ISIS fighters returning to UK to be used as Gladio II cells?

[TonyGosling]

Only 14 of 400 British ISIS fighters who returned to UK after fighting in Syria have been jailed
Experts fear the Islamic State fighters who have sneaked back in could use skills honed on the battlefield to carry out atrocities in the UK like the Paris and Brussels attacks
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/only-14-400-british-isis-9010088

09:37, 9 OCT 2016 By Stephen Jones Assistant Editor

Only 14 British ISIS fighters who came back to the UK after fighting in Syria have been jailed, it has been revealed.

The shock figure admitted by the Government last night is much lower than that Government Ministers had previously claimed.

It means that almost 400 jihadis trained in Syria and Iraq are at large on Britain’s streets, The Mail on Sunday reports.

Experts fear the fighters could use skills they honed on the battlefield to carry out atrocities in the UK - similar to the Paris and Brussels attacks where hundreds of innocent people were massacred.

Fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) stand guard at a checkpoint in the northern Iraq city of Mosul
It's feared the ISIS fighters have honed skills they can put to use in the UK (Image: REUTERS/Stringer)
New figures reveal that the Home Office believes 850 Britons have travelled to fight for Islamic State - many of whom have been killed in battle and by allied drone strikes .

But about 400 fighters are believed to have sneaked back into the UK.

Despite it being a crime to attend any terrorist training camps - and also to be a member of ISIS - only 14 people have been convicted.

Ministers admit they mistakenly claimed the number was 54 earlier this year, The Mail on Sunday claims - as it wrongly included those who'd been fundraising for terrorism or trying to reach the war zone.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd is being urged to give more money to the Border Force to catch terrorists as they sneak back into the UK.

She is also being called on to ensure that police and MI5 have enough officers to find those who have already made it here.

Paris terrorist attacks
ISIS attacks killed 130 in Paris last November (Image: Daily Mirror)
Labour MP Khalid Mahmood believes thousands of Britons have travelled to Syria and Iraq.

He said: "It is a tiny number who have been prosecuted and it’s absurd to say this is any form of success.

"If they know who they are, they should be prosecuted but the police and security services don’t have the resources to do that.

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The University of Buckingham's Director of the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, Professor Anthony Glees, told The Mail on Sunday that the "minuscule" number of prosecutions was "very disturbing".

"These people have been trained to be killers and people will think it beggars belief [that they haven’t been prosecuted]. What message are we sending out to the world?

"If you go out to join a regime like so-called Islamic State, you forfeit your right to come back."

MP Khalid Mahmood
Labour MP Khalid Mahmood says the situation is 'absurd' (Image: Birmingham Mail)
Home Office Minister Baroness Williams of Trafford said: ‘Data from the Crown Prosecution Service shows that they have successfully prosecuted ten cases involving 14 defendants who
have returned to the UK and are suspected of having fought in Syria and/or Iraq.

"All those who return from engaging in the conflict in Syria and Iraq can expect to be subject to investigation to determine if they have committed criminal offences abroad or represent a threat to our national security.’

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At present police and MI5 attempt to contact all those who return from the war zone to try to establish how dangerous they believe they are.

The Mail on Sunday claims some are left alone if they 'only went to experience life in the so-called Islamic State' or to deliver humanitarian aid - but others may be put under surveillance if they are a potential threat.

Other returnees are referred to NHS mental health services or the Channel deradicalisation programme if it is felt they can be turned away from extremism, it adds.

Among those returnees who have been jailed is Imran Khawaja - who tried to sneak back into the UK undetected by faking his own death and was jailed for 12 years last year.

[TonyGosling]

Briton’s returning from ISIS territory ‘DO NOT justify prosecution’ says terror watchdog
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/868740/ISIS-Britain-UK-MI5-MI6-Syria -Iraq-Government-Terror

BRITON’S returning from ISIS territory “do not justify prosecution” according to a UK terror watchdog, it has been revealed.

By JOSEPH CAREY
PUBLISHED: 03:45, Fri, Oct 20, 2017 | UPDATED: 04:08, Fri, Oct 20, 2017

Max HillGETTY • Twitter @RedLionChambers

Mr Hill revealed that hundreds of Briton’s have already returned home but have not been charged

The Government’s new independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Max Hill QC, has stated that authorities have decided not to charge returnees from Syria and Iraq.

He said: “We are told we do have a significant number already back in this country who have previously gone to Iraq and Syria.

“That means that the authorities have looked at them and looked at them hard and have decided that they do not justify prosecution and really we should be looking at reintegration and moving away from any notion that we are going to lose a generation from this travel.

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“It’s not a decision that MI5 and others will have taken lightly. They, I am sure, will have looked intensely at each individual on return.

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“But they have left space, and I think they are right to do so, for those who travelled, but who travelled out of a sense of naivety, possibly with some brainwashing along the way, possibly in their mid-teens and who return in a sense of utter disillusionment.

“We have to leave space for those individuals to be diverted away from the criminal courts.”

Mr Hill revealed that hundreds of Briton’s have already returned home but have not been charged.

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An estimated 850 people have reportedly travelled to Syria in the last 6 years with 120 supposedly killed in fighting.

Half of those remaining are said to have already returned to the UK.

Counterterrorism sources have spoken with The Times and reportedly confirmed that “not a huge proportion” of Briton’s have faced prosecutions after having returned.

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However, some returnees have been hit with security restrictions by the watchdog with curfews, tags and monitoring.

The defence of those coming back to the UK from ISIS territory was backed by the former director of global counter-terrorism at MI6, Richard Barrett.

He stated: “Many of them went to join something, join something new, something that looked bright and attractive and satisfied some of the needs in their lives and probably found that didn’t exist out there and so came back highly disillusioned.

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“Also someone going off to join the Islamic state is not likely initially to be somebody going off to be a domestic terrorist, they seem to me to be two different motivations.”

The dismissal of prosecutions comes after the director general of MI5, Andrew Parker, noted the UK is currently experiencing a “dramatic upshift” in terrorist threats.

He declared: “That threat is multi-dimensional, evolving rapidly and operating at a scale and pace we’ve not seen before.

UK arrivalsGETTY
An estimated 850 people have reportedly travelled to Syria in the last 6 years
“It’s at the highest tempo I have seen in my 34-year career. Today there is more terrorist activity, coming at us more quickly, and it can be harder to detect.”

It was recently revealed that almost £800million has been spent by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) fighting Islamic State over the past three years.

This includes £469.4million in the last financial year, according to figures released to Parliament.

SyriaGETTY
120 Briton's have supposedly been killed fighting in Syria
The figures emerged as Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon said the UK would continue striking terrorist targets until Islamic State had been driven out of Iraq and Syria.

An MoD spokesman said: "Since October 2014 the UK has conducted over 1,600 air strikes against Daesh in Iraq and Syria and trained over 57,000 members of the Iraqi and peshmerga security forces, as well as providing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support to the coalition.

"The total net cost of operations against Daesh in Iraq and Syria is £779million, which includes operational allowances, accommodation and feeding support for the thousands of personnel who have served on Operation Shader, as well as costs associated with air operations including fuel and precision-guided munitions."