Agony of IS boy’s Christian granny
THE Christian grandmother of the boy paraded in the latest Islamic State video saw his picture in the sick film for the first time last night, saying: ‘This is not what God gave me.’
Victoria Dare, 59, reacted with horror on learning that the child dubbed ‘Jihadi Junior’ appeared to be Isa, the infant son of her Muslim convert daughter Grace.
She said she was confident the boy in the execution video, who is dressed in military fatigues and wearing an IS bandana, was the four-year-old taken to Syria by his mother three years ago.
Mrs Dare f rom Lewisham, south-east London, who brought mother- of-two Grace up as a devout Christian, said of the boy in the video: ‘The eyeballs, the eyelashes, then the mouth, the lips. He looks like Isa.’
But showing her conflicting emotions, she told the BBC: ‘I am not taking it as my grandson in that situation. I can’t deal with this situation, so I am not looking at this as if it is my grandson.’
She added: ‘Naturally it is my grandson [but] this is not what God gave me.’
Mrs Dare said her daughter, 24, changed her name to Khadijah after converting to Islam six years ago. She added: ‘She was born here and she grew up here until everything fell apart. So her name is Grace. I don’t know where they got all these names.’
She added that she refuses to call her daughter Khadijah, adding: ‘I still call her Grace ... I feel very unhappy because I miss them a lot, which is really devastating. I need my daughter, my grandchildren, back.’
Her confirmation of the boy’s identity, in an interview with the BBC’s One Show, came 24 hours after Isa’s grandfather said the toddler had recently begged him: ‘Please save me.’
Henry Dare, also 59, said Isa made the harrowing plea over the phone from Syria, where his mother has become one of the terror group’s most notorious jihadi brides. In the ten-minute video released on Sunday, which shows the execution of five men accused of being spies for the UK, Isa says: ‘We will kill the kaffir (non-believers) over there.’
According to the BBC, Mrs Dare only realised her grandson was in the video yesterday as she does not follow the news closely.
Mr Dare also spoke of his horror at seeing Isa in the film.
The part-time law student, also known as Sunday, told The Sun: ‘That is my grandson – I would know him anywhere. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the pic-
‘I burst into tears when I saw him’
tures. I felt sick. They are pure evil for doing this to that little child – pure evil. I burst into tears when I saw it was him. He doesn’t like it over there.
‘I spoke to him on the phone and he just said, “Granddad come and get me”. I am devastated they have used my grandson like that – they are using him as a pawn.
‘Just imagine that little boy saying they are going to kill all the non-believers. He can’t know what he is saying – they have brainwashed him.’
Mr Dare appealed to his daughter to come home from Syria and ‘face the music’. He said: ‘ She must have been forced to make her son do that.’
His daughter was christened Grace at a church in Lewisham, but converted to Islam in 2010 and changed dramatically, according to her father.
Isa was born in South London in 2011, and enjoyed a normal Western upbringing for the first few months of his life.
In 2012, his mother told her family – who are of Nigerian descent – that she was going to Egypt to study. But she secretly fled with her young son to Syria instead, changing her name to Khadijah and marrying a Swedish terrorist.
Mr Dare said: ‘Isa is my grandson. I can’t disown them. He was a lovely playful child when he was in Britain. I just want them back here. She needs to come home and face the music. I don’t know what they have done to her out there. She changed when she became a Muslim.
‘A couple of weeks ago she phoned me. It’s always from a withheld number. She told me she didn’t like it.
‘I think all of the leaders are there by her when she calls because sometimes she doesn’t answer a question I put to her.
‘I always tell her to come back to London but she says she is afraid of prison food.’