Tri-Service

British Schoolgirl Who Joined Daesh Feared Dead

A schoolgirl from the Bethnal Green Academy may have been killed in an airstrike on Raqqa earlier this year, it has emerged.

According to the BBC, the family of Kadiza Sultana had heard a report about her death several weeks ago but have been unable to ascertain its validity.

More: 'The Battle For The Minds Of Young Muslims'

The family's lawyer said that 16-year-old Kadiza, who left for Syria with two friends in 2015, had become disillusioned with Daesh and wanted to return to the UK but was being very careful about leaving. He said:

"In the week where she was thinking of these issues a young Austrian girl had been caught trying to leave ISIS territory and was by all reports beaten to death publicly".

The girls from Bethnal Green are three of 800 Britons thought to have gone to join Daesh.

More: 'Why Does Islamic State Hate Being Called 'Daesh'?'

Sara Khan from the counter-extremism group Inspire has said that girls Kadiza's age are victims because they are not adults and lack critical thinking skills and that girls like her being exposed to extremism were "not receiving counter messages".

Following the 9/11 attacks, the government initiated a counter-extremist strategy known as Prevent but, as the BBC's Dominic Casciani has explained, their efforts soon attracted a great deal of criticism.

When the Coalition government came to power in 2010, they set about improving the program - as Home Secretary, Theresa May wrote the following:

"The Prevent programme we inherited from the last Government was flawed. It confused the delivery of Government policy to promote integration with Government policy to prevent terrorism. It failed to confront the extremist ideology at the heart of the threat we face; and in trying to reach those at risk of radicalisation, funding sometimes even reached the very extremist organisations that Prevent should have been confronting".

But Kadiza Sultana's local MP Rushanara Ali says that the new Prevent strategy clearly isn't working either:

"I have huge concerns about the way it's been implemented. Some of it can be quite misguided and what (the government) needs to do is do a proper assessment of what's working and what's not and then they need to listen to the Muslim community who want to make sure that the dangers that particularly the Muslim community themselves and their children face, they need (protection and that requires partnership between communities)".

The Foreign Office has advised against any travel to Syria, and that, because consular services there have been suspended, it is very hard to get specific details on those that have gone".