Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (BfV) fears a growing number of women have gone to Iraq and Syria to fight alongside Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants, its chief said on Wednesday.
Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of the agency, told reporters in Berlin there had been a sharp increase in the number of young women under 25 leaving Germany to join the insurgents.
He said that about 100 of the 700 Germans in combat areas were women and about half of those women were under 25.
Similar trends showing more Western women joining ISIS than earlier radical Islamist movements have been reported from other European countries such as France and Britain.