3 Denver Girls Reportedly En Route To Turkey Detained, Sent Home

Three teenage girls from Denver who had been missing since last week and were reported to be traveling to Turkey were picked up in Germany and sent back home, US officials said on Tuesday.

Voice of America, a US government news outlet, reported earlier this week that one of the girls told German authorities they were en route to Turkey, which has been considered a principal transit route for foreigners looking to fight with Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants in Syria.

US officials have declined to say if they suspected a link between the girls and militants in the region. A spokesperson for the FBI's Denver office, Suzie Payne, said only that the juveniles have been reunited with their families, and that her office had helped bring them home.

German border police also confirmed that three US citizens were taken into protective custody on Sunday at Frankfurt airport at the request of their parents and the US Consulate, and said the Americans willingly returned to the United States.

ABC News said earlier on Tuesday that US authorities believed the girls were trying to travel to Syria, which has become a magnet for foreigners seeking to join militant groups. Voice of America reported on its website that two of the girls are sisters and ethnic Somalis while the third is Sudanese.

Colorado is home to a large Somali refugee population, many of whom work in meatpacking plants in northern Colorado.

US officials say at least a handful of Americans, including a Michigan woman and men from Florida and Minnesota, have died in Syrian fighting over the last two years. One of the men, Moner Mohammed Abusalha, blew himself up in a suicide bombing earlier this year, they say.

US and European authorities are deeply concerned about Western foreign fighters in Syria who might return to their home countries to carry out attacks. FBI Director James Comey said last month that about a dozen Americans were known to be fighting with militants in Syria, and some had already returned to the United States.

A 19-year-old Colorado woman, Shannon Conley, pleaded guilty last month to charges related to her efforts to travel overseas and help ISIL militants.

Meanwhile, Canadian police said on Tuesday they had arrested a suspected militant as he was leaving the country, took away his passport and talked to him several times but had no chance of preventing him from killing a soldier. Martin Rouleau, a 25-year-old who converted to Islam last year, rammed his car into two soldiers in the Quebec town of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu on Monday and he was shot dead by police. Police arrested Rouleau as he was about to fly to Turkey in July on the grounds that he might be about to commit an act of terror abroad.

Canadian security officials have worried for years about the threat of radicalized young men, and the concern became more intense after Canada sent six fighter jets to take part in the campaign against ISIL militants in Iraq.

"What took place yesterday is clearly linked to terrorist ideology," federal Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney told reporters.

(Cihan/Today's Zaman)