Nasra Abukar, who went missing from her London home aged 18, has been found at the Kurdish-run al-Hol camp for Islamic State family members in Syria, the same location where Shamima Begum was tracked down last year.
Ms Abukar had been persuaded to travel to Syria to marry jihadist Aseel Muthana six years ago, according to information obtained by The Times — the same newspaper that found Ms Begum in February 2019.
Abukar had two sons with the Muthana, Faris and Talha, with the former being killed in a coalition airstrike that also injured her husband. The Somali-heritage 24-year-old wants to return to the United Kingdom with her three-year-old surviving son; however, like Begum, she, too, has reportedly been stripped of her British citizenship after authorities deemed her a security risk.
The newspaper reports that social media posts allegedly attributed to the young woman showed her promoting life in the Caliphate and sneering at the 2015 Bataclan terror attacks, typing the word “Paris” followed by a “crying with laughter” emoji shortly after jihadists slaughtered 130 people.
The report claims that Nasra Abukar and her husband Aseel Muthana were committed to Islamic State to the very end, and were present at the terror group’s last stand at Baghuz in March 2019 when coalition forces drove out the jihadists.
Reports of Abukar’s marriage to Muthana, also 24, were reported by The Mirror two weeks ago when the terrorist told the left-wing tabloid he had last seen his wife at Baghuz.
The jihadist, formerly of Wales, said: “We were separated at that point and she was taken to a camp. I wrote to her and I believe the letter was passed on but I have never received a reply. My hope is that if I get jailed in the UK, her family might visit me.”
The ISIS bride’s mother, Kaha, has distanced herself from her daughter’s choices, claiming that she did not know her daughter had married an ISIS guerilla fighter and had not been in contact with her since she ran away. She said: “When Nasra left here, she was 18. She was an adult. It’s not my fault.”
Asked if she wanted to see her daughter and grandson, Kaha said, according to The Times: “It’s not in my hands if she can return. That’s for the government. I can do nothing for her.”
Shamima Begum, who left the UK aged 15 in 2015 to marry an ISIS fighter in Syria, was discovered by The Times in February 2019 living in the al-Hol camp. Also separated from her husband — Dutch Muslim convert Yago Riedijk — at the time she was pregnant with her third child. Her two older children had died while living under the Caliphate.
Considered a security risk, she was stripped of her British citizenship. Begum, whose third child died shortly after birth, has taken her case to the Supreme Court to be allowed to return to the UK to challenge her disenfranchisement in person. The 21-year-old claims that she had been rendered stateless — which is against international law — with the British government arguing that she had inherited Bangladeshi citizenship from her immigrant parents.
The government’s lawyers also told the UK’s highest court in late November that refusing entry to Begum is justified as she poses “a real and current threat to national security. She is aligned with [Isis]. During the four years she has spent in Islamic State territory she had undergone radicalisation and ‘desensitisation to violence’.” The Supreme Court is expected to make a decision in the New Year.
If Begum is successful, as many as 150 jihadists could attempt legal returns to the UK to challenge the stripping of their citizenships, The Henry Jackson Society warned.
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