Three London schoolgirl visits Syria, security agencies suspect them joining IS

London: Scotland Yard on Friday launched a bid to rescue three missing London schoolgirls, believed to be of Bangladeshi origin, who are feared to have travelled to Turkey to join the dreaded Islamic State terrorists in Syria.

The Metropolitan police counter-terrorism officers raised the alarm after discovering that the three girls - two aged 15 and one aged 16 - had flown to Turkey after going missing from their homes on London.

Met commander Richard Walton said at a press conference he hoped the police appeal would prevent the girls crossing the border into Syria and joining the Islamic State (IS).

"If we are able to locate these girls while they are in Turkey, there is a possibility we can bring them home to their families," Walton said. "We are concerned about the numbers of girls and young women who have or are intending to travel to the part of Syria that is controlled by the terrorist group calling themselves Islamic State," he added.

The trio are friends with a fourth girl who travelled to Syria in December. Two of them have been named as Shamima Begum and Kadiza Sultana and all three are pupils at Bethnal Green Academy and believed to be of Bangladeshi origin.

They flew from Gatwick airport to Istanbul on Tuesday during their half-term school holiday break. Their families reported them missing when they failed to return home. The latest reports follow a dramatic incident last December in which Met officers stopped a plane on the runway at Heathrow airport to prevent a 15-year-old girl from London from flying to Turkey.

Last year, twin teenage sisters, Zahra and Salma Halane, disappeared from their home in Manchester and flew to Istanbul, bound for Syria. Turkey, although a popular tourist destination, is also the favoured entry point for Westerners wanting to travel across the border to Syria.

Authorities say more than 500 Britons are believed to be fighting alongside the ranks of Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria and the radicalised returning British jihadists pose a major security challenge to the UK.