ISIS

AN EX-girlfriend of the Manchester synagogue attacker was forced to watch Isis terror videos, she has claimed.

Jihad Al-Shamie, 35, unleashed terror outside Manchester’s Heaton Park synagogue on Thursday, leaving two dead and three more in hospital.

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The seven-minute knife rampage took place on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar – Yom Kippur – with the killer then shot dead by cops.

A former partner has now claimed she was groomed by Al-Shamie and forced into a “controlling relationship”.

The pair, who met on a Muslim dating app, were in a relationship for four months before she left him over his extremist views, and moved from the UK.

She claimed Al-Shamie told her he wanted to join Isis and also pressured her to become “dedicated to the cause”.

She said: “He used to sit there and make me watch videos – like extreme videos – that I had no interest in.

“I am Muslim and of course I love to learn more. But this stuff was things that I have been raised to not agree with.

“He used to always say I was taught the wrong way and I wasn’t taught right. He was basically just trying to groom me into what he thought.”

Meanwhile, as reported by The Mail on Sunday, it has been revealed one of the women arrested by cops over the synagogue attack was an NHS Mental health peer support worker.

The 46-year-old is a white British woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, and neighbours claimed she had recently converted to Islam.

“I was doing such a course, and she told me she was a peer support worker herself,” said one local.

“She said she travelled to Manchester for her shifts at a hospital.”

Al-Shamie is also believed to have been married to a British Pakistani woman in Manchester.

It is understood they share a two-year-old child, but are no longer in a relationship.

A former friend of Al-Shamie also revealed he was teenage drop-out who smoked weed and was obsessed with violent video game Street Fighter.

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The friend told The Sun on Sunday that killer Al-Shamie would smoke around 2g of strong skunk a day when he was a teen and frequently felt the wrath of his parents.

And he said he spent hours in his bedroom playing the computer game using the name “Jiji”.

His obsession led to Al-Shamie dropping out of Liverpool John Moores University a year into his English, media and cultural studies degree course in 2011.

The former pal said: “He was a bit of a rebellious wild child. He got into a lot of trouble with his parents. He used to smoke cannabis from an early age.

“He would spend a lot of time practising Street Fighter, like obsessively practising this computer game. He was very good at it, to the point where he competed a couple of times in competitions.”

The source added: “It was probably why he dropped out of uni.

“He was spending too much time smoking weed, working out and playing video games.”

He added: “His personality type, he would latch on to one thing and get buried deep into it. The only thing I can think of is that he’s done that but with radical religion.”

Al-Shamie, whose name is said to translate as “struggle of the Syrian” became “reclusive” after dropping out of education and started to practice Islam around 2018.

Neighbours said he would spend his time lifting weights in his garage or wander around in his pyjamas and flip flops.

The pal, who lost touch with him, said: “I heard he became a bit reclusive and appeared to be very into his faith, which surprised me as he was never that kind of guy.

“There were some concerns about his mental health. I don’t know if he ever got professional help.”

He said he was worried Al-Shamie would go down a “rabbit hole”, adding: “He had an addictive personality. My suspicion is that he ended up self-radicalising.”

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Al-Shamie moved to the UK from Syria with his family when he was a young child and was granted British citizenship in 2006.

His father Faraj is a trauma doctor who later divorced his mother Formoz and moved to France.

This comes as four people arrested in connection with the synagogue terror attack will remain in custody for extra questioning.

Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66, were killed in the rampage before Al-Shamie was shot dead by armed cops.

Six people have now been arrested on terror charges following the chaos.

Cops confirmed they have been granted custody extensions to hold four people detained in connection with the attack on the Crumpsall synagogue for a longer amount of time.

Two men, aged 30 and 32, as well as a 61-year-old woman arrested in Farnworth will remain in custody for “up to a further five days”.

The force added how an 18-year-old woman and a 43-year-old man, also arrested in Farnworth, remain in custody for questioning.

Greater Manchester Police said: “We have been granted warrants of further detention for four individuals currently in custody.

“This means they can remain in custody for up to a further five days.

“Everyone in custody has been arrested on suspicion of commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism.”

Everyone in custody has been arrested on suspicion of commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism.

Al-Shamie first drove into worshippers at the Heaton Park synagogue at 9.30am on Thursday morning.

He also stabbed terrified members of the public while wearing a fake “bomb vest” – killing Melvin Cravitz, 66, and Adrian Daulby, 53.

Four others were injured in the horror.

Counter-terrorism officers have since revealed the attacker was likely influenced by “extreme Islamist ideology”.

A statement from Greater Manchester Police read: “We believe Al-Shamie may have been influenced by extreme Islamist ideology.

“Establishing the full circumstances of the attack is likely to take some time.  

“We have now arrested three further people, one man and two women, aged between 18 and mid-40s.

“This brings the number of people in custody arrested on suspicion of commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism to six.”

Al-Shamie was not known counter-terrorism agencies but had previous convictions.

It is not known when the alleged rape took place but the attacker was under investigation by Greater Manchester Police at the time.

GMP confirmed to The Sun Online al-Shamie was arrested but had been released pending investigation.

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The al-Khasfa site, near Iraq’s second-largest city, could contain 4,000 remains and possibly thousands more.

Iraqi officials have begun the excavation of what is believed to be a mass grave left behind by ISIL (ISIS) during its years of carnage exacted upon the civilian population after it seized large swaths of the nation from 2014 onwards, until being vanquished three years later.

Local authorities were working alongside the judiciary, forensic investigators, the Iraqi Martyrs Foundation and the directorate of mass graves to carry out the excavation in al-Khafsa, south of the northern city of Mosul, the state-run Iraqi News Agency reported on Sunday.

The site – a sinkhole about 150 metres (nearly 500 feet) deep and 110 metres (360 ft) wide – is believed to have been the grisly scene of some of the worst massacres committed by ISIL.

Ahmad Qusay al-Asady, head of the Martyrs Foundation’s mass graves excavation department, told The Associated Press news agency that his team began work on August 9 at the request of the Nineveh province.

The operation will initially be limited to gathering visible human remains and surface evidence, while preparing for a full exhumation that officials say will require international support, al-Asady said.

The foundation will then build a database and start collecting DNA samples from families of suspected victims.

Full exhumations can only proceed once specialised assistance is secured to navigate the site’s hazards, including sulfur water and unexploded ordnance. The water may have also eroded the human remains, complicating DNA identification.

Because of the presence of these elements, al-Khafsa is “a very complicated site,” al-Asady added.

Based on unverified accounts from witnesses and families and other unofficial testimonies, authorities estimate the site could contain at least 4,000 remains, with the possibility of thousands more.

Al-Khasfa is located near Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, where ISIL took control before being defeated in Iraq in late 2017. At its peak, ISIL ruled an area half the size of the United Kingdom, spanning across Iraq and Syria, with Raqqa in the latter being the capital of their self-declared “caliphate”.

The group was notorious for its brutality. The group carried out massacres of thousands of the Yazidi people and enslaved thousands of Yazidi women. The Yazidis, a long-persecuted group whose faith is rooted in Zoroastrianism, are still recovering from the horrors of ISIL’s onslaught on their community in Iraq’s Sinjar district in 2014.

Rabah Nouri Attiyah, a lawyer who has worked on more than 70 cases of missing people in Nineveh, told the AP that information points to al-Khasfa being “the largest mass grave in modern Iraqi history”.

Al-Asady, however, said investigators have not yet been able to confirm its size.

About 70 percent of the estimated human remains there are believed to belong to Iraqi army and police personnel, as well as other victims, including Yazidis.

Interviews conducted with numerous witnesses from the area suggest ISIL fighters brought people there by bus to kill them. “Many of them were decapitated,” al-Asady said.

In addition to ISIL-era mass graves, Iraqi authorities continue to unearth such sites dating to the rule of Saddam Hussein, who was toppled in a US-led invasion in 2003.

Dhiya’ Zawba Muslih al-Hardani and two of his sons affiliated to the group were killed in a raid, the US military says

United States Central Command (CENTCOM) forces have killed a senior ISIL (ISIS) leader and his two sons affiliated to the group in Syria’s Aleppo region, the US military has said.

A post on X on Friday said, “Early this morning in al Bab, Aleppo Governate, Syria, CENTCOM Forces conducted a raid resulting in the death of senior ISIS Leader, Dhiya’ Zawba Muslih al-Hardani, and his two adult ISIS-affiliated sons, Abdallah Dhiya al-Hardani and Abd al-Rahman Dhiya Zawba al-Hardani.”

“These ISIS individuals posed a threat to US and Coalition Forces, as well as the new Syrian Government, ” it added.

“We will continue to relentlessly pursue ISIS terrorists wherever they are. ISIS terrorists are not safe where they sleep, where they operate, and where they hide. Alongside our partners and allies, U.S. Central Command is committed to the enduring defeat of ISIS terrorists that threaten the region, our allies, and our homeland,” General Michael Erik Kurilla, US CENTCOM commander, said.

In late May, ISIL claimed responsibility for an attack on the Syrian army, representing the armed group’s first strike at government forces since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, according to analysts.

In a statement regarding that attack, ISIL said its fighters had planted an explosive device that struck a “vehicle of the apostate regime” in southern Syria.

ISIL, which views the new government in Damascus led by President Ahemd al-Sharaa as illegitimate, has so far concentrated its activities against Kurdish forces in the north.

The fledgling Syrian government has had to contend with Israeli bombardment and incursions into its territory since al-Assad’s overthrow, as well as the eruption of sustained sectarian violence in the southern city of Suwayda in recent weeks.

AS Andrew Drury made his way through a Syrian camp looking for notorious ISIS bride Shamima Begum, his mind began to race.

Although the intrepid filmmaker had been in far more perilous situations – his nerves started to get the better of him.

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But when he was introduced to Begum – who left the UK aged 15 to join ISIS a decade ago in 2015 – he was taken aback.

“She was very shaky, very nervous, very shut, emotional, tearful,” Andrew told The Sun.

Father-of-four Andrew met Begum, who grew up in East London, for the first of six times at the Al-Roj camp in Syria in June 2021 while filming for a documentary, Danger Zone.

He initially felt sorry for Begum, then 21, and became a close confidant of the Jihadi bride – even securing a Bafta-nominated live interview with her for Good Morning Britain.

In less than two years his view of Begum – accused of serving in the feared IS “morality police” and helping make suicide vests – completely changed, however.

He saw a colder side when she talked about how the death of her three children no longer upset her and even expressed support of Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi.

Extreme adventurer Andrew, who has made treacherous journeys to North Korea and Iraq, said at first Begum was a “thin, ill-looking, sad character” who was “very apologetic”.

“We took a long walk around the camp, She started to relax, and she said she used to take this regular walk right around the perimeter of the camp to clear her head,” he said.

“After the interview finished, we walked back to the room. Normally she’d go off to a tent, but she wanted to come back to the room to get a cold drink.

“Then I didn’t want to insult her at that point, I wanted to say goodbye – I thought I’d never see her again.

“I said, ‘Can I shake your hand?’ and she asked for a hug.

“So she gave me a hug and started to cry.”

Andrew, from Surrey, said he felt they had formed a connection and believed she regretted turning her back on Western society to join the murderous death cult.

“At that point I kind of believed that she was sincere,” he said.

I actually don’t think the death of her children actually bothered her in the slightest. She was not at all affected by it

Andrew Drury

“I kind of felt sorry for her. I thought at that point she’d been radicalised online, sent out as a prescribed bridge to somebody.

“She said she’d made a real bad mistake and really regretted what she’d done.

“She owned up to being this person that everybody hates in the UK.

“And I felt sorry for her, I’ve got young daughters, not a lot of difference in age, so I thought people do make mistakes, and I should give her a chance.”

Andrew – whose book Trip Hazard details his experience in dangerous areas – returned to the camp months later after GMB asked for his help to get an interview with Begum.

The author, who has exchanged hundreds of messages with Begum, said he noticed a “subtle change” in the former Brit.

Begum, who was stripped of her British citizenship in 2019, appeared to have undergone a more “Western” makeover – ditching her hijab and abaya.

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“She had changed as a character,” Andrew said.

“She was more short. She wasn’t this nervous-cry sort of character.

“She looked assured, and she didn’t seem such a waif character, and she seemed to be in control of herself and her emotions.”

Andrew told how Begum spent the night before the live interview “rehearsing” with three of her friends In the camp, which is controlled by armed guards.

He added: “Her friends said they’d had their music playing and they were tutoring Shamima what to say.

“They seemed pretty together about what she should say, and they were schooling her.”

Begum married an IS fighter soon after arriving in Syria and went on to have three children, none of whom survived.

Andrew – who said he had formed a “bond” with Begum – told how after the interview, Shamima opened her purse and showed him photos of her children.

The tragic loss of his own brother Robert as a child made him sympathise with Shamima’s plight.

“One of them was a scene where the child must have been eight, nine months old, had chocolate around his face,” he recalled.

“I said, ‘What’s that?’ and she said, ‘Oh we used to like baking cakes’.

“And it actually makes me quite sad. It was really quite sad knowing the child had died.

“She made it sound like an honour that she had shared these pictures with me, which I guess it probably was, because she hadn’t shared them before she said.”

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But it was Begum’s attitude after Andrew returned to the UK that shocked him – and began to shatter their relationship.

“I said to her, ‘Those pictures you showed me really upset me, I hope you’re okay’,” he said.

“She messaged back and said, ‘Oh, they don’t bother me anymore. That doesn’t make me sad’.

“I thought, was that because she’s been traumatised so badly?

“But I think she is that hard. I think she’s calculated.

“I actually don’t think the death of her children actually bothered her in the slightest. She was not at all affected by it.”

After meeting Andrew a couple of times, Begum started asking him to bring stuff into the camp for her – including clothes.

The dad said he felt “at a crossroads” about whether to take what she wanted.

“I felt bad and guilty that I’d be taking somebody that carried out what could have been some atrocities, clothes,” he said.

“But then, probably on the soft side of me, and the fact is, she was a young girl, so I was playing with these emotions, but I took her the clothes from Primark.

“We had a bundle of stuff, we took some toys for the children because it’s not their fault.”

But then Begum’s requests started turning into demands, Andrew said.

“The messages continued,” he added.

Camps breeding next ISIS generation

Exclusive by Henry Holloway, Deputy Foreign Editor and Alan Duncan

A CHILD no older than eight draws his hand across his neck in a chilling throat-slitting gesture – the message is clear, “You are not welcome here”.

Other kids hurl stones, shout and scream – while one exasperated camp official shows us CCTV of two youngsters hurling a firebomb.

Welcome to camps al-Hol and al-Roj in northern Syria – the fates of which remain uncertain after the fall of tyrant Bashar al-Assad.

It is warned these stark detention centres are now the breeding ground for the next generation of the bloodthirsty cult.

And much of this new wave of radicalisation is feared to be coming from the mothers inside the camps.

Senior camp official Rashid Omer said: “The reality is – they are not changing. This is not a normal camp – this a bomb.”

He went on: “They are saying it was ISIS who ‘liberated’ Damascus – and soon they will be coming here.”

“And then they want to spread to Europe, to Africa, and then to everywhere.”

The two sprawling sites hold a total of nearly 60,000 including ISIS fighters, families and children.

At least 6,000 Westerners are still held among them – including infamous jihadi bride Shamima Begum, the 25-year-old from London.

READ MORE HERE

“This time they became slightly more angry, slightly more direct.”

Before he planned to return to Syria again, Begum told him she wanted two books – Guantanamo Bay Diaries and Sea Prayer – which is inspired by the Syrian refugee crisis.

Andrew said she was also being schooled by her lawyer about her media presence.

He added: “What she declared by then is that she was hostage in a prison camp – where they were legally held.

“That’s how she started to see herself. All apologies had gone.

“She’d done a documentary with the BBC and was on the front of The Times magazine.

“She’d become a celebrity and was loving all the attention. She’d read all the newspaper articles.”

Andrew – who returned to the camp with a friend and no crew – took some clothes for Begum with him.

I could see things in her I didn’t like. I didn’t trust her. Her behaviour was poor. She was angry and aggressive

Andrew Drury

But it was his decision not to take the books she had demanded that revealed her true colours.

“I did go back again, but my feelings were already changing towards her,” Andrew said.

“It was a little boy’s birthday, and I felt so sorry for him.

“He wanted a Superman outfit, so I would have gone just for that, because I spend a lot of time in refugee camps. It’s not fair for these kids.

“I didn’t take the books Shamima wanted because I didn’t want to. I didn’t want her to have that opportunity to what I saw as studying how to be a victim.

“She opened the clothes, said she didn’t like them. I mean, this is a girl in a prison camp.

“She said, ‘I didn’t really care about the clothes, it was the books I wanted’. So she became quite aggressive in her nature.”

Who is Shamima Begum?

ISIS bride Shamima Begum, who was born in Britain, was stripped of her British citizenship on February 20, 2019.

Begum’s attitude then worsened when Andrew became interested in another girl’s story.

It was one of the final nails in the coffin in the bond Andrew believed they had initially formed.

“Shamima had a tantrum that the attention had been taken away from her,” he said.

“She was like a child that was pretending they were ill.

“So during this period of time I was beginning to feel like the connection was gone.

“It was broken, and I was beginning not to like her.

“I could see things in her I didn’t like. I didn’t trust her. Her behaviour was poor. She was angry and aggressive.

“I had found out from other girls what she was accused of, and they told me the same thing that I had heard before, like sewing suicide vests

“Things were ringing in my head like she said early on that the Manchester bombing was legitimate because of what happened in Iraq and Syria.

“So I didn’t trust her.”

Andrew’s last contact with Begum was around two years ago in a fiery text exchange.

She accused Andrew of “selling her out”, to which he shot back: “You’ve sold your country out.”

Begum last year lost her final appeal challenging the removal of her British citizenship.

She can now no longer fight to overturn the revocation of her citizenship within the UK legal system.

Andrew said: “I think she’s a danger for what she stood for, and I don’t think she could ever come back.

“I think she needs to go on trial in Syria for the crimes she committed against the Syrian people.”

June 3 (UPI) — A 49-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen who pleaded guilty to charges of fighting U.S.-led coalition forces as an Islamic State militant has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.

Lirim Sylejmani was sentenced Monday after pleading guilty in December to charges of receiving military training from ISIS, a designated foreign terrorist organization.

“The defendant will spend a decade in prison thinking about the betrayal to this country,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro said in a statement.

Sylejmani and his family were detained by the Syrian Democratic Forces in Syria on Feb. 27, 2019, as coalition fighters made their final advances on ISIS’ last caliphate in the country, which fell the next month.

He was then transferred to U.S. law enforcement on Sept. 15 the following year to face charges in the United States.

According to prosecutors, Sylejmani worked with ISIS from November 2015, when he moved from Kosovo to Syria to join the militant group, to the day of his capture.

Prosecutors said he changed his name to Abu Sulayman al-Kosovi and trained alongside other recruits to be an ISIS soldier following his arrival in the Middle Eastern country. His training included instruction on using AK-47 rifles, PK machine guns, M-16 rifles and grenades.

The Justice Department said he fought against the Syrian Democratic Forces and was wounded in battle, having been hit by shrapnel in the leg. Because of the injury, he was reassigned to a different battalion in the fall of 2017. Prosecutors said he was paid for his services by ISIS.

After being captured, Sylejmani spoke with various media outlets, telling NPR in late 2019 that he and his family arrived in Syria via Canada. He said ISIS promised them free housing, electricity and water, but instead, they “starved” living under the caliphate.

“Anyone thinking that ISIS is the answer to their questions, best think again,” Pirro said. “We will go to any lengths to root out subversive individuals who want to overthrow the government and harm its citizens.”

May 31 (UPI) — The Islamic State claimed responsibility for two bomb attacks in a remote region in southern Syria on Wednesday and Thursday.

The twin bombings mark the first time ISIS has attacked the new Syrian government that took power in December and occurred in the remote Sweida Province.

ISIS posted two online statements on Thursday claiming responsibility for the bombings that killed and wounded Syrian soldiers and militia members who are allied with the Syrian government, The New York Times reported.

An attack occurred on Wednesday and struck a Syrian Army reconnaissance group that was tracking ISIS activities in the remote desert area, CNN reported.

Those wounded in that attack are members of the Syrian Army’s 70th Division, and the man who died was assisting the soldiers, according to The New York Times.

ISIS used a remote-controlled land mine to target the vehicle in which they were traveling, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced.

That attack occurred in the eastern portion of the Sweida Province and was the first attack carried out by ISIS and targeting forces allied with the new Syrian government.

A second bombing occurred on Thursday in the same region, according to news reports and ISIS.

ISIS said it killed and injured seven soldiers for the “apostate Syrian regime” by using an explosive device on a road in the Talul al Safa area in the Suwayda province in southern Syria, Al Jazeera reported.

Both attacks occurred near Sweida in southern Syria, which is a mountainous desert area in which ISIS has operated for many years.

Neither the Syrian government nor the Free Syrian Army has commented on either bombing.

The United States backs the Free Syrian Army, which operates in the Sweida region’s al Tanf Deconfliction Zone that is located near Syria’s borders with Jordan.

The United States maintains a small outpost in the area.

ISIS also has operated in the area for a long time due to its “extremely rugged and dangerous” terrain, CNN reported.

Earlier this month, U.S. President Donald Trump said he he was lifting “crippling” U.S. sanctions on Syria originally imposed to block flows of money into Syria, including aid, to put pressure on the brutal regime of ousted President Bashar al-Assad.

He met with the country’s transitional leader, President Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on May14.

Al-Sharaa, who was appointed president in January, has promised to hold elections once a new constitution is in place in around four years.

The bombings mark a sharp escalation by the armed group, which views the new government in Damascus as illegitimate.

ISIL (ISIS) has claimed responsibility for an attack on the Syrian army, representing the armed group’s first strike at government forces since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, according to analysts.

In a statement released late on Thursday, ISIL said its fighters had planted an explosive device that struck a “vehicle of the apostate regime” in southern Syria.

The bombing appears to mark an escalation by ISIL, which views the new government in Damascus as illegitimate but has so far concentrated its activities against Kurdish forces in the north.

The blast, in the al-Safa desert region of Sweida province on May 22, reportedly killed or wounded seven Syrian soldiers.

A second bomb attack, claimed by ISIL earlier this week, targeted fighters from the United States-backed Kurdish-led Free Syrian Army in a nearby area. ISIL said one fighter was killed and three injured.

There has been no official comment from the Syrian government, and the Free Syrian Army has yet to respond.

Members of the new Syrian government that replaced al-Assad after his removal in December once had ties to al-Qaeda – a rival of ISIL – but broke with the group nearly a decade ago.

However, over the past several months, ISIL has claimed responsibility only for attacks against the Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeast.

The United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the convoy blast was the first ISIL-claimed operation targeting the new Syrian military.

ISIL was territorially defeated in Syria in 2019 but maintains sleeper cells, particularly in the country’s central and eastern deserts.

While the group’s capacity has been diminished, the latest attacks suggest it may be seeking to reassert itself amid shifting alliances and weakening state control.