2 Pak-origin IS brides lose UK citizenship
LONDON: Two Pakistani-origin sisters from London are believed to be the latest set of mothers to lose their British citizenship for marrying into the Islamic State terrorist group in Syria.
Reema Iqbal and her sister, Zara, have five boys under the age of eight between them and are being held in a Syrian detention camp. Reports of them losing their right to return to the UK after losing their citizenship come as it was confirmed that Bangladeshi-origin Shamima Begum lost her three-week-old baby in a Syrian refugee camp days after her British citizenship was similarly revoked.
The Sunday Times quoted legal sources as saying that the Iqbal sisters from east London have had their British nationality rights revoked for marrying into an ISIS terrorist cell. Their parents are from Pakistan, so the UK Home Office would argue they are eligible for Pakistani nationality instead. Their five sons, however, are likely to remain British citizens.
The newspaper report said the two women headed to Syria from London in 2013 after marrying into a six-man cell of ISIS recruits with close links to the filmed murders of western hostages by British Arab ISIS fighter Mohammed Emwazi, dubbed “Jihadi John” for his UK connection. The sisters’ husbands were later killed in fighting.
Zara, 28, already had a son when she made the journey and was heavily pregnant with her second child, to whom she gave birth in Syria. She later had a third boy under the so-called “ISIS caliphate”. The family is believed to be in either al Hol camp or another facility at Ain Issa in Syria.
Her older sister, Reema, 30, has two sons, one of whom was born in Britain. They are in Roj camp, to which Shamima Begum was reportedly transferred recently.