Solsticewitch13's BOS: RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Don't weep for these so-called British jihadis

Saturday, November 1, 2014

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Don't weep for these so-called British jihadis

By Richard Littlejohn for the Daily Mail

Published: 01:00 GMT, 31 October 2014 | Updated: 11:29 GMT, 31 October 2014

Two brothers from Sussex are killed fighting in Syria. A third is still out there and his parents are desperate for him to come home.

It’s a harrowing story with echoes of the movie Saving Private Ryan. Even those who haven’t seen the Oscar-winning film will probably be familiar with the plot.

Four brothers enlist to fight in World War II. Three are killed in quick succession. Another is missing in action somewhere behind enemy lines in Normandy.

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Jaffar Deghayes, 17, from Sussex was killed in Syria - his family were notified of his death via social media

Abdullah Deghayes, 18, was killed six months ago after travelling from his Brighton home to become a jihadist

Their mother is beside herself with grief. To spare her further pain, the U.S. Army mounts a daring search and rescue mission to bring the fourth brother home.

There are undoubtedly certain parallels between the movie and the plight of the Deghayes family, from Brighton.

Three brothers travelled from their home to Syria to become jihadists. Eighteen-year-old Abdullah was killed six months ago. This week their parents received the news that 17-year-old Jaffar had also died in battle.

They were notified of Jaffar’s death via social media by their surviving eldest son Amer, 20, who was the first to volunteer last year.

Understandably, Abubaker and Einas Deghayes are inconsolable. As a neighbour observed: ‘To lose one son is awful, but to lose two so close together is unimaginable.’

Like the mother of Private Ryan, they pray for the safe return of their surviving son. But there, however, the similarities end.

For a start, it would appear that Amer doesn’t want to come home. He’s quite happy waging jihad. Earlier this year he appeared in a TV documentary proclaiming that he had no intention of returning to Britain.

Amer left in October 2013. In January he was joined by his younger brothers. Jaffar tricked his mother into helping him obtain a passport by pretending he was going on a school trip. All three took up arms with an outfit called Jabhat-al-Nusra, an Al Qaeda affiliate.

Their father, Abubaker, a refugee from Libya who came here in 1986, said he was ‘not supportive’ of their decision, but then went on to blame the British Government for his sons’ fate. He seemed to be suggesting that they only stayed in Syria because they would have been arrested if they had come home.

In a direct message to Home Secretary Theresa May and Prime Minister David Cameron, he said: ‘The strategy you are using with our sons does not work. You are criminalising them just out of fear they might become a threat to this country. Do not push them to be radicalised, used by groups like Isis who are out for revenge and a thirst for blood.’

It was an extraordinary allegation, predictably given reverential treatment by the gullible BBC and the rest of the broadcast media.

Hang on a minute. As they used to say on the old TV quiz shows: let’s take the third part first.

Mr Deghayes claims the Government’s policy of arresting young British men returning from fighting alongside terrorists in Syria will ‘push them to become radicalised’.

Surely they were radicalised before they left Britain.

Did Mr Deghayes have any idea that his sons were embracing Islamist extremism? After his eldest son travelled to Syria, wasn’t he just the teensiest bit suspicious when another son asked for a passport so he could go on a ‘school trip’?

OK, it’s nigh impossible to monitor what teenage boys read on the internet. But were they exposed to anyone else who may have influenced them? What about their uncle, Omar Deghayes, another Libyan exile given asylum in Britain?

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He chose to leave his safe haven in this country and moved to Afghanistan in 2000 to live under the Taliban.

As you do.

Subsequently, Omar was arrested in Pakistan in the wake of 9/11 and held at Guantanamo Bay for five years. But as the BBC and the Guardian continue to insist, no one taken to Club Gitmo was guilty of anything. It was all a wicked fit-up by the evil war criminal Bush.

Which, presumably, is why Omar was eventually released without charge. So he can’t possibly have had anything to do with his nephews becoming radicalised. As for the Government ‘criminalising’ these poor lambs by arresting them on their return, it’s already a criminal offence to travel overseas to take part in terrorism.

So they ‘criminalised’ themselves the day they signed up with Al Qaeda. All these groups are part of an Islamist hydra, dedicated ultimately to overthrowing the West and establishing an international caliphate.

Unlike the fictional Private Ryan, the Deghayes boys weren’t fighting fascism, they were fighting for fascism. They were fighting alongside genocidal maniacs murdering and raping other Muslims and beheading British citizens.

Who is to say that if they had been allowed to return they wouldn’t have become a threat to this country?

Islamist terror groups — Isis, Al Qaeda, whatever they call themselves this week — are urging their disciples to mount terror attacks in the West.

After the murder of a Canadian soldier and the assault on the parliament in Ottawa, security services here are worried about so-called ‘lone wolf’ attacks on the streets of Britain.

We’ve already had the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich and this week armed troops were guarding ceremonial soldiers in Whitehall.Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of ‘British’ citizens have travelled to Syria to fight alongside Isis. No one can be sure exactly how many — or how many are already back in Britain.

If the Deghayes boys had managed to return unharmed, would you have been happy for them to be greeted with a group hug and set free to walk the streets, complete with their newly-acquired bomb-making and weapons skills?

Precisely.

What’s more, inviting us to wring our hands over dead jihadists is an insult to the families of British soldiers who have been killed fighting terrorists abroad.

As for Amer Deghayes, he has chosen his fate. If he comes home, he should be arrested immediately. If he’s killed in Syria, it will a tragedy for his family. But it won’t be anyone else’s fault but his own.

While we can sympathise on a human level with Mr Deghayes over the loss of his two sons, his attempt to lay the blame at the door of the British Government and make us all feel guilty is despicable.

We’re not talking Saving Private Ryan here.

Captain Morgan's rum do

A village school in Cumbria has six members of staff but no pupils after being branded ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted.

Parents withdrew their children from Ravenstonedale primary when it was put into special measures. Inspectors claimed to have uncovered ‘racist and homophobic bullying’ in the playground.

The allegation of racism came as something of a surprise because all 13 pupils were white. And the ‘homophobic bullying’ in question was based on one incident of a child calling another ‘gay’.

This week the Government announced that it was spending £2 million to investigate anti-gay and anti-transgender prejudice and bullying in schools.

This week the Government, spearheaded by Education Secretary Nicky Morgan (pictured) announced that it was spending £2million to investigate anti-gay prejudice in schools

A pound to a penny this ludicrous ‘task force’ concludes that such prejudice and bullying is widespread, even where it doesn’t exist.

How many more innocent children will be smeared as ‘bigots’, how many more schools will be forced out of business in pursuit of dogmatic political purity?

Former Education Secretary, Michael Gove tried to kill off this kind of drivel.

Unfortunately, his successor Nicky Morgan is desperate to ingratiate herself with the ‘diversity’ Nazis who think the purpose of schools is social engineering, not education.

Sadly, we can only conclude that as a minister, Morgan is — what’s the word? — oh, yes: inadequate.

One step beyond...

Today's edition of You Couldn’t Make It Up comes from Burnley in Lancashire, where a training college which specialises in elf’n’safety courses has been fined £20,000 after an employee fell off a ladder and broke his back.

I know I shouldn’t laugh, but...

Am I missing something here? Ministers are warning that unless we rejoin the European Arrest Warrant system, Britain will become a playground for international criminals and terrorists.

So no change there, then.