The British jihadists

The war in Syria is coming home and the latest proof of this is the new video of a Muslim jihadist from London shooting dead a supporter of President Assad. This happened in Raqqa in northern Syria and the video was discovered by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR). The footage had been posted on the Instagram account of a man from London. The caption accompanying the video describes the murdered man as “one of Assad’s dogs.”  The ICSR researchers say one of the killers is a Briton seen in other videos: “We believe the main characters involved are Rayat al Tawheed jihadists from London.

“We have deduced this based on our discussions with foreign fighters, our extensive record-keeping of foreign fighter activity in Syria, and our maintenance of social network maps which allows us to plot activity and associations in a visual form.”

In one video a British fighter says a bullet is “the pen of the martyrs.”

A man is seen in the video firing shots into the body of the prisoner in the seconds after the initial bullet was fired by the main shooter. On two separate videos posted on YouTube, the man identified as the gunman by the ICSR is heard berating the British Muslim community for failing to provide sufficient financial support for the jihad or the families the fighters have left behind. This jihadist group lobbies for donations to buy more weapons and ammunition. The gunman is heard shouting his condemnation of fellow British Muslims for their failure to come up with money to provide weapons and training for the rebel opponents of Assad:

“You know who you are, from London, the Midlands, up north, wherever you may be… it’s a disgrace that you are yet buying your nephew or your child a PlayStation4 or taking them out to Nando’s,”

Four hundred British Muslims have travelled to fight or train in Syria in the last two years and this is why, last weekend, our government’s counter-terrorism programme launched a campaign urging families of young men going to Syria to join the rebel fighters to do all in their power to prevent them.

Of course Syria is hell on earth, a country where civil war has killed 150,000 people over the last three years and seen two million displaced into neighbouring countries as refugees. Why does there seem no end to the slaughter? Because this is more than a local conflict. It is a proxy war involving both the local superpowers – Saudi Arabia versus Iran – and the world powers also – with the USA and the EU vaguely on the side of the rebels and the Russians strongly backing their ally Assad. Vested interests are too great for there to be any prospect of an imminent end to this disastrous war.

Putin will continue to support Assad because he needs Syria as a warm water base for his navy in the Mediterranean. But it goes much deeper than cold war politics. The Syrian civil war is but part of a conflict between Shia and Sunni Muslims which has gone on for the best part of a thousand years. This sectarian strife is by no means confined to Syria but is being waged all across North Africa and the Middle East.

But surely it’s all a long way away? Not far enough, I’m afraid. For the four hundred – and how many more will join them? – will one day return disappointed, wounded and hating Britain. And they will be trained terrorists with a well-coordinated weapons supply line.