Last week, a British court reversed a government decision to strip a woman of her citizenship on the grounds that she had joined Islamic State (IS). The decision throws into question one of London’s main strategies for dealing with those who have joined the terrorist group. Charlie Peters writes:
Those [Britons who went to Syria and Iraq to join IS and then] slipped through the net and made it back home have faced mandatory deradicalization programs, or—in the most extreme cases—constant surveillance. But this costly, ineffective strategy has prioritized the rights and freedoms of returning jihadists over the safety of innocent people. And the approach is now likely to face another test, as the 425 or so IS fighters and spouses who have returned are expected to be joined by their former twisted comrades, who have had their hopes of freedom in Britain bolstered by [the] recent high court ruling.
Optimism is certainly growing among those who have found themselves in limbo in detention camps after the collapse of IS. After their passports were canceled by Western governments, many of these former fighters have promoted the idea that they have repented their views and are ready to return to a peaceful life back home.
The testimony of soldier-turned-filmmaker Alan Duncan, who has released a documentary, What About Justice For Us?, calls into question the wisdom of allowing [these] Westerners to come home. Duncan spoke to a Norwegian IS spouse, who smirked while claiming that Yazidi women “weren’t sex slaves, they are slaves that you are allowed to have sex with.’” She also claimed that Islamic State brides had returned to smoking and other practices they dropped when they joined the terror group so that Westerners would not be suspicious of them.
Duncan [also] said he met a British-Bangladeshi woman in the al-Hol [detention camp in Syria] who stopped him as he was leaving the Western section. She told him that she believed in the caliphate, but in the meantime she was going to return to Britain and prepare for the next steps.
Read more on Spectator: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/britain-isn-t-prepared-for-the-next-wave-of-returning-jihadis