Dads beg wives not to join ISIS in Syria with their 9 kids
LONDON -- British police weren't much closer Wednesday to finding out what exactly has become of three sisters and their children, all of whom are believed to have left England to join their brother in the territory of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
A lawyer for the three women's husbands says there was no evidence of extremism, but CBS News correspondent Charlie D'Agata says their brother is thought to be fighting with the extremists in Syria, and the men fear their 12 family members have gone to join him.
It is a plea and a narrative that has become all too familiar in Britain.
Akhtar Iqbal and Mohammed Shoaib fear they may already have lost their wives and nine children to ISIS.
"I don't know what to say, I'm shaking, and I miss you, it's been too many days," pleaded Iqbal at a news conference on Tuesday. "I don't know where are you. Please, please come back home."
Zohra Dawood, her children aged eight and five, Khadiga Dawood and her five and seven-year-olds, and the eldest sister, Sugra Dawood, with her five children, including three-year-old Ismaeel, the youngest of those missing, and his five year old sister Mariya, should have returned to their homes in northern England earlier this month.
The men alerted police after their wives and children went missing following a religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. Instead of coming back home back home, they boarded a flight to Istanbul, Turkey -seemingly following the trail ISIS recruits commonly take to reach and cross the border into Syria.
Their disappearance has forced the community to question how three mothers could take their young children from the peace and security of their modest home in Britain to the killing fields of Syria.
The case has recalled the three British schoolgirls who made the same journey earlier this year, and who are now believed to be in the ISIS headquarters of Raqqa, in Syria.
Mohammed Shoaib is hoping the women or their children will hear -- and heed -- their plea before it's too late.
"Kids, please, contact me wherever you are, and I will come down, and I will bring you home. There's no problem coming to you, please come back, that's it," Shoaib said Tuesday.
The West Yorkshire Police said later Wednesday that there was reason to believe at least some of the 12 might already have crossed the border into Syria.
"Contact has been made by one of the missing women and there is an indication that they may have already crossed the border into Syria but this is uncorroborated," the police said in a written statement, without elaborating.
What is known, says D'Agata, is that in almost all cases, once somebody enters the world of ISIS and comes under their control, it is virtually impossible to turn back.