Fears teenagers fled on holiday jet to join IS terrorists
THE teenage brother of Britain’s youngest convicted terrorist has fled to Syria to join Islamic State on a holiday flight, it was feared last night.
Hassan Munshi and next- door neighbour Talha Asmal, both 17, are understood to have flown to Dalaman in Turkey on a Thomas Cook flight from Manchester Airport hours after vanishing from their homes on March 31.
Police believe the friends have already crossed into Syria.
The boys lived with their families in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, a mile from the former home of 7/ 7 bomber Mohammed Siddique Khan.
In 2008, Hassan’s brother Hammaad was jailed for two years for being part of an al- Qaeda cell. He was just 15 when he was arrested on his way home from a GCSE exam.
Police found two bags of ball bearings, often used as shrapnel by suicide bombers, in one of his pockets.
Blackfriars Crown Court heard he was snared by a group of “cyber groomers” that set out to brainwash the vulnerable to kill “nonbelievers”.
Hassan’s grandad, Sheikh Yakub Munshi, 78, is an Islamic scholar who also lives in Dewsbury and was the driving force behind a secretive Sharia court exposed by the Daily Express in 2007.
Sheikh Munshi, who moved to Britain from Pakistan in the 1960s, was part of a Muslim delegation which travelled to Nato’s Brussels HQ to discuss terrorism in 2005. He refused to comment yesterday.
The two boys have been close friends for years and their families are “completely broken”, friends said last night.
Former Dewsbury Labour MP Shahid Malik said after visiting them: “They are distraught and very frightened.
“The boys are only 17 and the best of friends. Their parents are desperate for news and they just want them back.
“They had no clue that anything like this would happen.”
Referring to Hassan’s brother being jailed, he added: “Nobody thinks lightning is going to strike in the same place.
“Hammaad, by all accounts, is now a reformed character doing exceptionally well.”
Talha is believed to have told his family he would be away on a school trip. But when they could not contact him they alerted police.
A North East Counter Terrorism Unit source said the boys were already thought to be in Syria. Kirklees Council chief executive Adrian Lythgo said: “We need to talk openly about the risks posed to our young people and to work together to protect them.”