UK schoolkids shipped 2 Syria by intelligence agencies, cops

[TonyGosling]

Police 'complicit in radicalisation' of missing sisters, claim family lawyers
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/21/police-complicit-radica lisation-missing-sisters-claim-family-lawyers
In letter to Keith Vaz, solicitors for husbands of two of Bradford sisters thought to have taken their children to Syria ‘expressed grave concerns’ over police conduct

Aisha Gani - @aishagani Sunday 21 June 2015 18.54 BST Last modified on Monday 22 June 2015 10.00 BST

UK police were “complicit” in the alleged “grooming and radicalising” of three Bradford sisters, feared to have travelled to Syria with their nine children, lawyers of the families say.

The claims were made in a letter written to Keith Vaz, the chair of the Commons home affairs committee, in which the solicitors representing two of the fathers said their clients are “extremely disappointed with the manner in which this matter is being investigated by West Yorkshire Police”.

Lawyers added the fathers of the missing women and children “expressed grave concerns in the conduct of the police leading to these events”.

British sisters Khadija Dawood, 30, Sugra Dawood, 34, and Zohra Dawood, 33, and their nine children, aged between three and 15, are feared to have travelled to link up with terror group Islamic State in the country.

Referring to a brother of the sisters, who is believed to have joined Isis, the letter from Khan Solicitors, in Bradford, said they were “alarmed” by the police allegedly having been actively promoting and encouraging contact with the brother who, it is believed, is fighting in Syria.

“It would appear that there has been a reckless disregard as to the consequences of any such contact on the families of those whom we represent,” lawyers said.

The letter, published by Vaz, a Labour MP, on his website, claimed terror police were complicit in the radicalisation and continued: “Plainly, by the NECTU [North East Counter Terrorism Unit] allowing this contact they have been complicit in the grooming and radicalising of the women.”

“If this contact between them had been prevented our clients would not now be facing such circumstances.”

The solicitors said their clients have not had the information they want about the progress of the investigation. They also accused the police of making sure they were not criticised for their tactic of “allowing, encouraging and promoting contact with somebody believed to be in Syria”.

The letter said: “The actions and misjudgment of the NECTU has placed the lives of 12 British citizens at risk, nine of which are innocent children, the youngest being three years of age.”

The letter from the lawyers also confirms that Zohra Dawood left a voice message for her family on Wednesday. It indicated she was already in Syria and said the missing people had all travelled there together “due to the oppressive nature of the continued surveillance by the police”.

“Time is of the essence”, the lawyers write and call for an investigation and “meaningful dialogue” between authorities and the legal representatives of the families.

The police released the information about the voice message last week without any consultation with the fathers, the letter claims, and the solicitors say senior officers have refused to meet the two men.

The missing group travelled to Saudi Arabia on 28 May to go on an Islamic pilgrimage.

They were due to return to the UK on 11 June, but broke off all contact with family in Britain two days earlier on 9 June.

It is believed they boarded a flight to Turkey that day and subsequently crossed the border into Syria.

It later emerged that the same group tried to fly earlier this year. The sisters and their children, from Bradford, were originally booked to travel from Manchester to Mecca and Medina on 19 March. The NECTU confirmed the group had been stopped and made the subject of security checks earlier this year.

Last week, fathers Akhtar Iqbal and Mohammed Shoaib broke down as they pleaded desperately for their wives to return so they can go back to their “normal lives”.

Iqbal’s wife, Sugra, has gone away with his five children – Ismaeel, three, Mariya, five, Zaynab, eight, Ibrahim, 14, and 15-year-old Junaid Ahmed.

Appealing directly to his family, he said: “Please, please call me. It’s been eight, nine days, you are out and we don’t know where you are.

“I miss you, I love you. All of you, I love you a lot. I can’t live without you. To my family, please, please call me [so] at least I know where you are. Are you safe?”

Shoaib’s wife, Khadija, has disappeared with his two children - five-year-old Muhammad Haseeb and Maryam Siddiqui, seven. He said: “Please come back home with the kids, I know the kids can’t live without me and you. Please bring them home, they can’t live without me.”

He added: “I’m not angry, please come back, everything is normal, come back to normal life, please.”

Zohra’s husband is not currently living in the UK.

Following the letter, Vaz told the Mail on Sunday: “That three women could disappear from the UK to take nine children into the heart of a war zone is incomprehensible.

“The claims of their relatives in the UK that their links with IS were ‘encouraged’ by the authorities is concerning.”

A spokesperson for West Yorkshire police said on Monday the force rejected the claims made in the letter from Khan Solicitors. “We have not seen the letter so cannot comment in detail on its contents,” they said.

“However, we completely reject accusations that the police were complicit in the alleged grooming of the missing family or that we were oppressive to them.

“While we do not comment on all aspects of police work for valid operational and safeguarding reasons, this is an ongoing investigation and we are continuing to do everything we can to find the missing family and to ensure the safety of the children”

“Their relatives have been kept informed throughout this investigation and we are pleased they expressed their satisfaction with the support they have received so far. This will continue.”

NECTU could not be immediately reached for comment.

[TonyGosling]

Turkish reports claim smuggler for Islamic State worked for Canada

A Syrian former army lieutenant who defected from the military three years ago has become the central figure in a tale of intrigue that ended last month in the flight to the Islamic State of three British schoolgirls.
In this three image combo of stills taken from CCTV issued by the Metropolitan Police in London on Feb. 23, 2015, Kadiza Sultana, 16, left, Shamima Begum,15, center and 15-year-old Amira Abase going through security at Gatwick airport, before they caught their flight to Turkey.
In this three image combo of stills taken from CCTV issued by the Metropolitan Police in London on Feb. 23, 2015, Kadiza Sultana, 16, left, Shamima Begum,15, center and 15-year-old Amira Abase going through security at Gatwick airport, before they caught their flight to Turkey. AP
By Duygu Guvenc - McClatchy Foreign Staff
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article24781852.htm l

A Syrian former army lieutenant who defected from the military three years ago has become the central figure in a tale of intrigue that ended last month in the flight to the Islamic State of three British schoolgirls.

Everyone agrees that Muhammad el Rashed arranged to smuggle the girls to Syria after they’d arrived in Turkey, some of the hundreds of Britons thought to have joined the Islamic State in recent years.

What’s less clear is how Rashed came to be in a position to help smuggle them. The Turkish government charges that he was a paid agent of Canadian intelligence, and officials imply that’s proof that Canada, as well as the United Kingdom, is helping to finance the Islamic State.

For its part, the Canadian government hasn’t commented on Rashed’s statement to police that he was working as an intelligence operative. A representative of Canadian Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney declined to comment about the reports when asked about them last week in the House of Commons.

The Canadian government also hasn’t commented on Turkish claims that payments wired to Rashed were immediately transferred to Islamic State operatives in Syria. The amount he allegedly received remains unknown.

Turkey has been under pressure from its European neighbors to stop the flow of recruits to the Islamic State, most of whom pass through the country. In the best-known recent case, Hayat Boumeddiene, the common-law wife of an Islamic State sympathizer who killed four Jews in a grocery in Paris during the Charlie Hebdo violence in January, slipped across a border crossing about 300 yards from the office of the district governor, even though Turkish authorities had spotted her as suspicious on her arrival in the country.

Turkey has said there’s little it can do to stop people who arrive in the country legally, and it’s blamed European nations for not notifying it fast enough when possible recruits leave their home countries. The Turkish allegations raise the question of whether officials are highlighting Rashed’s alleged Canada connection to deflect attention from claims that Turkey has been at best lukewarm in its opposition to the presence of radical Islamists in Syria.

The story began last month in Great Britain, when the three girls, Shamima Begum, 15, Kadiza Sultana, 16, and Amira Abase, 15, disappeared from Bethnal Green Academy in London. Their families alerted British authorities and told them they thought the three had caught a flight from London to Istanbul on Feb. 17. Closed-circuit video later released by Scotland Yard showed the girls at London’s Gatwick Airport.

Turkish surveillance video caught the girls waiting for 18 hours on Feb. 18 at a bus station in Istanbul. A subsequent video made public last week by the Turkish TV channel A Haber showed Rashed interacting with the girls in Gaziantep, a city in southern Turkey. The video, apparently taken via a hidden camera by Rashed himself, shows him urging the girls to hurry. “You will be there in one hour,” he says at one point, apparently referring to Syria.

Since Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu revealed last week that a man had been arrested in the smuggling of the girls to Syria, Turkish newspapers have published what they said were transcripts of Rashed’s confession to Turkish authorities.

According to those purported transcripts, Rashed said he’d helped 35 Europeans cross from Turkey to Syria, that his Islamic State contact was a British jihadi who went by the nom de guerre of Abu Kaka and that he’d laundered the payments he received from Canada through a jewelry store owned by a relative in the southern Turkish city of Sanliurfa, which then passed them to the Islamic State via Rashed’s brother, who lives in Raqqa, Syria.

According to the news accounts, Rashed told Turkish interrogators that Abu Kaka would contact him via the Internet chat service WhatsApp with the names of people who wanted to join the Islamic State. Rashed would then arrange their delivery to the border.

In the case of the three British teenagers, Rashed reportedly said he’d met the girls at a bus station in Istanbul, bought them bus tickets and accompanied them to Gaziantep, where he’d delivered them to a man he identified as Ilahmai Bali, who used the nom de guerre Abu Bakr.

Bali was responsible for arranging private transportation for people wanting to enter Syria, Rashed was quoted as saying.

During his interrogation, according to the purported transcripts, Rashed said he’d been working for Canadian intelligence since 2013.

According to the Turkish accounts, Rashed joined the Syrian military in 2010, before the war there broke out, and defected two years later in Homs, which by then had become the focus of fighting between rebels and the government of President Bashar Assad.

“While seeking asylum, I got in contact with Canada in 2013,” Rashed allegedly told his interrogators in Sanliurfa, adding, “They told me they would give me citizenship if I would gather information about the Islamic State and share it with them.”

The Canadians, he said, provided him with a laptop and a cellphone. He said the Canadian Embassy in Amman, Jordan, had paid for plane tickets for him to travel to Amman. Turkish authorities said migration records showed that Rashed had used his Syrian passport to enter and exit Turkey 33 times since 2013, primarily through Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport.

Over the next years, he said, he worked as a dentist in Raqqa – a city the Islamic State captured in March 2013 –and sent the Canadian Embassy in Amman details of who was being treated at the hospital. He identified his Canadian contact as Matt, whom he described as about 35 years old, 5 feet 11 inches tall and about 200 pounds.

When he moved from Raqqa to Turkey to take up smuggling people isn’t stated in the published transcripts. According to the accounts, Rashed said most of the people he’d helped reach the Islamic State bought their own bus tickets. Most were from English-speaking countries, primarily Britain, but also South Africa, Indonesia, Australia and Nigeria.

Turkish police surmised from records on his laptop that he may have played a role in the smuggling of 150 people to Syria. Among the photos they found, according to reports, were those of the three missing schoolgirls.

Read more here:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article24781852.htm l

[TonyGosling]

Kadiza Sultana and Bethnal Green Academy schoolgirls: how long were Canadian taxpayers footing ISIS recruitment bill?
08 November Tony Gosling
BRISTOL Two days of national press coverage were given in August to the death of London schoolgirl Kadiza Sultana whod travelled to Syria with two friends, allegedly to fight for ISIS. Labour MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, Rushanara Ali told BBC Radio 4s flagship Today programme on Friday 12th August Sultanas case must prompt a full review of the British governments Prevent anti radicalisation strategy.
The allegation in all of the London media coverage of Kadiza (16) and her two friends Shamima Begum (15) and Amira Abase (15) was that the schoolgirls chose to travel to Syria of their own free will after becoming radicalised online. Not a single London journalist though asked the burning question Who got her to Syria?
There is no excuse in the internet age for not putting two and two together here because there are several reports from March 2015 quoting a Turkish police report on Syrian national Mohammed al-Rashed, who says he met the girls after their flight from London Gatwick to Istanbul and took them down to the Syrian border. He was subsequently arrested by Turkish police and gave them a full statement about who he had been smuggling and, more importantly, who he'd been working for.
He approached the Canadian government, he says, in 2013 who recruited him and provided him with a laptop, cellphone, and money. He promised to email details of all those he smuggled, to his Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) contact ‘Matt’ who he describes as 35 years old, 5 feet 11 inches tall and about 200 pounds. In exchange, he told his Turkish interrogators “They told me they would give me citizenship if I would gather information about the Islamic State and share it with them.”
Rashed explained he met Kadiza, Shamima and Amira, ‘in Instanbul’s Esenler coach station, bought their tickets’, and arranging meetings on WhatsApp, ‘delivered them to Abu-Kaka in Gaziantep’, forty miles from the Syrian border. According to Rashed, British national Abu-Kaka’s real name was IlahamiBali and he took the girls the final forty miles or so into Syria to join ISIS.
Turkish police found a vast amount of evidence on Rashed’s laptop including baggage tags, passport information and images, including several photos of the three London schoolgirls. His interrogators estimated over the two years he'd been working for CSIS he’d smuggled around 150 Britons, South Africans, Indonesians, Australians and Nigerians through Turkey down to Syria.
Austrian teenager Samra Kesinovic (17) was used by ISIS as a recruitment 'poster girl', pictured with assault rifle surrounded by soldiers, but became revolted by their killings. She was reported 'beaten to death' caught trying to flee the group in 2015. Apart from the occasional ceasefires and humanitarian corridors those who want to leave ISIS are caught between a rock and a hard place; being ordered around by a cause you’ve lost faith in or taking your chances and making a dash for what may be a hostile reception in no man’s land.
Kadiza was trapped. Anyone joining ISIS in Syria not only faces danger of death on or near to the front lines and airstrikes from above, but also from within ISIS itself which, once you’re in, functions like a chilling medieval or Nazi SS cult. Recruits like the London schoolgirls have to swear an oath – known as a bayah or bayat – to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi which can only be broken by death. It can be a terrifying experience for an adult, let alone a fifteen-year-old as they give their life to Baghdadi, the ISIS leader Obama released from US Camp Bukka in 2009 now believed to be safely ensconced in Libya.
With Rashed's confession nobody can see these girls as anything other than abused by their government and their media. Those that entrap, arrange, assist and observe British Muslims to join ISIS should not expect their work will stay forever secret under the veil of 'national security'.
Pieces in the secret service puzzle, such as how the girls were persuaded to get on the flight to Istanbul and how Canadian intelligence knew where and when they would be arriving remain unanswered. As Yorkshire MP Shahid Malik famously said back in 2008 'Muslims are the new Jews' And this systematic failure of London’s media to report the key facts in this story begs the question: why have we not been told the full story?
The crucial question in this horrifying tale is where does the legitimate spying and intelligence gathering end, and the complicity with those supposedly being spied on begin. Its quite clear from these Turkish police reports that Kadiza and her teenage friends would not have been able to get to Syria without the human and financial assistance of Canadian intelligence. With the number of people smuggled by Rashed topping 150 he wasn’t simply helping NATO intelligence services fight ISIS. He was supplying the lifeblood of ISIS, its personnel, for two years.
It’s not just the government’s prevent strategy that needs a review. London’s thousands of journalists need to be taught how to do an internet search, and follow the international news. Perhaps the 'Prevent' anti-radicalisation strategy should be aimed at unaccountable, publicly funded Intelligence officers in the NATO countries who hide behind the veil of national security, rather than domestic British Muslims?

[TonyGosling]

Did Canadian taxpayers foot Islamic State’s recruitment bill?
5th November 2016 Home, QuickPress, USA and Canada
http://www.redressonline.com/2016/11/did-canadian-taxpayers-foot-islam ic-states-recruitment-bill/

The horrifying case of Kadiza Sultana: are Western intelligence services spying on or aiding jihadist terrorists?
Tony Gosling writes:

Two days of national press coverage were given in August 2016 to the death of London schoolgirl Kadiza Sultana (pictured above), 16, who had travelled to Syria with two friends, reportedly to fight for the Islamic State (IS) group. Labour MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, Rushanara Ali, told BBC Radio 4’s flagship “Today” programme on 12 August that Sultana’s case must prompt a full review of the British government’s anti-radicalisation strategy, called “Prevent”.

The allegation in all of the London media coverage of Kadiza and her two friends, Shamima Begum, 15, and Amira Abase, 15, was that the schoolgirls chose to travel to Syria of their own free will after becoming radicalised online. Not a single London journalist, though, asked the burning question: Who got her to Syria?

There is no excuse in the internet age for not putting two and two together here because there are several reports from March 2015 quoting a Turkish police report on Syrian national Muhammad al-Rasheed, who says he met the girls after their flight from London Gatwick airport to Istanbul and took them to the Syrian border. He was subsequently arrested by Turkish police and gave them a full statement about who he had been smuggling and, more importantly, who he had been working for.


Two Turkish police officers escort Muhammad al-Rasheed following his arrest in Şanlıurfa in March 2016

He approached the Canadian government, he says, in 2013 who recruited him and provided him with a laptop, mobile phone and money. He promised to email details of all those he smuggled, to his Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) contact, “Matt”. Al-Rasheed told his Turkish interrogators that the CSIS promised to give him citizenship if he would gather information about IS and share it with them.

Al-Rasheed explained he met Kadiza, Shamima and Amira, in Istanbul’s Esenler coach station, bought their tickets, after and arranging meetings on WhatsApp, delivered them to one “Abu-Kaka” in Gaziantep, 40 miles from the Syrian border. According to Al-Rasheed, British national Abu-Kaka’s real name was Ilhami Bali and he took the girls the final 40 miles or so into Syria to join IS.


Ilhami Bali, the jihadist terrorists’ go-between

Turkish police found a vast amount of evidence on Al-Rasheed’s laptop, including baggage tags, passport information and images, including several photos of the three London schoolgirls. His interrogators estimated that over the two years he had been working for the CSIS he had smuggled around 150 Britons, South Africans, Indonesians, Australians and Nigerians through Turkey down to Syria.

Austrian teenager Samra Kesinovic, 17, was used by IS as a recruitment “poster girl”, pictured with assault rifle surrounded by soldiers, but became revolted by their killings. She was reported “beaten to death” after being caught trying to flee the group in 2015. Apart from the occasional ceasefires and humanitarian corridors, those who want to leave IS are caught between a rock and a hard place; being ordered around by the proponents of a cause they have lost faith in or taking their chances and making a dash for what may be a hostile reception in no man’s land.

Kadiza was trapped. Anyone joining IS in Syria not only faces danger of death on or near to the front lines and air strikes from above, but also from within IS itself which, once you are in, functions like a chilling medieval or Nazi SS cult. Recruits like the London schoolgirls have to swear an oath known as bay’ah to Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi which can only be broken by death. It can be a terrifying experience for an adult, let alone a 15-year-old as they give their life to AL-Baghdadi, the IS leader Barack Obama released from the US Camp Bukka in Iraq in 2009.


The crucial question in this horrifying tale is where does the legitimate spying and intelligence gathering end, and the complicity with those supposedly being spied on begin.


With Al-Rasheed’s confession nobody can see these girls as anything other than abused by their government and their media. Those that entrap, facilitate, assist and observe British Muslims joining IS should not expect their work will to stay forever secret under the veil of “national security”.

Pieces in the secret service puzzle, such as how the girls were persuaded to get on the flight to Istanbul and how Canadian intelligence knew where and when they would be arriving remain unanswered. And this systematic failure of London’s media to report the key facts in this story begs the question: why have we not been told the full story?

The crucial question in this horrifying tale is where does the legitimate spying and intelligence gathering end, and the complicity with those supposedly being spied on begin. It is quite clear from the Turkish police reports that Kadiza and her teenage friends would not have been able to get to Syria without the human and financial assistance of Canadian intelligence. With the number of people smuggled by Al-Rasheed topping 150, he was not simply helping NATO intelligence services fight IS, he was supplying the lifeblood of IS, its personnel, for two years.

It is not just the UK government’s “Prevent” strategy that needs a review. London’s thousands of journalists need to be taught how to do an internet search, and follow the international news. Perhaps the “Prevent” anti-radicalisation strategy should be aimed at unaccountable, publicly-funded intelligence officers in the NATO countries who hide behind the veil of national security, rather than domestic British Muslims.

Tony Gosling is a British historian and investigative radio journalist

[TonyGosling]

Terror police 'complicit' in radicalising Bradford sisters, solicitors claim
The Bradford family of 12 are feared to have travelled to Syria.
http://www.itv.com/news/2015-06-21/terror-police-complicit-in-radicali sing-bradford-sisters-solicitors-claim/

UK police have been "complicit" in the alleged "grooming and radicalisation" of three Bradford sisters believed to have travelled to Syria with their children, their families' solicitors say.

The claims were made in a letter to MP Keith Vaz, chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, from lawyers representing Mohammed Shoaib and Akhtar Iqbal - husbands of Khadija and Sugra Dawood respectively.

The two women disappeared with a third sister, Zohra Dawood, and their nine children, aged between three and 15, following a trip to Saudi Arabia.

The letter claimed both men had "grave concerns" about the way that West Yorkshire Police and its North East Counter Terrorism Unit (Nectu) had handled the matter.
What we know about the 'Syria-bound' family of 12
Akhtar Iqbal, the husband of Sugra Dawood (left) and Mohammed Shoaib, the husband of Khadija Dawood.
Akhtar Iqbal, the husband of Sugra Dawood (left) and Mohammed Shoaib, the husband of Khadija Dawood. Credit: Peter Byrne/PA Wire
It alleged that police had been "actively promoting and encouraging contact with the brother-in-law of our clients, whom, it is believed, is fighting in Syria".

"It would appear that there has been a reckless disregard as to the consequences of any such contact on the families of those whom we represent."
Plainly, by the NECTU allowing this contact they ave been complicit in the grooming and radicalising of the women. If this contact between them had been prevented or clients would not now be facing such circumstances.

– SOLICITORS FOR MOHAMMED SHOAIB AND AKHTAR IQBAL
An extract from the letter to MP Keith Vaz.
An extract from the letter to MP Keith Vaz.
The letter also claimed that the two men had made "repeated attempts" to get updates on the progress of the investigation, claiming that these were met by a "wholesale lack of information".

"Instead, the police have been anxious to ensure that there is no criticism of them and their tactics in allowing, encouraging and promoting contact with someone believed to be in Syria," it added.
Following the letter, Vaz told the Mail on Sunday: "That three women could disappear from the UK to take nine children into the heart of a war zone is incomprehensible.

"The claims of their relatives in the UK that their links with IS were 'encouraged' by the authorities is concerning."
West Yorkshire Police could not be immediately reached for comment, but told the paper it completely rejected accusations.