Concerns for ‘caliphate cubs’

Two more Islamic State brides from Britain are believed to have been stripped of their citizenship.

Shamima Begum.

Two more Islamic State brides from Britain held with their young children in squalid Syrian detention camps are believed to have been stripped of their citizenship amid a growing political row over the death of Shamima Begum’s three-week-old baby.

Legal sources say Reema Iqbal and her sister, Zara, who between them have five boys under the age of eight, have had their British nationality revoked after marrying into a terror cell linked to the murder of Western hostages.

The revelation will fuel concerns about the fate of innocent British children, so-called “cubs of the caliphate”, who are stranded in Syria as Islamic State faces defeat.

Britain’s Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, came under fire from Labour and Conservative MPs for stripping Begum, 19, of her citizenship shortly after she gave birth to a son in a detention camp in Syria.

The baby boy, named Jarrah, died on Thursday from pneumonia. Begum, who married a Dutch fighter, Yago Riedijk, had already lost her two other children to illness. She joined Islamic State in Syria in 2015 with two school friends from Bethnal Green, east London.

Labour spokeswoman Diane Abbott said Jarrah’s death was “a stain on the conscience of this government”.

Phillip Lee, a former Tory justice minister, demanded Mr Javid change tack and allow Islamic State brides and their children back to Britain. “We cannot just export the problem,” he said. “We have a moral responsibility to these people.”

At least a dozen jihadi brides from Britain and more than 20 of their children are being held in overcrowded camps run by Western-backed Kurdish forces.

Food, blankets and shelter are in short supply, according to charities there. More than 100 people — two-thirds of them children under five — have died on their way to or in the camps over the past three months.

Emily Thornberry, Labour’s foreign affairs spokeswoman, also called on ministers to bring the British women and their offspring home. She said: “Before the lives of more children are put at risk, these women should be brought back to Britain, face investigation for any crimes they have committed in Syria, and their children should be given the care and support they need. They are the innocent victims here and should not be forced to pay the ultimate price for the terrible mistakes their mothers have made.”

The Iqbal sisters, from Canning Town, east London, headed to Syria in 2013 after marrying into a six-man cell of jihadists with close links to the filmed murders of Western hostages by Jihadi John. Their husbands were later killed in fighting.

Zara, 28, already had a son when she made the journey and was heavily pregnant with her second child, to whom she gave birth in Syria. She later had a third boy. Her older sister, Reema, 30, has two sons, one of whom was born in Britain.

The sisters’ parents are from Pakistan, so the Home Office would argue they are eligible for Pakistani nationality instead. However, their five sons are likely to be British citizens.

Brandon Lewis, Tory party chairman, said: “The duty of a home secretary is to keep British people safe.”

The Sunday Times