Three secret jihadi brides

They’re all British, all previously unheard of – and we found them in a Syrian camp they say is ‘five-star’. But still they’ve launched a legal fight to get home

AT LEAST three more British jihadi brides are staying in the same Syrian refugee camp as Shamima Begum – and each of them is trying to return to the UK. After being found last week by The Mail on Sunday, the women described life in the ‘five-star’ Al-Roj camp where a reporter discovered a ‘hawala bank’ that delivers cash sent to jihadists by relatives and supporters overseas.

Under the UK Terrorism Act, it is illegal to send money abroad if the recipient has joined or aligned themselves with a proscribed terrorist group such as Isis. The offence carries a maximum sentence of 14 years.

During the authorised visit, the three women – who have all mounted legal bids to return to Britain – only agreed to speak on condition of anonymity for fear of hampering their cases. They revealed: l People smugglers were paid to take British Isis brides from the AlHol camp to Turkey from where some may have returned to the UK; l British women attend classes where they learn how to wear Western clothes, watch music videos and even take part in zumba classes; l Jihadi brides download music from guards and throw late-night parties inside their tents; l Boys are removed from the camp at the age of 13 to stop them having sex with women to ‘expand the caliphate’.

Around 800 families live in the

Al-Roj camp, close to the borders with Turkey and Iran and muchpreferred to the infamous Al-Hol centre 80 miles away and home to 15,000 families. Ringed by a high fence to prevent escapes, it has a nursery, school, playground, health centre and scores of shops selling fresh produce.

Male Isis fighters are kept away in separate camps and prisons. They include the husband of ‘Nazma’, a British-born woman with dual nationality seized after the fall of the Isis stronghold of Baghouz in March 2019. She has been stripped of her citizenship due to her dual nationality but is cautiously optimistic her bid to return to Britain will succeed. ‘My lawyer is my voice and I know the intelligence service know my history, they know my family, so I think I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I think my case is okay.’

She is, however, aware the Supreme Court recently rejected an application by Begum – the most famous resident of Al-Roj, who also has dual nationality – to return to Britain.

Before arriving at Al-Roj ten months ago, Nazma was in Al-Hol – nicknamed the ‘mini-caliphate’ – where Syrian and Iraqi people smugglers operated with near impunity. ‘When we first came [to Al-Hol], they smuggled themselves out, most [British] people,’ she explained. ‘I couldn’t as I… had a broken leg, plus it was not safe.’

Her case is likely to be heard by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission court where her lawyers are near certain to request her anonymity. The court makes such orders for 90 per cent of cases it hears.

‘Jannath’ claimed she had been tricked by her white convert husband into coming to Syria in late 2015. Born to a middle-class Muslim family whose parents are an engineer and a scientist, she claims she thought she was going on a belated honeymoon to Turkey, but ended up crossing the border by bus while heavily pregnant.

‘I didn’t get to have a good honeymoon, so he said he will fulfil his promise,’ she claimed. ‘And I did sightsee [in Turkey] and I was happy, but little did I know what other plans he had in the end.’

She ended up in Raqqa, Isis’s then

Make-up classes and dancing parties in tents

de facto capital, where her husband was killed a year later. As the caliphate crumbled, she fled to southern Syria where she married again. He was killed in an airstrike and the mother-of-two finished up being detained in Baghouz.

The International Red Cross recently smuggled in a letter from her father – the first communication with her parents in six years. Such letters are banned, but a blind eye is often turned. She claimed her brother-in-law in Britain has occasionally sent her money in the camp – breaking the law in doing so – but that she has lost her father’s letter which has a phone number, so cannot call to ask him for cash too.

She said camp residents can access cash via a building containing a ‘hawala’ bank, which is an informal money transfer system based on trust between a network of brokers. Residents can use free mobile phones hanging from the bank’s ceiling by string to call relatives to ask for money to be sent.

She said: ‘We only get two minutes on the phone to do this. It’s just, “Can you help me and send me some money?” That’s all.’

Even if her legal bid is rejected, Jannath wrongly believes she will automatically be allowed back if she can somehow get to the British consulate in Turkey due to false rumours of an unwritten agreement between the two countries.

‘Rachel’, a mother-of-three who was born in the UK and is of Trinidadian origin, is among those who

recently arrived at Al-Roj. Her reluctance to speak was less about her application to return to the UK and more about a deal that she claims her mother has struck with Channel 4 for an interview.

In any event, she appears comparatively happy in the camp, one of around 20 dotted around northern Syria and controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces, the pro-Western Kurdish troops.

‘It’s cleaner, it’s more organised and it’s much, much, better [than Al-Hol]. It’s five-star,’ she said. ‘For your mental state, it’s much better.’ Her children receive an education. ‘They go to school, they play, they get toys and bags and books. It’s not so bad… It’s very good.’ Rachel claimed her mother also provides hawala payments.

Women also have a chance to join classes dealing with everything from sewing to deradicalisation, where they are encouraged to shed their veils and hijabs and are given fashion and make-up tips. No one can know how many genuinely wish to turn their backs on extremism and how many participate to burnish their credentials for future immigration hearings.

During one class last week, a group of ten women, including Begum, sat in a tent as an American Yemeni woman told them of her desire to shed her hijab, but feared the reaction of her family.

Videos for zumba classes shown on TV include those by Colombian singer Shakira, known for her raunchy routines. The Kurdish authorities say guards allow women to download pop music onto USB sticks and have dancing parties in their tents.

The SDF allows women to live with their children, but once sons turn 13, they are taken to a different detention facility. Sources say this is to prevent underage sex, but also to stop radicalised youngsters trying to ‘expand the caliphate’. l The names of the women have been changed.