Fresh batch of Sudanese college students fly to join ISIS: reports

August 31, 2015 (KHARTOUM) – Four Sudanese female students have secretly flown to Turkey to join the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), according to local media reports

Khartoum newspapers reported that the group which includes twin sisters have left the country to join ISIS while other media reports claimed that there five in this group.

ISIS presence in Sudan has made the headlines last March after British media outlets confirmed that nine medical students from Sudanese origins entered Syria via Turkey to work in hospitals under the control of ISIS.

Also, last June 18 college students ran off to join ISIS in Syria including the daughter of senior diplomat.

Security cameras at Khartoum airport have captured images of Aya al-Laythi al-Hag Youssef, a third year medical student at the University of Medical Sciences and Technology (UMST) besides the twin sisters Manar Abdel-Salam, a UMST graduate and medical doctor at Garash Hospital in Khartoum and Ibrar Abdel-Salam, a medical student at the National College.

Cameras also captured images of a fourth female student by the name of Thoraya or Sumaia Salah Hamid.

However, aAl-Sudani daily newspaper on Monday quoted the student affairs official at the UMST as saying the two students are not enrolled at his college.

According to the reports, names of the female students were among the list of the departing passengers on the al-Arabiya airlines heading to Istanbul via Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, saying that security officers at Sharjah airport sought to stop them but to no avail.

It has been reported that the students might have used Somali travel documents.

Meanwhile, Turkey has pledged to intensify efforts to prevent the flow of ISIS sympathizers crossing its border into Syria.

Turkish deputy undersecretary for foreign affairs, Ali Kamal, stressed importance of the international cooperation to fight against this security threat.

“In order to ensure success of Turkey’s efforts to prevent flow of people from 100 countries seeking [to join ISIS], we need the support of the international community by providing information and close coordination,” he told reporters in Khartoum Monday.

Kamal further urged the Sudanese authorities to take the necessary measures to curb activities of those extremists groups.

Earlier this month, Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) re-arrested the Salafist Jihadist preacher and supporter of ISIS, Masa’ad al-Sidairah along with several of his disciples.

Also, On 30 June NISS arrested the general coordinator of the far-right One Nation Movement group and the openly supporter of ISIS, Mohamed Ali al-Gizouli.

Last May, Sudan’s minister of Higher Education Sumaya Abu-Kushawa accused unnamed circles of actively recruiting students to join ISIS.

At the time, Sudanese second vice-president Hassabo Abdel-Rahman blamed internal and external parties as well as international intelligence agencies for the phenomenon of extremism in the Arab and African communities.

Last Month, Abdul-Ilah, the son of the late leader of Jamaat Ansar al Sunnah, Abu Zaid Mohamed Hamzah, was killed in armed clashes in the ISIS stronghold of Sirte in Libya.

One week earlier, a Sudanese Jihadist nicknamed Abu Ja’afar al-Sudani blew himself up in a car bomb in the Libyan city of Derna last week, killing 9 people and injuring dozens others.

Also, in June ISIS announced that one of its Sudanese fighters nicknamed Abu al-Fida al-Sudani was killed in their stronghold of al-Riqa.

(ST)