Aqsa Mahmood From Scotland Joined Islamic State To Become 'Martyr'

A Muslim woman from Scotland who traveled to Syria and married an Islamic State fighter after connecting with him through social media told her parents she wanted to become a martyr for Islam, they said.

Aqsa Mahmood left her home in Glasgow last November to join the Sunni extremist militants and last spoke to her parents from the Turkish border before she entered Syria.

Her parents Muzaffar and Khalida Mahmood, speaking to CNN, wept as her father recalled Aqsa’s last words.

"One message was that, 'I will see you on the Day of Judgment. I will take you to heaven, I will hold your hand.' That's what she said. 'I want to become a martyr' the Guardian reported.

Khalida Mahmood pleaded with her daughter to return home in the emotional television broadcast.

"Aqsa, my dear daughter please come back, I'm missing you so much. Your brothers and sisters miss you a lot. My dearest daughter, in the name of Allah, please comes home. I love you."

Aqsa Mahmood, 20, a privately educated former radiography student, reportedly tried to instigate Muslims in the West to carry out terrorist attacks in their adopted countries through her Twitter handle, Umm Layth.

"Follow the examples of your brothers from Woolwich, Texas and Boston," Aqsa reportedly tweeted, in apparent reference to the murder of a British soldier, the Fort Hood killings and the Boston Marathon bombing. "'If you cannot make it to the battlefield, then bring the battlefield to yourself."

Mahmood reportedly traveled into Islamic State-held territory in Syria through Turkey. From there she went on to Aleppo last year before she was reported missing to police.

Melanie Smith, from the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College, London, told the Guardian that the group had been tracking around 200 Western women believed to be have been recruited by the Islamists. Among them are 21 women from the UK who join the Islamic state.

The Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has overrun much of Iraq and Syria and their positions in Iraq are currently being bombed by the U.S.