Inside the Life of a 20-year-old Scottish Woman Who Ran Away to Become a Hardline Supporter of ISIS

Add Umm Layth AKA Aqsa Mahmood, a young Scottish Muslim woman who abandoned a comfortable middle-class background to join the Islamic State in Iraq and al Sham (ISIS) in Syria. caption

Aqsa Mahmood, the privately educated Scottish woman described by friends as clever and gifted, went missing from her tony Glasgow neighbourhood in November.

Now she’s emerged as an avid supporter of the hardline jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq & Al-Sham (ISIS) and is busy promoting it to her followers online.

 In a series of posts, she has described what it’s like to be a “sister” and encouraged other Muslims living in the West to take up the rebels’ cause.
Much has been written about young Muslim men who have left western countries for Syria, attracted by the image of adventure and camaraderie proliferated by rebel groups there. But less is known about the women who are drawn to ISIS and its self-proclaimed caliphate, which imposes such a hardline version of Islam even Al-Qaeda has disowned it.
“The message generally is, ‘Your life will be better than it is in whichever western country you live in,’ ” said Melanie Smith, a researcher at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence in London. “[ISIS] says they need women to make families and raise children who can carry on the same interpretation of Islam that they’re practising.”
The parents of Ms. Mahmood, 20, reported her missing soon after her disappearance. She surfaced in Syria a little... (click for more)