Mother’s nightmare: two of her daughters joined the Islamic State - now she’s fighting to stop their little sisters from joining them

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Rahma Sheikhawi, 17, left her family's home in Tunisia to join Islamic State fighters in Libya. Photo: Lorenzo Tugnoli for The Washington Post.

Published: 12:39pm, 26 May 2016Updated: 12:39pm, 26 May 2016

In a small box in her bedroom, Oulfa Hamrounni keeps the photo she treasures most. It shows Rahma, one of her daughters, brown hair flowing, a smile on her round face. The photo was taken before the girl and her sister left home to join the Islamic State’s affiliate in Libya.

Today, Hamrounni is struggling to bring her teenage daughters back to Tunisia. She’s also trying to prevent two others from joining them.

“I am afraid for my younger daughters,” she said. “They still have the same ideology of my older daughters.”

Her younger daughters are 11 and 13.

Oulfa Hamrounni reads the Koran with her daughters Taysin, 11 and Aya, 13. Their mother fears both girls are at risk of joining the Islamic State group: Photo: Lorenzo Tugnoli for The Washington Post.

When he announced the “caliphate” in 2014, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi specifically invited women alongside male engineers, doctors, lawyers and architects, signifying that the women’s “primary responsibility is to physically build and populate territory,”said Melanie Smith, a researcher with the London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

Rahma, 17, became the wife of Noureddine Chouchane, a senior Tunisian Islamic State commander who is believed to have been killed in a US airstrike on the Libyan city of Sabratha on February 19. Her 18-year-old sister, Ghofran, was married to an Islamic State militant who was killed after the attack. Six months ago, she gave birth.