The parents of a woman who fled the UK to marry an Isil fighter say their daughter denies recruiting three London schoolgirls to the cause of Islamic State.
Khalida and Muzaffar Mahmood said on Monday that 20-year-old Aqsa, who left her home in Glasgow to become a “jihadi bride”, insisted she had never been in touch with the girls from Bethnal Green.
The couple previously said they were horrified by their daughter’s actions, but have also criticised the UK authorities for failing to find those who radicalised her.
Shamima Begum, 15, who travelled through Turkey to Syria last month with Amira Abase, 15, and 16-year-old Kadiza Sultan, apparently sent Ms Mahmood a message in February, when she tweeted to her, “follow me so I can dm you back”.
However, Ms Mahmood’s parents said she never replied to the message and had been in touch with them in the past two weeks to say she had nothing to do with the girls.
Mr Mahmood told STV news: "She was angry. This is really bad when we hear in the press she recruited them.
“She even text me when this was going on. She (said she) was never in contact with them, and I believe her.
“The press keeps saying everything that's happening is Aqsa Mahmood. We are still trying to find out who are these people who are radicalising out children. There are people going all the time, obviously there are people here who are doing this."
Mrs Mahmood added that her daughter, who was privately educated in Scotland, was "very loving" and had made "a big mistake".
They previously said they were full of “horror and anger” that she may have played a role in the recruitment of the girls.
Ms Mahmood, who left her home in November 2013, is reported to have encouraged terrorist acts via social media using the pseudonym Umm Layth. Comments attributed to her on Twitter called on people in Britain to repeat terrorist atrocities seen in Woolwich and the US.
Posts under the same name on the blogging site Tumblr included a message to the leaders of the US and UK saying, "you and your countries will be beneath our feet and...will be destroyed" and that "your blood will be spilled by our cubs".
The posts also offered advice to would-be jihadi brides, including bringing a good pair of boots for the freezing winters, and make-up and jewellery.
Mark Rowley, Assistant Commissioner with the Metropolitan Police, told MPs last week that she would be prosecuted if she returned to the UK.
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