Briton who battled IS insists: ‘Don’t let jihadis back in UK’
LETTING Islamic State jihadis return to the UK is like “inviting the wolf to dinner”, a Briton fighting against the murderous group has warned.
Having battled the extremists for the past three years alongside Syrian Democratic Forces, Macer Gifford said there was a “real risk” those returning could carry out terror attacks.
Earlier this month Max Hill QC spoke of “losing a generation” by automatically using the courts to punish those who have travelled to the war zone. The terrorism legislation watchdog also called for a focus on “reintegration”.
But Mr Gifford, 30, from Cambridge, has issued a plea to the Government to sit up and listen as he believes it is not possible for former IS fighters to return and be reformed.
“As someone who has been out here and seen what the Islamic State is like on the ground and what they have done to the people – this is a wake-up call and a warning to Britain,” he said.
“When I see a man like this official who said he wants these young people back, when I see them saying this on national television – you are inviting the wolf to dinner.”
Mr Gifford, a former Londonbased banker, who uses a pseudonym to protect his family, said the fanatics could not be trusted.
“The foreign fighters are actually by far the worst, and the most aggressive, most deranged of all the Islamic State fighters,” he said. “These are individuals who have had every opportunity to live a normal, happy life in Britain, America, France and other places.
“Yet they’ve basically spat in the face of everything that we hold dear – our democracy, our shared values of secularism and multiculturalism.
“They have gone to Syria to butcher, murder and rape people, to sell people into sexual slavery, and they tear up their passports as an act of defiance.”
He said these battle-hardened jihadis, who are now being hunted by drones, are faced with the choice of dying or returning to the UK and riding out a prison sentence.
“You can’t trust these people,” he said.
“They can’t be reformed in my opinion. They are completely lost to us as human beings.”
Mr Gifford warned that those returning could carry out an attack on British soil as they look to “go out with a bigger bang than dying in a ditch”.
Mr Gifford fought against IS in every major battle, and said he was motivated to do so because of their “butchery”.