Kadiza Sultana, like the two friends who travelled with her, was 15 when she left the UK. These bright teens from Bethnal Green were radicalised and recruited online, joined Isis in Raqqa and quickly became “jihadi brides” (or, just as fast, jihadi widows).

As news emerges that the schoolgirl, Kadiza Sultana has almost certainly been killed in an airstrike in Syria, so much of the online reaction to this seems to be along the lines of: well, she had it coming and good, now there’s one less of them. Almost as bad as her death is the idea that she got what she deserved.

If the idea that one of these girls is now dead, or the thought of her devastated family doesn’t break your heart in two, then, presumably, neither will the phone conversation Sultana had with her sister, Halima Khanom, months ago. Recorded by ITV news, the call revealed that Sultana was scared, wanted to escape but had “zero” hope that she ever could.

Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Show all 9 1 /9 Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Policemen outside Rouen's cathedral during the funeral of Jacques Hamel, the priest who was killed in a church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray in Normandy on 26 July during a hostage-taking claimed by Islamic State group Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Two jihadists, both 19, slit Hamel's throat while he was celebrating mass in an attack that shocked France as well as the Catholic Church Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Muslims place flowers and hold a minute of silence in front of the church if Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, western France, where French priest Jacques Hamel was killed on 26 July Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Two people hold each other by the new makeshift memorial in Nice, in tribute to the victims of the deadly Bastille Day attack at the Promenade des Anglais Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the truck attack that killed 84 people in Nice on France's national holiday. Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, 31, smashed a 19-tonne truck into a packed crowd of people in the Riviera city celebrating Bastille Day Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Police work at a site where a Syrian migrant set off an explosive device in Ansbach, southern Germany, on 25 July, killing himself and wounding a dozen others Daniel Roland/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis A Syrian migrant set off an explosion at a bar in southern Germany that killed himself and wounded a dozen others in the third attack to hit Bavaria in a week. The 27-year-old, who had spent a stint in a psychiatric facility, had intended to target a music festival in the city of Ansbach but was turned away because he did not have a ticket Friebe/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Police officers walk along train tracks in Wuerzburg southern Germany on 19 July, a day after a man attacked train passengers with an axe. German authorities said they had found a hand-painted IS flag among the belongings of the man, an asylum seeker from Afghanistan, who seriously injured four members of a family of tourists from Hong Kong in his rampage Daniel Roland/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis German police killed a teenage assailant after he attacked passengers on a train in Wuerzburg, southerg Germany with an axe and a knife on 18 July, seriously wounding three people Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/AFP/Getty Images

What’s so troubling about some of the reactions to these teenagers is the inability to see them as vulnerable children who were victims of highly effective grooming campaigns. Indeed, the grisly truth is that Isis, in so ruthlessly targeting such teenagers, seems to understand their vulnerability better than we do.

To some extent, this is horribly familiar terrain. Remember, for instance, the grooming case in Rochdale, where teenage girls were sexually exploited by a gang of men. A report into this case found there had been a “shocking” inability to protect the girls involved, by agencies set up to protect children. One of the many disturbing questions around this grooming case is why such terribly abused girls, when they spoke of what was happening to them, were simply not believed. They weren’t even viewed as vulnerable, much less credible.

It’s as though being Muslim is the bit that attracts the blame and hatred, making these teenagers somehow more knowing, more complicit – and less deserving of sympathy. Why should we feel sorry for people who willingly go and join such a grotesquely murderous group? It’s as though fears over such violent atrocities carried out in the name of Islam have blinded us to the fact that British Muslim teenagers are still teenagers, still in need of support and protection.

Campaigners are now expressing the wish that Kadiza Sultana’s killing might help deter others from joining the death cult Isis, which is about the only grain of hope that can be extracted from such a desperately pointless curtailment of a young life. Much of the work of stopping others joining Isis is about developing resilience among those most vulnerable to extremism, providing powerful counter-narratives that inoculate against the potential to be recruited.