Meet The British Women Jihadis Fighting For IS

An elite militia of British women has been put in charge of stamping out ‘immoral’ behaviour at the heart of the Islamic State (IS).

Sixty women from the UK have reached IS forces in Iraq and Syria, with many tweeting from the captured Syrian city of Raqqa.

Monitoring groups say that some have joined the feared al-Khansaa brigade, an all-female morality police which patrols the city, hunting for deviation from ultra-strict Sharia law.

With as many as 500 female jihadis thought to have arrived from overseas, experts say the British contingent has impressed IS commanders with its extremism.

Among its leaders are Aqsa Mahmood, 20, a former medical student from Glasgow who has praised the killers of Lee Rigby and the Boston bombers.

Her distraught parents said last week they felt ‘betrayed’ by their daughter after she told her followers: ‘If you cannot make it to the battlefield, then bring the battlefield to yourself.’

Also involved is Umm Farriss, the first British woman to picture herself wearing a suicide bomb.

Melanie Smith of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) said: ‘The British women are some of the most zealous in imposing the IS laws.

'I believe that’s why at least four have been chosen to join the women police force.’

‘We think it’s a mixture of British and French women but its social media accounts are run by the British and they are written in English.’

Raqqa is believed to be where Scottish aid worker David Haines is being held hostage, and where the British IS leader dubbed ‘Jihadi John’ is thought to have filmed the beheading of US hostages James Foley and Steven Sotloff.

Ms Smith told the Sunday Telegraph that many of the British women move in the same circle as the killer and are likely to know his identity.

Others known to be in the city include Khadijar Dare, 25, a mother-of-one from south London who earlier this month tweeted her hope of becoming the first female hostage killer.

Sixteen-year-old twins Salma and Zahra Halane are both thought to have married jihadis since leaving their Manchester home in June.

While former Kent housewife Sally Jones, 45, tweeted: ‘You Christians all need beheading with a nice blunt knife and stuck on the railings at Raqqa.

‘Come here I’ll do it for you!’

But Sarah Khan of counter-extremism group, Inspire, said that female recruits will be disillusioned.

‘It’s often women who are bigger enforcers of patriarchy than men, but if you look at Islamic history there’s never been any notion of morality police, it’s absurd.’

‘Give it a few months or years it’s going to hit them and they are inevitably going to want to come back.’