Report: British teens marry Islamic State loyalists

Two London teens who made an international splash and horrified their parents by fleeing to Syria have married men approved by the Islamic State, The Guardian reported.

Shamima Begum, 15, Kadiza Sultana, 16, and Amira Abase, 15, fled Britain in February. Two have told their families they have wed, although the Guardian said it would not reveal which two at the request of the girls' families.

Tasnime Akunjee, lawyer representing the families, said the families were grief-stricken.

"It has caused a lot of distress. It entrenches their lives in Syria, rather than in Britain," Akunjee told the Guardian. "It erodes significantly hopes that they will come back."

The girls said they have been living apart for several weeks in and around Raqqa, Syria.

The Guardian said the married girls were allowed to pick husbands from a group of candidates, believed to be in their 20s, provided by ISIS leadership.

The girls had been good students at Bethnal Green Academy in east London before reading about ISIS online. During a term break in February, the three girls flew to Turkey, which has a border with Syria often used by people seeking to join the Islamic State. They were believed to cross into Syria within days of arriving in Turkey.

On Friday, the Daily Telegraph published video claiming to show the girls shopping in ISIS-controlled territory in Syria, with an armed woman leading them. The girls' families have said they don't believe the teens in the video are their children.

"The families think the video is unlikely to be them," Akunjee said. "All three are living apart and those who are married are under the aegis of their husbands and are unlikely to be under the aegis of some woman leader."