THREE women and seven children have been stopped from joining the conflict in Syria, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Friday. The three sisters and their children were detained by Lebanese authorities in Beirut and flown back to the Kingdom on Thursday after the husband of one of the women told police they planned to join the war, SPA quoted an Interior Ministry spokesman as saying. Police said the husband, who was the father of three of the children, had tipped them off on Monday that his wife had left and was a "takfiri", a term used for militants. The children were aged between one and 10 years old, the statement added. After receiving the report, "immediate coordination was carried out with competent authorities in Lebanon enabling them to intercept their departure from Lebanon to Syria," the spokesman said. He added that after their return to the Kingdom, necessary medical tests were carried out and the women will be referred to judicial authorities. Riyadh has backed the rebels battling Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. Many of the foreign fighters flocking to Syria to join groups like Daesh (the so-called IS) are Arabs from the Middle East and Africa, although militants have attracted fighters from across different countries ranging from Norway to Uzbekistan. A former British spy chief said in December that Syria had become the pre-eminent global incubator for a new generation of militants after rebels there more than doubled their recruitment of foreign fighters to as many as 31,000 over the past 18 months.
