That teenager, called “Kim,” disappeared in a southern Turkish border city earlier this month, leading authorities to suspect that he may have slipped away to Syria to join ISIS.
While police have not concluded that he joined the terror group, authorities found he had a keen interest in the Islamic militants. Using a Twitter profile picture of an ISIS flag, he frequently tweeted, “I want join” and asked to meet “brothers.” He followed pro-ISIS accounts and often retweeted the group’s propaganda.
On his social media posts, he claimed he was from Chechnya, and lamented that “male are being discriminated against.”
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In another social media account, Kim posted: “I want leaving my country and families just want to get a new life.”
Kim began liaising with an individual whom he met on Twitter over an encrypted messaging service, police said.
On January 8, he arrived in Turkey with a Korean guardian. Two days later, he disappeared from a hotel in Kilis, a city near the Syrian border. His guardian reported him missing to the South Korean embassy in Turkey on January 12.
