JUST one message was ever sent from Shamima Begum’s Twitter account: “@muhajirah—follow me so i can dm you back.” Sent on February 15th to Aqsa Mahmood, a Scottish woman who joined the Islamic State (IS) in Syria in 2013, it shows that Ms Begum, a 15-year-old Londoner, wanted to send private messages to a known go-between in the region. A few days later she flew to Turkey with two friends. British authorities think they have already crossed into Syria. Some 10-15% of the Westerners who have gone to Syria and Iraq to join IS are women, reckons Peter Neumann of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR), a think-tank in London. That is a higher share than joined the jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Some travelling today are known to be from America, Britain, Finland, France, Germany and Sweden. As in the past, most are following their men. But many are single—a new trend.

In a study of female IS recruits, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), also London-based, quotes Umm Khattab, a woman thought to be British who writes on social media from Syria: she describes meeting “other sisters” in Turkey, some with children, at least one married, before they reached IS territory. Others seek partners among the fighters. Single women may not live unsupervised. “I really need sisters to stop dreaming about coming to Shaam [Greater Syria] and not getting married,” blogs Ms Mahmood.

Before leaving, Ms Begum was following a variety of extremists on Twitter (see article). Women who have already made the journey use such media to groom those considering it. Since accounts can be suspended, they encourage hopefuls to contact them through Kik, an instant-messaging app, or websites such as ask.fm.

These propagandists for jihad describe life under IS and wartime domesticity. Ms Mahmood gloats about microwaves and milkshake machines seized from non-believers. But they also express the pain of leaving families and the feeling of being very foreign in the Middle East. In a series called “Life of a Muhajirah [emigrant]”, a pregnant woman posts a picture of her ultrasound and worries that her husband will be become a shahid (martyr), though she accepts that this may be God’s will.

By establishing a caliphate, IS, unlike previous jihadist groups, is attempting to build a state. That has opened up roles for women. Fighting, though, is off-limits. “Women in the Islamic State”, a document published in January by an all-female unit of IS known as the al-Khansaa Brigade (translated into English by the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism think-tank in London), explains that women should be mothers and homemakers, while men are by nature restless; “if the roles are mixed the basis of humanity is thrown into a state of flux and instability.”

If women cannot fight in Syria, why do they choose to go? Some express anger towards Bashar Assad, Syria’s president, for persecuting the Syrian people, or towards the coalition IS is fighting and the West more generally. They lament the treatment of Muslims in non-Muslim lands. A few relish the violence. One describes repeatedly watching a video of a beheading, and demands more such films.