UK sisters who married jihadis have been stripped of citizenship
UK sisters who married ISIS jihadis and are being held in Syrian detention camps with their five children have been stripped of their British citizenship like Shamima Begum
- Sisters Reema and Zara Iqbal fled to Syria from east London with their children
- The pair went to war-torn country with their Portuguese jihadi husbands in 2013
- Both were said to have been part of all-female terror cell with three other women
- They both begged to be allowed back to the UK but had their citizenship stripped
- Revelation comes as fellow ISIS bride Shamima Begum’s baby died in Syria camp
Two more jihadi bride sisters being held with their five children in Syrian refugee camps have been stripped of their British citizenship, it has been reported.
Sisters Reema and Zara Iqbal, who between them have five sons under the age of eight, have had their UK nationality removed after marrying ISIS jihadis in Syria.
The pair were said to were reportedly part of a five-strong all-female terror cell after travelling to the war-torn country from east London in 2013 with their husbands.
Natalie Bracht, Ruzina Khanam and Maylbongwe Sibanda are said to have travelled to Syria with the Iqbal sisters and their Portuguese-born husbands.
Their husbands were thought to have been radicalised in London after travelling to the capital to seek careers as professional footballers.
The men, who are known associates of Jihadi John, were said to have converted to Islam after meeting notorious hate preacher Anjem Choudary.
Celso Rodrigues da Costa followed his older sibling Edgar to Syria to join ISIS and took both Reema Iqbal and Natalie Bracht along with his fellow radicalised Portuguese jihadis
Jihadi wife Shamima Begum in the al-Hawl camp in northern Syria. Her three-week old son died this week
Reema Iqbal’s husband Celso Rodrigues Da Costa, a former Harrods sales assistant who claimed to have had a trial with Arsenal, is one of the six who made his name as a brutal killer after travelling to Syria.
Da Costa appeared in an ISIS propaganda video, boasting of celebrating the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha by slaughtering infidels.
Despite his marriage to Iqbal, ringleader Da Costa is said to have married Natalie Bracht after grooming her over the internet.
Bracht holds dual British and German citizenship having moved to the UK from Dusseldorf in 2006 with her children.
In October last year the five women begged to be allowed to return to Britain.
But it was revealed today that the sisters have been stripped of their British citizenship, just as Shamima Begum was last month.
The pair, from Canning Town, are thought to currently be held in a detention camp in Kurdish-controlled northern Syria.
It comes as the row over the runaway Begum continued following the death of her three-week-old son, Jerah.
Shamima Begum with her son just hours after he was born in a Syrian refugee camp last month
According to The Sunday Times, two women, who between them have five boys under the age of eight, had their UK nationality removed after marrying into a terror cell linked to the murder of western hostages.
The paper quoted legal sources, naming the women as Reema Iqbal, 30, and her sister Zara, 28, whose parents are originally from Pakistan.
Last month Reema Iqbal told The Telegraph she was hopeful of returning to the UK.
She said: ‘The security services came to speak to me and I was honest, I told them my whole story so now it’s up to them to judge.
Natalie Bracht travelled to Syria in 2013 with the Iqbal sisters as part of an all-female terror cell
‘I don’t know if my Mum ever got me a Pakistani passport or not, I’ve never been to Pakistan.
‘There’s not enough food for bigger families. It’s a prison here, but we’re serving no sentence. If I face court, fine, but take me back to the UK, that’s where I’m from.’
Zara was heavily pregnant with her second child when she made the journey and later had a third, the paper said, while Reema has two sons, one of whom was born in Britain.
The Home Office said it did not comment on individual cases.
A spokesman added: ‘Any decisions to deprive individuals of their citizenship are based on all available evidence and not taken lightly.’
Home Secretary Sajid Javid came under renewed scrutiny on Saturday for stripping Ms Begum of her UK citizenship after it emerged her baby son had died in a Syrian refugee camp.
Ms Begum, who fled London to join the terror group aged 15, had earlier begged to return to the UK with her boy, but Mr Javid revoked her passport amid fierce public debate.
Caliph Mirza Masroor Ahmad urged a Muslim country to ‘show sympathy to her’ to Shamima Begun and allow her into their country after her newborn son died
Stripping citizenship is only legal if the individual has a second one, and it was thought she may have a claim in Bangladesh because of her family background, but Bangladeshi officials denied this.
Caliph Mirza Masroor Ahmad, who represents tens of millions of Ahmadi Muslims worldwide, urged a Muslim country to ‘show sympathy to her’ following Britain’s move.
‘If the British Government has stripped her of her nationality then another country should adopt her, any Muslim country,’ he told reporters at the Baitul Futuh Mosque in Morden, south-west London, ahead of an annual peace conference.
‘Since her parents were from Bangladesh, the first duty is of Bangladesh to take her as a national.’
It emerged on Friday that Ms Begum, now 19, had lost her third child.
A medical certificate showed he died of pneumonia a day earlier, the BBC reported.
Ms Begum had earlier discussed her fears that she could lose the boy, saying: ‘This is really not a place to raise children, this camp.’
Shamima Begum fled the UK to Syria aged 15 in 2015 along with two other schoogirls from Bethnal Green in east London
Her family, who vowed to appeal against Mr Javid’s decision, had also written to the Conservative minister, pleading with him to allow a safe passage for the boy to come to the UK.
On Saturday, his Labour counterpart, Diane Abbott, said he had ‘behaved shamefully’ over the ‘tragedy that might have been avoided’.
She added: ‘If the mother and baby had been brought home, the mother, Shamima Begum, would have faced British justice, but the baby might have lived.’
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Conservative MP Phillip Lee told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he was ‘deeply concerned’ by Mr Javid’s decision, which was ‘driven by a sort of populism’.
Former International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell demanded Mr Javid restore Begum’s British citizenship.
Accusing Mr Javid of ‘moral cowardice’, former director of public prosecutions Lord Macdonald said his move risked creating a ‘more dangerous world where stateless individuals roam with no allegiance and the death of unprotected innocents, in this case a vulnerable British baby’.
‘No dignified self-governing state should abandon responsibility for its own citizens in this way, trying to dump them on to poorer countries with failed security arrangements,’ he told The Observer.
The group of men were said to have converted to Islam and travelled to Syria after falling in with radical hate preacher Anjem Choudary. Circled is Fabio Pocas who travelled with his wife Ruzina Khanam and the Iqbal sisters
Nero Saraiva, 28, was part of a group of Portuguese men who converted to Islam in London and travelled to Syria with their wives to fight for Isis
Debate raged over Ms Begum’s desire to return after she resurfaced in a refugee camp last month and said she wanted to return to Britain as the self-styled caliphate collapsed.
She had left Bethnal Green in east London with two other schoolgirls to join the IS terror group in February 2015.
Conservative Party chairman Brandon Lewis defended Mr Javid, telling Today: ‘There is no question that the duty of a home secretary in this country is to keep British people safe.’
A Government spokesman said: ‘The death of any child is tragic and deeply distressing for the family.
‘The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has consistently advised against travel to Syria since April 2011.’
What to do with returning jihadi fighters has caused many Western countries problems.
Iraq announced it will be trying 13 alleged French militants while President Trump threatened to release jihadis into if European countries did not take back their own ISIS fighters.
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