The ISIS jihadist group reportedly allowed around 50 British recruits to return home from ISIS strongholds in Syria and Iraq over the past few months, newspaper reports said.
The ISIS jihadist group reportedly allowed around 50 British recruits to return home from ISIS strongholds in Syria and Iraq over the past few months, newspaper reports said.
According to the Times, British counterterrorism agencies are investigating documents that give permission to ISIS fighters holding British passports to leave the region.
The so-called leaving permissions or exit cards, found among thousands of documents obtained by the Syrian website Zaman Al Wasl, include a British-Iraqi dubbed Abu Bakr al-Iraqi, whose commander gave him permission to leave for “work” in July 2014.
The exit cards, only a few of which were disclosed to the newspaper, are thought to provide a bureaucratic vouchsafe for fighters to be able to safely cross the ISIS border Iraq and Syria as the group is known to execute deserters.
New information retrieved from the laptop of one of the suicide bombers involved in the March Brussels terror attack has revealed that Britain was also on their hit list.
Files from the computer of Ibrahim El Bakraoui, who blew himself up at Brussels airport, show he discussed plans with foreign contacts to launch an attack on the UK, French media reports on Tuesday said.
The Parisien newspaper quoted an intelligence source as saying that “other European countries” besides Belgium were in the bombers’ sights, and that “Great Britain is also mentioned as a potential target”.
The bomber referred to striking Britain, the La Défense business district in Paris, and the ultra-conservative Catholic organisation, Civitas, in a folder titled “Target”, written in English, according to the source.
The laptop was found in a bin by the police in Brussels shortly after the suicide bombings on March 22 which killed 32 people at the city's airport and on a Metro train.
