Nineteen-year-old Russian student Varvara Karaulova has been detained in Turkey on Friday after attempting to unlawfully cross the border into Syria, Russia Today website reported.
Media reports said she had been recruited by the so-called ‘Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’ (ISIL) takfiri group, with six countries on high alert and looking for her.
“Varvara Karaulova has been detained in Kilis,” the media outlet said, adding that she will be soon transferred to the Turkish migration authorities to be deported back to Russia.”
The student’s father confirmed her detention, and added that he “hasn’t spoken to her yet.” He said that, as far as he knows, her condition is satisfactory.
“To me, it comes as a complete shock how a person who has spent most of her life in the US and Western Europe decided to do such a thing,” he said.
Karaulova was studying Arabic and Islam, and got a passport without telling her parents.
On May 27, instead of going to university, she flew to Istanbul, leaving a note for her parents, but her parents couldn’t get in touch with her, so the 19-year-old was declared missing.
Russian investigators suspect she was recruited by ISIL.
Al-Manar
