Re: Should We Forgive the ISIS Women?

Admin Sun 14 Apr 2019, 10:58 pm

Jihadi bride stitched suicide vests: In chilling briefing to Prime Minister, spy chiefs reveal how Shamima Begum served in ISIS's 'morality police' and helped terrorists prepare for attacks
MI6 has briefed the PM and Home Secretary on Shamima Begum's ISIS role
Witnesses claim to have seen Begum prepare suicide vests for would-be jihadis
Begum has claimed she 'never did anything dangerous' while under ISIS control
Well placed sources claim Begum carried a rifle and acted as an 'enforcer'
By HARRY COLE FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6919501/Jihadi-bride-Shamima-Begums-vital-ISIS-role-revealed.html?fbclid=IwAR2twXsM3kKa1amHKIydvIBOV9xTs0XgzI9xHZI-sS6FQR-N_6XG9j81FCg
PUBLISHED: 22:00, 13 April 2019 | UPDATED: 08:26, 14 April 2019
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Shamima Begum, pictured, is accused of assisting ISIS by stitching would-be suicide bombers into their explosive vests

Jihadi bride Shamima Begum stitched suicide bombers into explosive vests, spy chiefs have told Theresa May and Sajid Javid.

The Mail on Sunday has learned that the Prime Minister and Home Secretary have been briefed by the intelligence services about claims that British-born Ms Begum was witnessed preparing suicide vests for would-be martyrs – sewing them on to the bombers so that the devices could not be removed without detonation.

Intelligence sources told this newspaper they have been informed of her chilling role in Syria actively preparing jihadis to take their own lives as Islamic State collapsed.

If the allegations prove to be correct, they will shatter the claim by the teenager from East London that she was nothing more than an IS fighter’s wife after she enlisted with the death cult while still a schoolgirl in 2015.

It is understood the information was gleaned by allied spy agencies – believed to be the CIA and Dutch Military Intelligence – from interrogation of other Western IS converts. It is not known whether Ms Begum was a willing participant in the acts.

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Furthermore, sources told The Sunday Telegraph she had served in the terror group's 'morality police' and had worked to recruit other impressionable women.

Sources told the newspaper she was permitted to carry a Kalashnikov rifle while going about her duties as an 'enforcer,' imposing the IS laws around dress code.

After being found by journalists in a camp in northern Syria in February following the collapse of IS’s grip on the region, Ms Begum, now 19, insisted she had never ‘done anything dangerous’ during her time with the terror group and begged to be allowed back into Britain. But Mr Javid branded her a danger to the UK and revoked her citizenship.

She said: ‘When I went to Syria, I was just a housewife. I just stayed at home and looked after my kids. I didn’t do anything dangerous. I never made propaganda, I never encouraged people to come to Syria. They don’t have proof that I did anything dangerous.’

The 19-year-old jihadi bride from Bethnal Green, east London has been stripped of her British citizenship by Home Secretary Sajid Javid. Javid and PM Theresa May have received top secret briefings from the security services about Begum's role with the terror organisation

Begum, pictured at Gatwick Airport in February 2015, flew to Turkey before sneaking into Syria to join the terror organisation

Video playing bottom right...
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However, a senior intelligence source said: ‘She was involved and her former comrades have grassed her. She was literally stitching the vests, stitching them into the vests.’

After running away from Bethnal Green, Ms Begum lived in the Syrian city of Raqqa under the control of IS with her husband, a Dutch extremist named Yago Riedijk.

Syrian troops and Western special forces spent 2017 clearing the city house by house. Their efforts were severely hampered by suicide bombers.

Ms Begum claimed: ‘When we lost Raqqa, we had to keep moving and moving and moving. The situation got difficult.’

But a Government source said: ‘Those who stayed to the end were the hardcore, there is no disputing that. Lots of them went [to the IS stronghold] for a couple of weeks, hated it and came back. Many more left when Raqqa fell over a year ago. But she stayed to the bitter end and now we know why.’

Other Whitehall sources told The Mail on Sunday that the top-secret intelligence has been shared at the highest levels of government following the row over Mr Javid’s decision to block Ms Begum’s return. However, there are concerns that such evidence may not meet the legal threshold for trial in Britain due to complications over whether it would be permissible in court.

Javid received criticism for blocking Begum's return to the UK - especially after he infant child died in the Syrian refugee camp. She claimed to have lost her two eldest children as well

The news emerged as new laws came into force last week that would see Britons jailed for ten years just for travelling to warzones. The Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 makes it illegal for UK citizens to travel to terror hotspots, as part of a clampdown inspired by the legal grey area around the Begum case.

Welcoming the new measures, Mr Javid said: ‘These laws give police the powers they need to disrupt terrorist plots earlier and ensure those who seek to do us harm face just punishment.’

Having revoked Ms Begum’s UK citizenship to block her return to Britain, a furious row was sparked when her two-week-old son Jarrah died of pneumonia in a Syrian camp. Senior Tories distanced themselves from Mr Javid’s decision, describing the Government as ‘morally responsible’ for the death of the newborn, while Labour labelled the situation ‘a stain on the nation’s conscience’.

Begum's two-week-old son, Jarrah, pictured, was a British citizen at the time of his death
Begum's two-week-old son, Jarrah, pictured, was a British citizen at the time of his death

Jarrah was born a British citizen on February 16, shortly before the Home Secretary stripped his mother of her passport. Ms Begum’s British family had begged Mr Javid to allow safe passage for Jarrah to come to London.

Tory MP Philip Lee suggested it was Mr Javid’s desire to lead the party that was behind his blocking of Ms Begum’s return. He urged the Home Secretary to reflect on a decision ‘driven by populism and not by any principle I recognise’.

But last night the revelations prompted MPs to defend Mr Javid.

Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said: ‘Cases that rely on secret intelligence for security decisions can be hard to explain in public.

If true, these allegations suggest a reason Ms Begum may have stayed in IS-controlled territory to the end, and would suggest a good reason to suspect she would be a danger to the UK.’

Home Office figures show more than 900 Britons travelled to the conflict in Syria, with 20 per cent killed and around 40 per cent having returned to the UK. Only the most dangerous have been barred from returning.

Ms Begum’s father Ahmed Ali said last night: ‘If she has done anything wrong, she should be brought to England and punished. As far as I know she was a housewife when in Syria.’

The Begum family’s lawyer demanded the Home Office make any evidence they hold against their daughter public. Tasnime Akunjee said: ‘On behalf of the family, we would like to see this evidence, given that it has been leaked, and have it tested in proceedings in due course rather than through hearsay.’

The Home Office said: ‘Decisions to deprive individuals of their citizenship are based on all available evidence and are not taken lightly.’

Begum is married to Dutch extremist Yago Riedijk who is being held in a prison camp

Admin Sun 24 Feb 2019, 5:33 pm

Should We Forgive the ISIS Women?
Feb 23, 2019 | by Rabbi Benjamin Blech
Should We Forgive the ISIS Women?
Mistakes should indeed be forgiven; crimes need to be punished.
https://www.aish.com/ci/s/Should-We-Forgive-the-ISIS-Women.html?s=mm
Hoda Muthana is ready to admit now that she “made a big mistake.”

Five years ago – not a child but a 24-year-old American – she left the United States surreptitiously to join ISIS and became a fervent disciple of the vicious and barbaric movement intent on world domination and preaching death to all infidels. She does not deny that with great joy she burned her American passport, married an ISIS fighter and took on another name, Umm Jihad, “mother of Jihad.”

With her new credentials she enthusiastically became her husband’s partner by way of the twitter battlefield. She urged her fellow Muslims to randomly murder Americans, tweeting, “You have much to do while you live under our greatest enemy, enough of your sleeping! Go on drive-bys and spill all of their blood, or rent a big truck and drive all over them. Veterans, Patriot, Memorial, etc., Day parades… spill all of their blood and drive all over them. Kill them.”

Hers was the voice that repeatedly urged fellow Americans to join her terror organization, taunting “There are so many Aussies and Brits here but where are the Americans, wake up you cowards.”

She married three different ISIS fighters. She admits that she wasn’t fazed by the viciousness of its methods – the burning alive of captives, the beheadings, the unbelievably cruel tortures of prisoners. “After all they would have done the same to us,” she offers.

But with the change of fortune of the caliphate and the imminent defeat of ISIS, Hoda is prepared to change her mind and her affiliation. She has come to realize, she now says, that “her life is not going as planned.” And so she shares with us the realization that Americans do have at least one positive quality. “I believe that America gives second chances.” So Hoda is asking for is a simple request: Please give me a second chance – I made a mistake!

What breathtaking chutzpah.

Somehow there are still those who cannot differentiate between mistakes and crimes. An act that goes against an individual's personal conscience is a mistake. An act that goes against a collective society's conscience and violates its laws is a crime. Mistakes should indeed be forgiven; crimes need to be punished.

In the guise of goodness, there are too many who believe that to pardon every criminal without punishment or to ignore consequences for past wrongdoings is the most noble option – whereas the truth is that to forgive the undeserving is to remove the most powerful safeguard for the survival of society and the legal system.

To speak of forgiveness as if it were the automatic entitlement of every criminal is to pervert a noble sentiment into a carte blanche for mayhem and chaos.

It was not Dostoyevsky who first coined the concept of crime and punishment. It was the Bible itself, the same words of God which taught the world the value of compassion and kindness, nonetheless emphasized that mercy has its limits and that forgiveness is restricted by boundaries. God holds people responsible. He criticizes, He condemns, and afflicts those who committed crimes.

The day after the Columbine High School massacre, a group of students announced that they forgave the killers. A short while after the Oklahoma bombing, some people put out a call to forgive Timothy McVeigh. And on September 12th in 2001 on several American campuses, colleges groups pleaded for forgiveness for the terrorists responsible for the horrific events of the previous day.

These weren't just misguided gestures of compassion. They were serious sins with potentially tragic consequences. Evil unchallenged is evil condoned. To forgive and forget, as Arthur Schopenhauer so well put it, "means to throw valuable experience out the window." And without the benefit of experience's lessons, we are almost certain to be doomed to repeat them.

Hoda Muthana posted a tweet just after the day in 2015 when jihadists stormed the offices of Charlie Hebdo, the satirical magazine, and viciously slaughtered 12 victims. “Hats off to the mujs in Paris,” using an abbreviation for mujahedeen. When the magazine decided to continue printing in spite of its decimated staff the world was amazed by the front page in the aftermath of the carnage. There was a cover with an image of the tearful Prophet Mohammed holding a sign reading "Je Suis Charlie" beneath the headline "Tout Est Pardonne," or "All is Forgiven."

Speaking to BBC, cartoonist Zineb El Rhazoui said the cover was “a call to forgive terrorists Cherif and Said Kouachi” responsible for the atrocity. Rhazoui told The Guardian that "We feel that we have to forgive what happened. I think those who have been killed, if they would have been able to have a coffee today with the terrorists and just talk to ask them why have they done this ... We feel at the Charlie Hebdo team that we need to forgive…Everyone must think about this forgiveness."

After an attack of barbaric proportions came the incredible distortion of the ideal of forgiveness, offered as fitting response to murder and terrorism. And so to this day, as evidenced powerfully in these last few weeks, France continues to suffer from the delusion that evil can be fought with “a cup of coffee” and a show of friendly understanding.

Hoda Muthana is not the only traitor seeking “a second chance”, hopeful that the Americans she sought to have murdered will now show her the mercy she never felt necessary to grant them when the dream of the caliphate seemed attainable. There is now a group of women who in defeat have remarkably seen the light of regret and “contrition.” They believe that American naïveté will grant them forgiveness.

I pray they are wrong. Not because I lack compassion – but because I share with God the demand for justice and the need for a world which makes clear that the choice of evil has consequences.