A UN official says one of two Austrian girls who fled their middle class homes in Vienna to fight in Syria has definitely died in the conflict. The two girls, Samra Kesinovic, 17, and 15-year-old Sabina Selimovic, whose parents are Bosnian refugees, disappeared in April after saying that they wanted to fight in Syria. They first went to Ankara by plane, and then on into the southern Turkish region of Adana. For a while, no one heard from them. But they appeared on social media brandishing Kalashnikov rifles and surrounded by armed men - photos which police said acted as recruitment posters for young girls.
David Scharia, a senior Israeli expert of the UN Security Council's Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTED) said, "We received information just recently about two 15-year-old girls, of Bosnian origin, who left Austria, where they had been living in recent years; and everyone, the families and the intelligence services of the two countries, is looking for them. Both were recruited by Islamic State. One was killed in the fighting in Syria, the other has disappeared."The confirmation comes three months after Austria's government said it had informed the parents of the girls that one of them might have been killed.
An Islamic cleric from Bosnia living in Vienna, Mirsad O., known by the Islamic name of 'Ebu Tejma', was alleged to be responsible for the radicalization of the two young girls. Authorities say he brainwashed them into joining the jihad. He denies it.
Mirsad O. was arrested for his role in an alleged terrorist funding network based in Austria in November.It is believed both Samra and Sabina married IS jihadis soon after arriving in Syria. The two couples initially lived in the same room but the 15-year-old has reportedly now moved out to a different apartment.
Speaking by text messages to French weekly Paris Match, Sabina denied reports she was pregnant and insisted she was enjoying life in Syria, where she felt free to practice Islam in a way that she did not in Austria. The magazine did manage to confirm she had only been allowed to speak to them with the permission of her husband, who was in the room when she wrote her answers.
She said after arriving in Turkey they crossed into Syria on foot. They ended up in the city of Raqqa, arriving with nothing other than the clothes they were wearing. Sabina said her husband was a soldier and proclaimed, "Here I can really be free. I can practice my religion. I couldn't do that in Vienna."