Tareena Shakil: British mum who fled to join ISIS may be sent BACK to Syria
The 25-year-old claims she fled from her jihadist base over the border to Turkey when IS militants tried to force her to marry a one-legged fighter
The young British mum who went to Syria with her toddler son to join Islamic State terrorists may not be allowed to return to the UK, her family has been warned.
Tareena Shakil, 25, claims she fled from her jihadist base over the border to Turkey when IS militants tried to force her to marry a one-legged fighter.
But now she faces a fight to return to Britain with her 16-month-old son Zaheem – because Turkish authorities might send her BACK to Syria.
A Foreign Office source said: “It’s not impossible that this could happen. They are on the front line of the war with IS and will have little sympathy towards her.”
We reveal previously unseen pictures of Tareena, including one taken of her with her son just days before she fled her family on her mission to join IS.
Holding tiny Zaheem at a playground near her Staffordshire home, she looks like a happy doting mum.
But four days later she flew 3,000 miles to Turkey with her boy before crossing the border to the Syrian city of Raqqa.
And then it all went wrong as the single mum realised what life would be like with the extremists.
Now her father Mohammed, 42, has flown to the Turkish border town of Gaziantep where she is being held. He has taken her British birth certificate in a bid to get his daughter back.
Her worried brother Tareem Shakil, 22, told us he drove his sister to East Midlands Airport to catch what he, his father and his mother Mandy thought was a flight to Spain.
“At first no one suspected anything, then she said she was at the border of Syria. She sent us messages saying she’d gone over for a new life, that she had been radicalised,” said Tareem.
“She said she wanted to live in the way of Allah. She was promised a good life with a good husband. She wanted to live under Sharia law.
“But it wasn’t like that. Then she was texting saying she might not make it back. She was messaging, ‘Please help me, I made a stupid mistake. Please Dad, will you come here and get me?’
“He was planning to go out there, but she made the escape herself. She thought she’d rather die trying to get away.”
Tareem said IS had “promised her a new life as she had split from her husband. But she didn’t want a forced marriage and they were being evil. She escaped and broke into a house to get her passport”.
Her family had called the police after discovering Tareena had joined IS. Tareem said: “They came and took computers away to examine them.”
Other pictures the family gave us show Tareena as a carefree teenager.
She was a fan of TV shows like The Only Way Is Essex.
But then the young woman from Burton-on-Trent was radicalised and set up a Facebook page saying she was a “slave to Allah”.
The Foreign Office source said she would be interrogated over possible terror offences and sent on a course to “de-radicalise” her – IF she is allowed home.
“Tareena doesn’t have an automatic right to return to the UK,” said the source. “The Turkish authorities could decide to send her back to Syria.
“She entered Syria illegally and the normal action is to return illegal immigrants to the country they’ve come from. It’s unlikely she would be sent to Syria but not impossible.
“A lot will depend on what she says in interview. The fact she has her son with her makes it less likely.”
Meanwhile Home Secretary Theresa May is under fire for cutting cash spent on fighting potential terrorists and extremists in half.
The row comes amid mounting fears of an attack in the UK in the wake of the shootings in Paris.
Britain set up a “Prevent” anti-terror strategy after 9/11, but the £3.5m spent on the programme in 2013 was cut to just £1.7m last year.
Labour slammed the cuts and warned Britain was facing a growing threat from returning jihadi fighters.
The Prevent strategy aims to engage with communities seen at risk of radicalisation to help them tackle extremism in places including schools, universities and prisons across the country.
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Despite the growing threat from IS and the unprecedented numbers of British citizens returning to our country having fought in Syria, the government has substantially cut support for community-led action to counter extremists’ lies and warped ideology.
“The police can’t do this alone. Countering extremism is much more effective if it involves local community groups, youth organisations and faith groups.”
MIRROR