Austria

• 2014 - 2015
• Austria

Identification of the Source

Mindb4Act Project report

Description

They left Austria to join the Jihad and emigrate to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in April 10, 2014;
XX3 was arrested for his role in an alleged terrorist funding network based in Austria in November 2015.
In December 2015, a Tunisian woman who defected from ISIS told that she and the 17-years-old XX2 were kept together in a house in Syria where they were forced to provide sexual acts for jihadist and new recruits.

Type of Crime

Two adolescent women from Austria joined the Jihad and emigrated to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Modus Operandi

- Identify possible technologies, which helped in committing the crime(s)
The young women gathered information about the Jihad and IS from the Internet.
- Which tools have been used for passing information; technological tool, networking of people, family etc.
Their families reported them missing after they disappeared from their homes in Vienna.
The girls reportedly left a note for their parents, but they did not believe the girls authored the messages.
XX1 and XX2, who became propaganda poster girls for the Islamist group, posted in Syria photographs on social media of themselves wearing full-length burqas, Islamic headbands and brandishing assault weapons (AK-47s), surrounded by masked male jihadists. Short after the girls fled to join the Jihad, XX1 allegedly tweeted: “Here I can really be free. I can practice my religion. I couldn’t do that in Vienna.”

People involved

XX1 and XX2;
XX3, a Bosnian Salafist preacher living in Vienna known by the Islamic name of XX3;
Other relevant stakeholders involved: Austrian Police, Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior, Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Intelligence Services, Interpol, Europol, social environment of the missing, family, friends.

Criminal History

Their parents and families came to Austria during the Bosnian War in the 1990s.

Influential and/or vulnerable Groups

It is thought that they were lured by extremists.