IS children ‘could be sent on suicide attacks in Britain’

ISLAMIC State could use women and children returning from Iraq and Syria to launch suicide bombings and ‘lone wolf’ attacks in Britain, the Home Secretary will be warned today.

EU officials fear families who travelled from Europe to join the terror group could come back en masse as it loses its territory.

European countries that have seen their citizens go to become foreign fighters will discuss how women and children who travelled with their husbands and fathers to Iraq and Syria could be used for deadly attacks across the continent.

An EU official said there was a ‘particular problem’ with children who have been ‘militarised’ abroad as Islamic State, also known as Daesh, ‘changes its tactics from the battlefield to lone wolf attacks’.

He said: ‘We assume that at least some of the fighters will return to the EU member states from which they came. There is a question of how you deal with not the fighters themselves, but the women and children who are there with them.’

Home Secretary Amber Rudd will today attend the meeting in Brussels organised for the 13 European countries most affected by the foreign fighters phenomenon.

An estimated 4,000 EU citizens have travelled to Syria and Iraq to join Islamic State, with nearly three quarters of these coming from Belgium, France, Germany and the UK.

About 700 Britons have gone to fight in the region, with more than half thought to have already returned and approximately 70 dead.

Terrorism experts believe that moves to take back the Islamic State strongholds of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria could lead to a sudden exodus of fighters.

The EU official said: ‘It would be foolish not to prepare for mass returns as Daesh continues to lose its territory.’

Britain has introduced a law making it illegal to travel for terrorism purposes, but the official added: ‘It can be quite difficult to know how to deal with returning foreign fighters.’