Shamima Begum security fears as 1,500 Islamic State terrorists escape | UK | News
Syrian army confirmed (Image: BBC)
Fears have risen over the safety of prisons and camps holding British jihadists, including Shamima Begum, after Islamic State militants escaped from a prison in eastern Syria, The Times reported.
The Syrian army confirmed that “a number” of prisoners had escaped from a prison in Shaddadi holding thousands; The Kurdish website Rudaw reported that approximately 1,500 ISIS members escaped.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish group responsible for managing prisons and camps in eastern Syria where ISIS members are held, said it lost control of the Shaddadi facility after it came under attack by the government army.
While the main prison in Hasakah, which houses a number of British jihadists including Hamza Parvez, appears safe, concerns have risen over the fate of ISIS-linked prisoners after the Kurdish group signed a deal to hand over control of prisons and detention centers to the Syrian government.
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Begum was held in a concentration camp further north-east
Shamima Begum, who went to Syria as a teenager to become the bride of ISIS and has since been stripped of her British citizenship, is being held at Roj, a concentration camp for relatives of extremists, further north-east.
The SDF, which is supported by Western countries and was effective in the fight against ISIS during the group’s so-called caliphate between 2014 and 2019, has created an autonomous region in northeastern Syria. However, the new government, headed by President Sharaa, one of the former rebel leaders, is trying to bring the region under its authority.
After several days of fighting, the SDF signed a ceasefire agreement with Sharaa on Sunday, agreeing to join its army and hand over prisons and camps to government forces. SDF officials expressed concern about giving prisons to former Al Qaeda commander Sharaa and his troops, many of whom are former jihadists.
Shamima Begum passes through security barriers at Gatwick Airport (Image: Met the Police)
Concern that ISIS will benefit from the new government
SDF leader Mazloum Abdi stated that the Sharaa government was heeding international demands for the inclusion of minorities, and suggested that ISIS would benefit from this by appealing to disgruntled radicals.
Despite Sharaa’s past fight against ISIS and its abandonment of ties with al-Qaeda, there are concerns that the group’s best hope, down to a few hundred fighters in Syria, is to stage prison breaks to replenish its ranks.
Twenty British women, forty children and ten men are believed to be held in facilities controlled by the Kurdish group, which has previously tried to repatriate prisoners to their home country; Many also refuse to accept jihadists back.
Home Affairs Minister Shabana Mahmood said the government would “robustly defend” the decision to strip Begum, now 26, of her British citizenship despite recent calls for an investigation by the European Court of Human Rights.
