Two Dutch girls stopped in Turkey en route to Syria

Two young teenage Dutch girls were stopped in Turkey at the weekend on suspicion they were travelling to Syria, broadcaster Nos quotes sources as saying on Tuesday.

One of the girls is aged 16 and comes from Zeist. The other is 15 and comes from Driebergen. It is unclear what has happened to a third girl, also aged 16 and from Zeist, who was traveling with them, Nos said.

The girls reportedly came into contact with social services last year after appearing at school in face-covering robes after the summer holidays.

The two girls who were picked up in Istanbul are now back in the Netherlands. Child protection officials are involved, but the girls are not being treated as suspects, the public prosecution department said.

Zeist is a town with a relatively high number of followers of jihadism, according to Trouw.

The paper cited three regions in the Netherlands with a jihadism network: south-west Netherlands (The Hague, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Delft, Zoetermeer and Gouda), Arnhem and Nijmegen, and mid-Netherlands (Utrecht, Almere, Hilversum, Zeist and Huizen).