Category Archives: UK security and counter-terrorism

After Isis: what happens to the foreign nationals who went to Syria?

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Facts on the ground as much as ethical and legal factors may come into play in repatriating

US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria have almost completely dismantled Islamic State’s once sprawling “caliphate”, with Isis fighters making their last stand in an area smaller the one sq km in the eastern desert near the border with Iraq.

Wives and children of Isis fighters, along with thousands of civilians unconnected to the group, have left for al-Hol refugee camp, where dozens of people, mostly children, have died in squalid and freezing conditions in recent weeks.

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UK will not put officials at risk to rescue Isis Britons, says minister

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Ben Wallace says ‘actions have consequences’ as schoolgirl who joined Isis is found in Syria

The security minister, Ben Wallace, has said he would not put officials’ lives at risk to rescue UK citizens who went to Syria and Iraq to join Islamic State, insisting “actions have consequences”.

“I’m not putting at risk British people’s lives to go looking for terrorists or former terrorists in a failed state,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

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London schoolgirl who fled to join Isis wants to return to UK

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Shamima Begum, 19, in refugee camp in Syria after fleeing last territory held by Islamic State

An east London schoolgirl who left the UK in 2015 to join Islamic State has been tracked down in Syria where she said has no regrets about joining the group, but now wants to come home as she is nine months pregnant.

Shamima Begum, 19, said she fled the jihadists’ last remaining enclave in Baghuz, eastern Syria, as she was tired of life on a battlefield and feared for her unborn child after her two other children died.

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Brain scans show social exclusion creates jihadists, say researchers

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International studies of young Muslim men show that radicalisation follows a sense of isolation from society

For years western policymakers have tried to establish what causes individuals to be radicalised. Now a pioneering study has used medical science to gain fresh insight into the process – in the brains of potential jihadists.

University College London (UCL) researchers were part of an international team that used neuroimaging techniques to map how the brains of radicalised individuals respond to being socially marginalised. The findings, they claim, confirm that exclusion is a leading factor in creating violent jihadists.

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Terror plotter had 16 meetings with Prevent officers, court hears

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Lewis Ludlow, who pleaded guilty to planning Oxford Street attack, faces sentencing

A Muslim convert plotted a terror attack on Oxford Street despite repeated attempts by authorities to deradicalise him, a court has heard.

The former Royal Mail worker Lewis Ludlow, 27, of Rochester, Kent, said he was filled with “animosity and hatred” when he swore allegiance to Islamic State, the Old Bailey heard.

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