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Swiss Woman Indicted over Bid to Join ISIS in Syria | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Smoke billows out from the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa in Syria following a coalition air strike on July 28, 2017. AFP photo


Switzerland’s attorney general has indicted a 30-year-old Swiss woman suspected of trying to reach Syria to join the ISIS terrorist organization with her four-year-old child in tow.

The Office of the Attorney General (OAG), Michael Lauber, said Thursday the woman from the Zurich area, whose name wasn’t released, was indicted for alleged violations of laws banning al-Qaeda, ISIS and associated extremist groups.

The indictment alleges that she traveled illegally with her child from Egypt to Greece in December 2015 in hopes of crossing from neighboring Turkey into Syria to join ISIS.

Greek authorities prevented her from continuing the journey and handed her over to Swiss authorities. She was arrested at Zurich airport in January 2016.

Switzerland’s intelligence agency estimates that 89 people have left Switzerland since 2001 to fight alongside terrorist groups, including 75 who went to Syria and Iraq.