Former Briton held in Syria

THE wife of a self-described aid worker stripped of his British nationality has called for his release after he was detained by jihadists in Syria’s last major rebel bastion.

Tauqir Sharif, 33, was detained on June 22 by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a dominant group in Syria’s northwestern region of Idlib, his supporters say.

“We haven’t been given anything from HTS to even say what the allegations are against him”, his wife Racquell Hayden Best said in the town of Atme.

“We have heard ourselves that he is innocent. If he is an innocent man, why are you holding him in prison?” she asked.

Sharif, whose father is originally from Pakistan, hails from Chingford on the eastern outskirts of London. He first arrived in Syria in 2012, according to the Live Updates From Syria group he founded with his wife.

Britain stripped him of his nationality in 2017, accusing him of links to an al-Qaeda-aligned group it did not specify, British media reports said, but Sharif has denied the allegation.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britainbased war monitor, said Sharif was held over his alleged ties with rival jihadists.