‘She was a straight-A student’
Missing Moscow girl recruited by ISIL, says her father
On May 27, Varvara Karaulova, a second year student at the Philosophy Faculty of Moscow State University, left for class and never came back home. Her father, Pavel Karaulov, claims she secretly acquired a passport for international travel and left for Istanbul. He believes his daughter was recruited by the Islamic State.
Varvara Karaulova was a straight-A student in school. She had mastered English and French by the time she was applying to college, and ended up studying at Russia’s most prestigious institution, Lomonosov Moscow State University (MGU). In her second year at Moscow State, she took up Arabic and started bringing home books about Islam. According to her father, neither he nor his wife thought much of this, since “studying at the faculty of philosophy with a concentration in cultural studies naturally means you go into religious studies too.
“But now we know that after leaving home in regular clothes worn by any Moscow student, she would cover herself up with a hijab at the university and put on long dresses and dark long-sleeved sweaters. This change in clothing started at some point in October,” says Pavel Karaulov.
On May 27, Varvara Karaulova left for class and texted her mother asking her to walk the dog. That day, she did not come back home. Pavel Karaulov wrote a post on his Facebook account asking for help to find his daughter, and his post was shared 20,000 times.
As the family later found out, Varvara had taken an Aeroflot flight to Istanbul. By tracking her mobile phone, it was possible to establish her whereabouts on the border with Syria, the most common entry point or volunteers into the so-called Islamic State.
Pavel Karaulov, who says he has “certain connections” in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the FSB (Russia’s secret services), found out that a passport for international travel had been issued for Varvara. Karaulov explains that if this document is issued through Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, one does not have to pick it up in person. This is a crucial fact in this case, as Karaulov believes that someone else could have acquired a passport for her and paid for her trip to Istanbul.
Karaulov believes that his daughter was recruited by members of the Islamic State. “Our Varya was still a little too open, too vulnerable. I would say she was a bit of a homebody. I think that was this is what made her a target for professional manipulators, well-trained recruiters. There is no doubt that the level of training they’ve been given is so high that even educated people have trouble resisting them. Our professionals really need to start dealing with these professionals,” says Pavel Karaulov.
Read more:
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I understand how much we’re underestimating this threat [Islamic State] here. We haven’t grasped this and we’re not taking any actions to prevent it or stop it. We need to at least warn people that this danger exists.