AhlulBayt News Agency - ABNA - Shia News
http://en.abna24.comhttp://en.abna24.com/service/europe/archive/2016/02/23/736591/story.html
Girl who fled to Syria made 'terrible mistake' now family at threat from ISIS
The family of the teenage girl received a phone call at Christmas but are now under protection after she told them she wanted to leave ISIS and return home
AhlulBayt News Agency - A girl who ran away from home to join ISIS in Syria called her parents to tell them she made a terrible mistake.
Now the family are under protection over fears her plans to defect from the terror group could lead to reprisals back home in Italy.
In an emotional telephone call Meriem Rehaily told her parents: "I'm sorry. I want to come home."
But that call has now led to her family being put under constant surveillance as authorities fear they could be targeted by the unrelenting terror organisation.
Meriem, 19, is of Moroccan descent but lived in Arzergrande, a commune near Padua in north-east Italy with her family.
She is now believed to be in terrible danger after fleeing to the war-torn Middle Eastern country.
According to reports the teenager lived a 'typical' teen lifestyle but became radicalised.
She fled to join ISIS last July, but she has apparently now had a change of heart.
The family said she had been brainwashed.
The phone call in which she apparently changed her mind happened near Christmas and has been revealed now by security services.
It is unclear why the Italian security services released the information about the phone call but the security group have said they intend to safeguard the teenager and her family.
They have also said they are taking fear of retaliation against the girl's family over her defection very seriously.
Her family meanwhile have said they are very worried about the young woman who had boasted after being signed up as an IT technician for ISIS assisting fighters who did not want to be traced over the Internet.
Logged in under the name of Sister Rim, she had even said that holy war was part of a religion and drafted 'killing lists' naming the heads of Italian police forces and placing their photographs and addresses so that they could be targeted.
She was reportedly part of the Caliphate of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi responsible for cyber-jihad.
She had started getting involved in February before eventually getting a flight from Bologna to Turkey and then heading to Syria.
She had told her parents she was visiting friends but they never saw her again, and later she posted online: "We are terrorists and terror is part of our faith.
"I have supported my State in front of a computer and I'm not turning back. If I had to, I would also do it on the battlefield."
A local imam in Italy, Kamel Layachi, said meanwhile that the revelation meant that the girl's life was in great danger as anybody that wanted to leave faced death.
