Ex-extremist warns of jihadi bride threat
A FORMER Islamic extremist last night warned returning jihadi brides should not be trusted for years because they are so indoctrinated.
Aimen Dean said radicalised women have used their children in Islamic State terror atrocities.
The warning comes as teenager Shamima Begum’s family lawyer Tasnime Akunjee confirmed he is hoping to appeal against the stripping of her British citizenship “as soon as possible”.
Former Al Qaeda supporter Aimen Dean, who later became a spy for MI5 and MI6, said: “We can’t trust anyone who was in IS until years pass through their rehabilitation because there are well documented cases of IS women blowing themselves up alongside their own babies to kill security forces.”
Mr Akunjee has defended Begum’s right to travel with her child as the row over their future continues.
He said: “No one can stand in the way of a mother and what her decision-making process around her child should be – unless she is deemed unfit by a psychiatrist.
“For all intents and purposes [Begum] is stateless. But the child is not. If one were to try to make a ward of court application… the mother technically has a right to challenge that. How does that work when someone is stateless and the child is not? It’s a bizarre scenario.”
Mr Akunjee, or another lawyer, is to visit the refugee camp in northern Syria to meet the teenager, originally from Bethnal Green, east London. Begum’s family have said they will help their daughter challenge the decision of Home Secretary Sajid Javid. A Home Office spokesman said “any decisions to deprive individuals of their citizenship are based on all available evidence and not taken lightly”. Meanwhile Kurdish forces could release foreign IS fighters unless they get specialist help to keep them. Ilham Ahmed, of the Syrian Democratic Council, said: “It is a big problem because many prisoners and their families are also IS supporters. Their kids have grown up with this influence as well as their wives. So we have to deal with the radicalisation they’ve been through and to rehabilitate them. We need a lot of support from the outside to do this. “If we don’t get help from outside, yes we would have to let them go.”