FBI: US girls may have tried to join jihadis
DENVER - Three teenage girls from suburban Denver may have been trying to join Islamic State militants in Syria after stealing their parents' money and flying to Germany, authorities said Tuesday.
The girls - two sisters, ages 17 and 15, and their 16-year-old friend - were reported missing after they skipped school Friday, but the families had no indication of where they might have gone, said Glenn Thompson, bureau chief of the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Department. They were stopped at the Frankfurt, Germany, airport over the weekend by FBI agents and returned to Colorado where they were reunited with their families, FBI spokeswoman Suzie Payne said.
A US official said the girls were headed toward Turkey en route to Syria and that investigators were now reviewing evidence, including the girls' computers. Another US official said the evidence gathered so far made it clear that the girls were headed to Syria, though the official said investigators were still determining what sort of contacts they had in that country. The official said investigators would be trying to figure out whether there were "like-minded" friends and acquaintances in the girls' social circle.
