- Boris Johnson wants to send the SAS into Syria to bring back British children
- The mission will return the children of ISIS terrorists to the United Kingdom
- There are around 30 minors with claims to UK citizenship in northern Syria
- Only those who are aged 16 and under will be allowed to return to Britain
Boris Johnson is drawing up plans to send the SAS into Syria to bring back the British children of Islamic State fighters, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The controversial repatriation scheme has sparked a major Cabinet rift inside the Government’s top secret National Security Council (NSC), where there is currently deadlock on the issue.
It is understood that there are about 30 minors with claims to UK citizenship in camps in northern Syria. They were born to British parents who joined ISIS.
Boris Johnson wants to send the SAS to bring back the children of ISIS fighters from Syria who are entitled to British citizenship as long as they are aged 16 or under
ISIS bride Shamima Begum, pictured, had a child, Jerah, who died in a Syrian refugee camp
Following tense talks at two meetings of the NSC in recent weeks, a final decision on whether to deploy British troops and officials to repatriate the children back is expected early next month.
Even if given the green light, only those aged 16 and under would be extracted, but the Prime Minister is facing fierce pressure to abandon the plan over safety and legal concerns.
One Government figure claimed Mr Johnson was ‘wavering’ but another suggested the PM was ‘minded to’ give the go-ahead. Downing Street is likely to be furious that details of talks at the NSC, which is made up of the Cabinet’s most senior Ministers and the heads of the security services, have emerged.
Participants are bound by the strictest code of secrecy and the then Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson was sacked in April after being accused by Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill of leaking details of a NSC meeting about the Chinese technology giant Huawei. He denied the claim.
It is understood that support for the repatriation plan is being led by Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and International Development Secretary Alok Sharma.
Chancellor Sajid Javid, Home Secretary Priti Patel and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace are opposed, while Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom and Trade Secretary Liz Truss, who also sit on the committee, are described as ‘indifferent’.
Mr Javid took a tough approach to British nationals who travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight for ISIS when he was Home Secretary.
When former Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said in March that Ministers ‘have been looking at how we can get in touch with these children, how we can find a way to get them out’, he squashed the plans due to fears that it could give ISIS fighters and their brides, such as Shamima Begum, a path back to Britain.
About 900 British citizens fled to join the so-called caliphate in Syria and Iraq, with 400 thought to have made their own way back to the UK. Many others died, but scores have been detained in Syria by Kurdish forces and are being held in camps.
Last week Begum, who fled her home in East London, aged 15, in February 2015 and married a jihadi in Syria, issued a fresh plea to be allowed to return to the UK. The Mail on Sunday revealed in March that she had been stripped of her British citizenship after the security services found evidence that she helped ISIS fighters to prepare suicide bombs. Her baby son, Jarrah, died in a refugee camp in March.
Publicly the Government says there is no means of helping the British children in war-torn Syria because there is no UK consular access.
The repatriation talks come amid growing pressure from the American government and the Kurdish forces that run the camps for Britain to do more to help.
A Government source said: ‘The Americans are leading the charge on this, pointing out what happens when these kids grow up radicalised. It’s a major headache now but just wait until a Briton cuts the head off an American.’
Representatives from the Kurdistan government have also asked the UK to take responsibility for its citizens, but Whitehall insiders say the repatriation plan – which would see Foreign Office officials go into the camps under the protection of Special Forces troops – is impractical for logistical and legal reasons.
The Home Office has examined the idea of allowing British-based relatives of the children stranded in Syria to adopt them or for them to be taken into care, but have been warned of difficulties by officials including the legality of bringing the children back without the permission of their parents or guardians and the expense of monitoring and rehabilitating them.
Last night a Whitehall source said: ‘It’s all very well virtue signalling now about bringing them home, but some of these children are now teenagers and have spent their formative years playing with AKs [AK47 assault rifles]. It might be cheered now but when one of them blows up a shopping centre, who is going to get the blame?’
Former IS recruiter begs to return home
Tooba Gondal has appealed to be allowed back into the country, despite once calling it 'filthy'.
AN Islamic State recruiter who fled London begged to be allowed home yesterday.
Tooba Gondal, 25, a former student at Goldsmiths, University of London, travelled from Walthamstow, east London, to Syria in 2015.
From the terrorist group's capital of Raqqa, she glorified the brutal regime and lured British girls to be 'jihadi brides'. It is thought London schoolgirl Shamima Begum was among her recruits.
She wed three IS fighters, all of whom were killed.
As IS lost ground, Gondal – who now calls herself Umm Muthanna Al Britaniyah – was sent in April to the Ain Issa camp in northern Syria with her two young children, daughter Asiya, 18 months, and son Ibrahim, two, after trying to flee.
In a letter published by The Sunday Times yesterday, she appealed to be let back into Britain, despite once calling it a 'filthy country'.
She said: 'I am not a terrorist. I have never harmed you, nor do I intend to. I want to prove I am a changed person; a much better individual for society. I want to face justice in a British court. I wish to redeem myself.'
Gondal has been banned from re-entering the UK by a Home Office exclusion order. But she says her second husband – Ibrahim's father – was British, which she believes gives her grounds to return.
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