2 Pakistani-origin Daesh brides lose their British citizenship

london — Two Pakistan-origin sisters from London are believed to be the latest set of mothers to lose their British citizenship for marrying into the Daesh terrorist group in Syria.

Reema Iqbal and her sister, Zara, have five boys under the age of eight between them and are being held in a Syrian detention camp.

Reports of them losing their right to return to the UK after losing their citizenship rights come as it was confirmed that Bangladeshi-origin Shamima Begum lost her threeweek-old baby in a Syrian refugee camp days after her British citizenship was similarly revoked.

‘The Sunday Times’ quoted legal sources to say that the Iqbal sisters, from east London, have had their British nationality rights revoked for marrying into a Daesh terrorist cell.

Their parents are from Pakistan, so the UK Home Office would argue they are eligible for Pakistani nationality instead. Their five sons, however, are likely to remain British citizens.

The newspaper report says the two women headed to Syria from London in 2013 after marrying into a six-man cell of Daesh recruits with close links to the filmed murders of

western hostages by British Arab Daesh fighter Mohammed Emwazi, dubbed “Jihadi John” for his UK connection. The sisters’ husbands were later killed in fighting.

Zara, 28, already had a son when she made the journey and was heavily pregnant with her second child, to whom she gave birth in Syria. She later had a third boy under the so-called “Daesh caliphate”. The family is believed to be in either Al Hol camp or another facility at Ain Issa in Syria.

Her older sister, Reema, 30, has two sons, one of whom was born in Britain. They are in Roj camp, to which Shamima Begum was reportedly recently transferred.

There is growing pressure on UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid since it was confirmed that 19-year-old Begum had lost her child, Jarrah, to pneumonia in the refugee camp on Thursday.

Under international law, the UK can revoke a citizenship of a British national only if the individual would not be made stateless and can acquire the citizenship of another country.

The use of the powers has risen sharply in the UK, with 104 deprivations of citizenship in 2017, compared to 50 in the previous decade, according to Home Office figures obtained by the immigration law website Free Movement.

At least a dozen militant brides from Britain and more than 20 of their children are believed to be held in overcrowded camps run by the western-backed Kurdish forces in Syria.