The UK is currently awash with depressing stories about British Muslim youngsters who have stupidly abandoned their studies, jobs and families to covertly travel to the other side of the world, so they can assist Islamic terrorists who claim to be waging “holy” wars in Syria, Iraq, etc.

A small handful of these rebellious runaways are White British converts who simply don’t find Christianity appealing. But the majority are the children or grandchildren of Muslims who emigrated to the UK from developing nations.

Some are of African extraction, but Asians are the single largest group; and, amazingly perhaps, a handful of these junior jihadists happen to be female.

The thing that shocks me most about these kids is that many of them are academically gifted and had dazzlingly bright futures ahead of them before they decided to go off the rails and embrace murder and religious extremism.

Somali-British teenage twins, Zahra and Salma Halane, for example, recently passed 28 GCSEs (the exams that British students take at l6) between them.

This is a pretty impressive achievement when you consider that most of their contemporaries across the UK passed fewer than l0 GCSEs.

Salma and Zahra’s outstanding results put them in the top 10% of their year group at the school they attended in Manchester. And their teachers and classmates describe them as hard-working girls who both wanted to be doctors and behaved like normal, carefree adolescents when they weren’t studying.

Their father, Ibrahim Halane, is a respected Islamic scholar who lectures at their local mosque. And the twins were quite conservative in the sense that they hadn’t been seen in public without headscarves since they were nine years old.

But neither they nor their parents were dour, hate-driven zealots.

Non-Muslim neighbours

Ibrahim’s mosque publicly condemns all forms of violence. He and his wife are, essentially, moderates and pacifists who get on well with their non-Muslim neighbours.

And their daughters were often bubbly, fun-loving and relaxed. On Saturdays, they frequented shops that sell trendy modern clothes. And they were always taking happy, smiley photos of themselves on their mobile phones.

Their peers do not remember them ever once angsting about blood-soaked foreign conflicts or expressing any interest in Islamic radicalism.

But the Halane household suddenly fell apart in a very spectacular way.

First, Zahra and Salma’s equally intelligent big brother fell under the influence of bellicose fundamentalists and decided to walk away from his excellent career prospects and take off to Somalia and Syria to become a jihadi “warrior”.

Then, for reasons best known to themselves, his sisters decided to join him.

One morning, Mr & Mrs Halane – who were already grief-stricken about their son’s disappearance – found the girls’ beds empty and their passports missing.

It was later discovered that Zahra and Salma had sneaked out of their family home in the dead of night, boarded a flight to Turkey and then crossed the border that separates Turkey and Syria by road. Talk about reckless!

My heart goes out to their deeply distraught refugee parents. Imagine fleeing from Somalia (which has been in a mess for decades, thanks in part to the evil activities of Islamic terrorists) and settling in the UK because you want your offspring to enjoy safer and more fruitful existences, only to lose two daughters and a son to the very same Islamic terrorism that you fled from!

A jihadi recruit called Yilmaz, himself a young Muslim who grew up in Europe (Holland), was recently interviewed on a British TV station; and he boastfully revealed that he was training girls as young as l6 to “fight for Allah.”

And it goes without saying that some or all of them will wind up being married off to men they won’t necessarily like. Or even just being sexually abused.

God will punish characters like Yilmaz and the Halane boy, who are luring vulnerable, easily-led females – their own relatives included – into dangerous traps. What kind of men would encourage their fragile little sisters to expose themselves to scary militaristic mayhem and possible death and rape?!

Thousands of British Muslim youngsters are actively supporting Islamic terrorist groups in Africa and the Middle East at the moment; and some of these errant elements have vowed to return to the UK to use the terror skills they’ve acquired abroad to attack the country that has given them so much.

Their ingratitude and treachery amaze and anger me.

Ingratitude and treachery

Britain has provided their elders with subsidised housing, social security payments and a stable economic environment in which to build thriving careers and businesses; and the youngsters themselves have received free education, free healthcare, decent standards of living and job opportunities – substantial benefits that their age mates in their countries of origin can only dream of.

The British Government is too liberal. Instead of unapologetically and ruthlessly retaliating, it is wringing its hands, engaging in post-colonial guilt trips and agonising about how to handle, in a civilized way, serious security threats from Muslim youngsters who are determined to bite the hand that has fed them.

The British Government should quit this weak, pathetic, shilly-shallying, softly-softly approach and put its foot down VERY firmly…and permanently revoke their citizenship and bar them from ever setting foot in the UK again.

Oby Ezekwesili

I am extremely disturbed by – and annoyed about – the Nigerian establishment’s negative attitude towards Oby Ezekwesili, the former Minister of Education who is leading the “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign on behalf of Chibok parents.

I am constantly assured by PDP members and supporters of Mr President that Mrs Ezekwesili is an “insincere” or “cheap” attention-seeker who is “just using the Chibok problem as a means of acquiring relevance and hitting back at the Jonathan administration for not giving her any government appointment.”

Why do Oby’s critics find it so difficult to believe that someone can protest about a mass kidnapping that has attracted international concern for genuine reasons and without being disgruntled or having a murky ulterior motive?!

Is it not necessary – and laudable! – for someone to keep reminding us that so many innocent young ladies have been in bondage for more than l00 days?

Ezekwesili’s detractors would prefer her to keep quiet and mind her business or to sychophantically suck up to the authorities and chase after big jobs or contracts, instead of highlighting a humanitarian crisis that needs to be urgently resolved.

Nigeria is a really sick and cynical society, if you ask me.

Why on earth should an Amazon who possesses the courage and energy to loudly complain on behalf of juvenile victims of terrorism be so heavily insulted?

Shame!