"Attractive" or good-looking jihadist fighters play a vital role in luring British Muslim women or girls into believing that western countries, including the United Kingdom, are their "enemies" and they must fight alongside extremist groups such as Isis, a former female extremist said.
The woman, whose name has been changed to "Ayesha" to protect her identity, told BBC Newsnight that she was brainwashed by good-looking men and led to believe that they must fight against the western countries.
Ayesha further told the British broadcaster that although she no longer believes in the ideology, a number of her ex-colleagues there consider dreaded terrorist "Jihadi John" as their hero.
"As a teenager I wanted to get m piece of eye candy and I'd take a good look, and all the YouTube, for some reason, they (the militants) were really, really attractive," she said in the interview.
"It was glamorous in the sense it was like 'oh wow, I can get someone who practises the same religion as me, who's not necessarily from my ethnicity and that's exciting'."
Rising number of western women leaving their homes to join the jihadists have raised concerns in western societies, especially after reports of how young girls and women being lured into becoming "Jihadi brides" surfaced.
On 21 February, police launched an international hunt to find three schoolgirls — two 15-year-olds and one 16-year-old. They were reportedly travelling to Syria to join Isis, the dreaded group that has shocked the world with their brutal killing and beheading videos.
Fears of jihadists luring young Muslim women into joining the terrorist outfit have triggered other countries of Europe as well as Australia to sound alerts. Australia's foreign minister Julie Bishop, for instance, recently warned wannabe "jihadi brides" that travelling to Syria and Iraq involved no "romantic adventure" and that authorities must do everything to curtail this activity that "defies logic".
Ayesha told the British channel that she was somehow led to believe that when the jihadi died as a martyr, she would also join him in heaven. She was also told that Britain was a "non-Muslim" or "kuffar" nation, responsible for killing Muslims and therefore, was "our enemy".
