By Lori Hinnant for HaaretzAP - A French Jewish teenager is among the approximately one hundred girls and young women who have left France to join jihad in Syria during the past 18 months.
According to a security official who spoke anonymously because rules forbid him to discuss open investigations, these girls come from all walks of life. They include first- and second-generation immigrants from Muslim countries, white French backgrounds - and one Jew.
These departures are less the whims of adolescents and more the highly organized conclusions of months of legwork by networks that specifically target young people in search of an identity, according to families, lawyers and security officials. These mostly online networks recruit girls to serve as wives, babysitters and housekeepers for jihadis, with the aim of planting multi-generational roots for an Islamic caliphate.
While girls are also coming from elsewhere in Europe, including between 20 and 50 from Britain, they pose a particular dilemma for France. The country has long had a troubled relationship with its Muslim community, the largest in Europe, and investigators say its recruitment networks are well developed. A bill in France's parliament would treat those who join jihad abroad as terrorists liable to arrest upon return, despite the pleas of distraught families that their girls are kidnap victims.
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