Woman Flies To Syria To Rescue Son Who Joined Terrorist Group

The 45-year-old woman had flown to Turkey after she realised her 21-year-old son had left home without her knowledge for the war-torn region.

UK Mirror reports that the boy was born and brought up in a Christian home but converted to Islam about three years after becoming changed from listening to online extremist sermons.

It was gathered that boy called when he got Syria telling her where he had gone which throwing his mum into a state of “fear and panic” worrying he would be killed.

The woman identified herself only as Linda to protect herself.

Linda told her son she she would move abroad if he didn’t come home.

But after the lad, known as James, attempted to leave the brutal civil war he got injured by shrapnel in crossfire between two rival factions.

Linda said: “He was traumatised, he was in quite a fragile state. He was by himself, he was scared. At that point I knew I was going to have to go to Turkey, because it gave him something to aim for, he knew that his mum was waiting for him. I’ve never been to Turkey before so I didn’t really know where I was going or what I was doing.”

After learning of his injury, Linda - who spoke to BBC Inside Out London - travelled to the Turkish border with Syria and tried to navigate her son to safety.

She travelled to Adana in Turkey, close to the Syrian border and used an her iPad in an internet cafe to map out a safe route for her son to reach her.

But he did not answer and they lost contact.

She then texted her son the address of the hotel she was staying in.

Linda said: “I didn’t know what was going on. And then he just suddenly turned up. I was so relieved. I did actually manage to get my son back. I allowed my son to come back and accepted him with love.”

As many as 500 young British Muslims are thought to have travelled to fight in Iraq and Syria, of whom about half have returned to the UK.

Linda claims her son had “a strong moral compass” after he converted to Islam but he was later recruited by extremists online.

She said: “My son never told me he was gonna go to Syria.

“I only found out after he left because he knew I would have stopped him.

“I would have been against it. I think the reason he went was because he felt quite upset about the oppression that’s going on there and in his naive mind he thought he could go out there and help.

“I was very shocked. I was terrified. I was just constantly in a state of fear and panic. I clung on to any sign of contact that I had with him and then, after a few days of not hearing from him, the anxiety would start again.”

Linda said her son was questioned by Scotland Yard on his return to the UK but he was released the same day after he was not deemed a risk.

But she said James faced “pressure” from MI5 to provide information.

“He got quite a lot of hassle from the secret services,” Linda said.

“Trying to sort of pressure him into giving them information. He wasn’t able to do that.

“They were quite insensitive. They were sort of bargaining with him and saying we’ll offer things but in exchange for information.

“I allowed my son to come back and accepted him with love.

“We’ve got to be careful with young people, you know, young people can make sudden decisions that are not good, they can do dangerous things.”