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Roundup: British mother convicted of joining IS in Syria with young child

Xinhua, January 30, 2016 Adjust font size:

A British mother has been convicted of terrorism offences after fleeing Britain with her one-year-old child to join the Islamic State (IS) in Syria, Britain's West Midlands Police announced Friday.

Tareena Shakil, a 26-year-old woman from Burton-upon-Trent in England, was found guilty of being a member of IS, also known as Daesh, and encouraging acts of terrorism at Birmingham Crown Court on Friday.

The mother boarded a plane to Turkey in October 2014 with her young boy, where she then crossed the border into Syria and spent the next three months there, police said.

"She denied joining Daesh but her membership was proven as a result of enquiries carried out by the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit and other agencies," West Midlands Police said in a statement.

Police noted that detectives were able to show Shakil had become a member of the extremist group and was set to become a jihadi bride. A photograph uncovered by police showed her posing in Syria underneath an IS flag.

She was arrested by counter-terrorism officers when she returned to Britain on February 18 in 2015 after landing at Heathrow Airport, while her son was taken into care, police said.

The woman was also found guilty of sending a series of tweets before she left the UK "encouraging the public to commit acts of terrorism," police added.

Assistant Chief Constable of West Midlands Police Marcus Beale said that Shakil "had self-radicalized by viewing extremist material on the internet" before leaving Britain in 2014.

"Our assessment is that she was not naive; she had absolutely clear intentions when she left the UK, sending tweets encouraging the public to commit acts of terrorism here and then taking her young child to join Daesh in Syria," he elaborated.

Photographs seized from Shakil's phone showed her posing with a firearm and wearing a Daesh balaclava, while another showed a rucksack with a Daesh logo and person holding a handgun, Beale said.

He added that Shakil "no doubt presented a real threat on her return to the UK from the country (Syria) early last year."

In 2015, 56 women and girls were reported missing to the police by their families, all feared to have traveled to Syria, according to West Midlands Police. Endit