CARDIFF ISIS TERRORIST BEGS TO RETURN HOME
Aseel Muthana left Wales to join Isis fighting in Syria in 2013 when he was 17 years old. Chris Hughes spoke to him in a prison camp in Syria where he’s being held after Isis was defeated
ATEENAGER from Wales who has worked for seven hatefilled years as a recruiter for terror-group Isis has broken cover to plead to come home.
Aseel Muthana, from Butetown, Cardiff, was 17 years old when he fled Wales to join his elder brother Nasser, then 21, in Syria fighting with the Islamic State monsters.
The Sunday Mirror tracked him down to Rojava state in north east Syria where he gave them a chilling insight into his life as a terror recruiter - describing crucifixions, beheadings, bodies hanging from posts and homosexuals being thrown off rooftops.
Now 24, he confessed he had “seen so much blood” that casual Isis executions and limb-chopping punishments became like mere entertainment.
In a secret holding cell, he claimed not to be present when the machete was wielded, the nail driven in or the victim pushed to his death.
But he found time to laugh and expressed regret that he never saw the grisly rooftop ritual inflicted on homosexuals. Throwing his hands into the air he squealed “arrgh” and said: “I wanted to like, I guess, witness it. It’s curiosity killed the cat.”
Aseel bragged on social media he was “100% pro” the brutality used by Isis, claiming “jihad is obligatory” and he was “willing to die”.
In a 90-minute interview, he told how:
■ He was 50 yards away when his brother was killed by a drone. Nasser, 21, peppered with shrapnel, was high on a Pentagon “kill” list.
■ He secretly married a British Isis bride, has a son with her and wants to be reunited.
■ He bleatingly demands “rehabilitation” and to be allowed back into the UK as “a human right”.
■ Knows that if he does return he will spend years in jail here.
Aseel’s brother Nasser was killed in a drone strike in 2016, three years after the two young men had headed to Syria to join Isis in fighting to form a caliphate in the lands they were trying to carve out from the Syrian regime.
A court in the UK would later hear how three men had given Aseel cash, arranged transport and prepared him for life in Syria.
Aseel, who is being kept in prison along with thousands of fellow Isis members, was with the group from 2013 all the way to their bloody last stand last year, when they were defeated by western-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in Bargouz.
In the interview, he blames his brother for everything. Nasser plucked Aseel from the six-week Isis boot camp when he joined and taught him how to fire an AK-47 himself. But during our interview, Aseel beamed and denied being a fighter or taking part in violence.
As we speak, and despite his smiles and hand gestures, darkened, hollow eyes give away a coldness and years of exposure to the horrors of Isis.
Touting the same line other jailed jihadis have before him, he said: “I feel abandoned by the UK. I have human rights. I should be rehabilitated.”
Noting our surprise, he quickly fired back: “I mean, okay, let’s say I was a criminal – you can’t just leave me. It’s normal – for human rights. Even if I was a criminal I should be rehabilitated. Have some sort of contact with my family, my country.”
We asked him about the murders, the beheadings of journalists and aid workers in Raqqa.
He replied: “I honestly, I have seen so much blood, senseless in a way. Of course you’re going to feel bad, people getting killed, it’s normal. I don’t justify any innocent killings or murders but when you see so much bloodshed on both sides. Isis killing innocent people... I stopped having an opinion.”
Aseel showed callous disregard for gruesome punishments given to alleged “spies” and homosexuals within Raqqa, merely shrugging and saying: “It’s the wrong way I guess.”
It was then that he spoke about his disappointment at “missing” executions.
Asked about victims hurled from rooftops he said: “I have never seen that. It happened near my house one time and I was told by someone, ‘You missed it’ and I like was arrgh, the guy being thrown off. I was always being told, ‘You just missed this and you missed that’. I was like arrgh. I was like everyone’s watching it.”
Aseel also expressed disappointment at having “just missed” the cru
cifixion of six “spies” – though he did see their bodies hanging on posts on a roundabout after.
Throughout our interview he displayed a blinkered refusal to accept responsibility. He continued to assert that he “always just missed” the moments of horror.
Aseel also blamed his brother for using his name to post Twitter propaganda on a shared account. Nasser once said on social media he wanted the decapitation of a Shia prisoner – saying “glad tidings, we’ll make sure his head is detachable”.
Aseel posted his “100 per cent” pro-Isis tweet in 2014. The Sunday Mirror put it to him he was a wellknown Isis recruiter and a fighter.
Aseel replied: “No. But I am not going to deny the account was shared.”
He claimed Nasser would confirm events if he was alive, adding: “He would take the blame and say, ‘I got you into this’. He was saying on Twitter, ‘Yeah, come and join Isis, live under Sharia law, enjoy life with no fear’.”
Aseel has, of course, has had plenty of time to get his story straight, aware that any admission of firing a gun or recruiting will be severely judged if he ever goes to trial.
He described how Nasser died in a drone strike in Mosul, Iraq, where the caliphate was born. Still blaming Nasser, Aseel said: “I understand why he got droned. He was posing a threat to the West and UK, calling for attacks.
“It’s the consequences, it is going to happen. It’s war. You don’t go to war and expect roses and petals to be thrown at you. You are going to get injured, going to get killed. What do you expect? I understand the consequences, the backlash.”
He then, unemotionally, described the drone attack in February 2016. It was 9pm and they were walking the streets of Mosul.
Aseel said Nasser told him: “I am tired of trying to run away from death. If they want to kill me they can kill me.”
Twenty minutes later, Aseel was in a shop when Nasser was hit by a missile. With no emotion, he recalled: “His face was hacked – smashed in. He had shrapnel all over his body.”
Aseel admitted he didn’t attend the funeral and waved dismissively, saying as an aside: “He was buried in Mosul, yes.”
Fellow recruit Mohammed Ismail was accused of tipping off western intelligence about Nasser’s movements. Months later, Ismail, 20, from Coventry, was executed by Isis for being a spy.
And yet another man from Cardiff – Reyaad Khan, 21 – was in the Muthana clan. He, too, died in a drone strike. Aseel told the Mirror Nasser’s death released him from his obligation towards Isis, explaining: “That source that was feeding me was now pretty much cut off. From then I wanted to go back to the UK.”
But Aseel’s story, that he was a mere “translator” for Isis, is impossible to believe. Asked repeatedly if he ever killed, he denied it – even when I said nobody back home will believe him.
At one point I asked him if I spent years investigating his Isis activities what would he say if I told him I had witnesses who saw him fighting?
He smiled, laughed and said: “I would say, ‘Bring them to me’.”
His father Ahmed Muthana, who still lives in Butetown, Cardiff, said he hoped his son – “polite” and “conservative” before being radicalised – would be allowed back into the UK.
He said: “He would have to go to prison, put him in rehabilitation, deradicalise him.”
But he dismissed the idea that Aseel was trapped under the influence of Nasser.
Ahmed, 63, added: “No, different minds, they are different. They dreamed of being in that country, but who guided them to there?”