Category Archives: Islamic State

France repatriates five orphaned children of jihadists from Syria

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French intervention likely to add weight to criticism of UK’s reluctance to do likewise

France has repatriated five orphaned children of French jihadists from camps in north-east Syria, where a five-year offensive against Islamic State is drawing to a close.

Among the children repatriated were the three sons of a French woman who died under Isis rule. Officials retrieved them from a camp in northern Syria where they were being held with as many as 3,000 other children of Isis families.

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Isis has my kids: I won’t stop till I get them home to the US – video

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Four years ago, Bashir Shikder’s wife Rashida flew from Florida to Syria with the couple’s young children to join Isis, ignoring anguished Bashir’s repeated pleas for her to return home. Now, after hearing news of his wife’s death, and that his children – Yusuf now nine, and Zahra, five – are being held by jihadists in the last corner of the terror group’s lands, Bashir travels to Iraq in the hope of crossing the border into Syria and rescuing them.

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SDF launches assault on last Isis enclave in eastern Syria

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Direct clashes under way and airstrikes target weapons stores in Baghuz

Airstrikes have targeted Islamic State weapons stores as the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) launched an attack against the jihadists’ enclave in Baghuz near the Iraqi border.

An SDF official, Mustafa Bali, said the attack began at 6pm local time and “direct and fierce” clashes were under way.

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Two more women held in Syrian camps ‘stripped of British citizenship’

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Reema and Zara Iqbal – whose husbands died fighting for Isis – said to have five children between them

Two more British women who are being held in Syrian camps with their young children have reportedly had their citizenship removed.

The move comes as the home secretary, Sajid Javid, faces increasing criticism over the case of Shamima Begum, the 19-year-old Londoner who was stripped of her British citizenship on his orders, after the death of her three-week-old son.

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Shamima Begum: Sajid Javid labelled ‘moral coward’ over baby death

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Former DPP accuses home secretary of treating UK like a ‘banana republic’ over decision to strip Isis bride of citizenship

Syrian camps: vulnerable children of Isis ignored by the outside world

Sajid Javid has been accused of moral cowardice and “treating the UK as a banana republic” in pursuit of his leadership ambitions following the death of Jarrah, the three-week-old son of Isis bride Shamima Begum.

A Church of England bishop and a former director of public prosecutions led the chorus of outrage directed at the home secretary as demand grew for him to review his controversial decision to strip the 19-year-old of British citizenship – a move that left her stateless and her baby in legal limbo.

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‘Find them a way to live’: the deadly plight of Isis refugee children

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Up to 3,000 children born to foreign nationals like Shamima Begum may be at risk in Syria

In a place the British government says remains too difficult for diplomats to reach, scores of its officials have been present for at least the past two years.

MI6 officers, as well as SAS troopers and commanders have formed strong ties with local Kurdish officials in north-eastern Syria, where two refugee camps teeming with the remnants of Islamic State (Isis) are located.

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Those responsible for Syria’s agony must be brought to book, starting at the top

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Despite Russia blocking attempts to investigate Assad’s war crimes, there are glimmers of hope

The final unravelling of the Islamic State’s evil caliphate exerts a horrible fascination. The jihadis committed many appalling crimes in Syria and Iraq – exploiting the chaos caused by the Syrian civil war – and were responsible, directly or indirectly, for murderous attacks in Britain and several other European countries.

Most people expect a reckoning. It is only right that Isis fighters who have been captured alive, and those who gave them aid and succour, should face justice as soon as possible.

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Shamima Begum baby death ‘a stain on conscience of UK government’

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Sajid Javid accused of appeasing populists by ordering UK citizenship to be revoked

The home secretary, Sajid Javid, has come under fire for his decision to revoke the British citizenship of Shamima Begum, whose baby son has died in a Syrian refugee camp.

Begum, 19, left the UK in 2015 with two school friends to join Islamic State in Syria and said last month she wanted to return home. But Javid insisted he would do all in his power to prevent her coming back and ordered her citizenship to be revoked.

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Shamima Begum: baby son dies in Syrian refugee camp

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Three-week-old infant is the third child the teenager from east London has lost

The newborn son of Shamima Begum has died in a Syrian refugee camp. The baby boy, named Jarrah, was buried on Friday, three weeks after the east London teenager turned Islamic State devotee gave birth.

A Kurdish intelligence official said the infant had been taken to hospital in al-Roj camp in north-eastern Syria with breathing difficulties several times in the past week. A friend of Begum said “the baby turned blue and was cold” before being rushed to a clinic inside the camp. Jarrah is understood to have been buried along with two other children who were burned in a fire on Thursday night.

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MoD claim of one civilian death in Isis raids ridiculed

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RAF says 4,315 Isis fighters were killed or injured in airstrikes and just one civilian

The Ministry of Defence claim that the RAF killed only one civilian in thousands of airstrikes against Isis has been dismissed as ludicrous and “stretching credibility”.

According figures released by the MoD following a freedom of information request by the charity Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), the RAF strikes between 2014 and January this year killed or injured 4,315 of the group’s fighters. It said 90% of those were killed.

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Experience: I gave birth on the run from Isis

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Hawar was healthy but I felt nothing but guilt for bringing him into the world

I was nine months pregnant when Islamic State came. It was 2014 and I was living with my husband, Ferhad, and one-year-old son, Haval, in the village of Tal Qasab in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. My husband and I had been childhood sweethearts. We led a simple life, and were very happy.

For a couple of months, we had been worrying about an attack; Isis were targeting the Yazidi people in our region. Then, one August morning, we woke to the news that they had attacked Tuazar, the neighbouring village. We had just sat down to breakfast when a bullet hit our window. I looked outside and realised our neighbours were running for their lives.

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Shamima Begum moved from Syria camp after threats, says lawyer

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Nineteen-year-old Briton and newborn son relocated due to ‘safety concerns’

Shamima Begum and her newborn baby have been moved from a Syrian refugee camp after threats were made against them, according to her family’s lawyer.

The 19-year-old and her son were moved from the Al-Hol camp in the north of the country due to “safety concerns around her and her baby”, Tasnime Akunjee said.

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Nigeria election marred by vote buying, tech failures and violence

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Reports of attacks and gunfire in some areas as voters go to polls to elect president

Nigeria’s long-awaited presidential election went ahead on Saturday, marred by heavy gunfire in the north-east, killings in the south and reports of technology failures and vote buying across the country.

Some voters arrived at polling stations at 3am to ensure their ballot was counted in an election dominated by the current president, Muhammadu Buhari, and a former vice-president Atiku Abubakar.

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Second Briton says he wants to be allowed back to UK from Syria

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Jack Letts left the country a year before Shamima Begum and is suspected of joining Isis

A second Briton who left to go to Syria has said he wants to return to the UK. Jack Letts, who is suspected of joining Islamic State, said he missed Britain, but doubted he would ever be allowed to return.

Letts, 23, who was dubbed “Jihadi Jack” by British media and holds dual nationality through his Canadian father, told ITV News he did not believe either nation would help him because “no one really cares”.

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Hoda Muthana’s father sues in bid to bring his daughter back to US

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Ahmed Ali Muthana files suit after officials said New Jersey-born daughter was not a US citizen and would not be allowed home

The father of an Alabama woman who joined the Islamic State group in Syria is suing to bring her home after the Trump administration took the extraordinary step of declaring that she was not a US citizen.

Hoda Muthana, 24, told the Guardian this week that she regretted leaving the US to join the terrorist group and wants to return from Syria with her 18-month-old son. She has said she is willing to face prosecution in the United States over her incendiary propaganda on behalf of the ruthless but dwindling group.

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Shamima Begum: I am willing to change to keep British citizenship

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Nineteen-year-old who joined Isis asks UK to show ‘a bit more mercy’ in assessing her case

Shamima Begum has said she is “willing to change”, as she issued a plea to the UK government for “mercy” after the home secretary moved to strip her of her British nationality.

The British-born 19-year-old, who travelled from east London to Syria to join Islamic State in 2015, wants to return from Syria because her newborn son is unwell, and she does not wish to allow him to return to the UK alone.

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Endgame for the Isis ‘caliphate’ looms in small Syrian town

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Special forces said to be preparing to storm Baghuz to flush out last Islamic State diehards

They left Baghuz in a convoy of trucks, slowly snaking across the desert as thin trails of black smoke from mortar strikes drifted into the sky behind them.

The Islamic State fighters dangled their legs off the backs of vehicles normally used for transporting sheep. Brightly coloured keffiyehs wrapped around their faces, they stared at Kurdish troops as they passed without saying a word.

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Shamima Begum: Isis Briton faces move to revoke citizenship

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Family disappointed at Home Office decision and considering legal position, says lawyer

The family of a teenager who travelled to Syria to join Islamic State has been told the Home Office intends to revoke her British citizenship, according to their lawyer.

Shamima Begum, who left her home in Bethnal Green, east London, at the age of 15, is in a refugee camp in Syria, where she gave birth to a boy at the weekend.

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Trump’s ‘bring jihadists home’ call gets mixed response in Europe

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Germany will put fighters on trial, while Hungary says they should not be allowed back

Donald Trump’s demand that Germany, France and Britain repatriate and prosecute their citizens fighting in Syria has met a mixed response in Europe as countries baulk at the difficulties involved in taking back hundreds of alleged jihadis.

Germany pledged on Monday to put its foreign fighters on trial, but warned their repatriation would be “extremely difficult”, while France said it would not act for now on Trump’s call but would take militants back on a “case-by-case” basis.

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