British ‘IS bride’ bailed after f lying to UK with baby

A SUSPECTED jihadi bride who had a child under Islamic State rule in Syria has been arrested and bailed after returning to the UK with her baby.

The case of the woman, 27, is thought to be the first involving a mother and a child born into the IS regime returning to Britain.

The mother, who has not been named, was held on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts after flying into Heathrow Airport from Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa ten days ago.

She is the latest in a string of arrests made by British counter-terror police, who are bracing themselves for an influx of jihadi brides.

She had flown from Ethiopia in an apparent bid to cover her tracks, but officers from Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism unit were waiting when she landed. Her boy, who is less than two years old and whose nationality is unclear, has been taken into care, the Sunday Times reported.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: ‘The woman, a UK national aged 27, has been bailed to return to a London police station in early February.’ MI5 previously said around 850 extremists from Britain travelled to the Middle East as IS took control of pockets of Syria and Iraq around 2014.

But as the terror group has been flushed out again, many of its militants with British passports have started returning home with their families.

Last year, ministers stripped more than 150 jihadis of their citizenship and banned them from Britain, including suspected IS recruiter Aqsa Mahmood, 22, from Glasgow.

Another British woman who fled Syria at the end of 2016 has been placed under a similar order after her husband, a prominent British IS figure, was killed in battle.

The woman, who also cannot be named for legal reasons, gave birth to three children while in the warzone, meaning they have no nationality. All three are now stranded in Turkey.

The Home Office argued that Mahmood and the mother have not been made stateless by the orders banning them from the UK as they can apply for citizenship in the countries in which their parents were born, which is Pakistan in Mahmood’s case.

British children known to have been brought to Syria and Iraq with their parents will be taken into care should their families bring them home.