity didn't set off any tripwires the FBI typically uses to flag possible jihadist sympathizers, the officials said.

The FBI is combing all of their communications to see if anyone was helping them. Their parents think ISIS was behind the trip.

Investigators are also not sure the girls had even worked out the final goal for their travel.

A fourth man from Portsmouth who went to fight in Syria for Islamic State (IS) is believed to have been killed.

Mehdi Hassan, 19, travelled to the country with a group of four other men in October 2013.

A photo of his body emerged on Twitter on Friday and his family confirmed earlier to their local mosque they had received news of his death.

Iftekar Jaman, Mamunur Roshid and Hamidur Rahman have previously been killed in the fighting.

In a statement, the Foreign Office said it had not received any reports about Mr Hassan's death but was "aware of reports about the death of a British national in Syria".

A mother who loves watching The Only Way Is Essex and listening to the Spice Girls is believed to have left Britain for Syria with her 14-month-old son.



Former Girl Guide Tareena Shakil, 25, of Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, is said to have travelled to Turkey and crossed into Syria - despite telling her family she was going on holiday to Spain.

Miss Shakil turned to ISIS over a four-month period and has told her family that she is now in the terrorist group’s stronghold of Raqqa with her son Zaheem, according to her father Mohammed.

He told The Sun: ‘There was no reason to suspect. She left wearing jeans and a top she bought in a shop owned by one of the Towie stars. My little grandson shouldn't be going through this.’

Former school prefect Miss Shakil, who is divorced, reportedly set up a Facebook account with a false name and began posting pro-ISIS messages - even describing herself as a 'slave to Allah'.

She set up a Facebook profile under the name of ‘Tameena al Amirah’ in July and posted pro-Islamic messages, before displaying photographs of Muslim fighters and the ISIS black flag.

Then she left home on Monday with her son. Mr Shakil told Sun reporter Michael Hamilton: 'Tareena did drama and was in the Guides. She loved the Spice Girls and Towie.'

He added: 'We are absolutely distraught that our beautiful, bright, intelligent daughter has chosen this path. Tareena and I were incredibly close and I always thought she would share everything with me.