There is much to be said for Rod Liddle’s view that the fuss over the aspiring jihadi brides from the Bethnal Green Academy is getting on for preposterous and we shouldn’t, to put it mildly, over-exert ourselves to get them back. One takes the point, though I think in fairness we should spare a thought for those on the receiving end of the Isis recruitment drive, viz, the unfortunate indigenous communities in Syria and Iraq who are on the sharp end of Islamic State’s advance.
I don’t know how many of the Assyrian Christians who didn’t manage to get away from the Isis attack this week on villages in north Eastern Syria were teenage or prepubescent girls, but I’d be a bit concerned about them myself. Certainly we know from the accounts of the even more unfortunate Yazidis that some jihadist wives preside over households that include sexual slaves captured by Isis – they featured in a harrowing Channel 4 news report recently – so I think we can add to the roster of duties that may be in store for Shamima Begum and Amira Abase, both 15, and 16-year-old Kadiza Sultana, the supervision of infidel concubines their own age or younger.
This wasn’t, as it happens, mentioned in an encouraging message to would-be jihadist brides from the Glaswegian recruit, Aqsa Mahmood, 20, who is said to have encouraged the girls via Twitter to come in, the water’s fine.
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