British-Canadian Parents of 'Jihadi Jack' Convicted of Funding Terror for Sending Son Money

'We have been convicted for doing what any parent would do if they thought that their child’s life was in danger,' the couple said

I guess that's true to a point, but not any parents would raise a jihadist.

Jack Letts in Syria, where he lived in the ISIL capital. Letts, captured by Kurdish forces as a suspected ISIL fighter, is a joint British-Canadian citizen and Kurdish authorities have talked of possibly releasing him to Canadian officials.Facebook

Tom Blackwell

Their defence lawyers called the prosecution an “inhumane” targeting of desperate, loving parents. Prosecutors said the same couple were willfully blind to obvious realities.

On Friday, a U.K. jury sided with the latter view. It found the British-Canadian parents of a suspected ISIL member guilty of funding terrorism over money they wired to Jack Letts, now 23, to try to help him escape a terrorist-held part of Syria.

The verdict is the latest blow for a couple whose efforts to free their son – dubbed “Jihadi Jack” by the British press and now held in a Kurdish prison – have included lobbying the Canadian government.

But Ontario-born John Letts, 58, and his wife Sally Lane, 57, were spared time in jail, as a judge gave the pair a suspended sentence of 15 months, according to various British media reports. Unless they commit another offence, they will not have to serve the time.

“It was one thing for parents to be optimistic about their children and I do acknowledge he is your son who you love very much,” said Justice Nicholas Hilliard in sentencing them, reported the Independent. “But in this context you did lose sight of realities…. The warning signs were there for you to see.”

At an Old Bailey trial the parents and their lawyers had tried to stop on constitutional grounds, jurors heard that the parents were warned by others that their son had been radicalized, and by police not to send him money.

But they did anyway, convinced he could use it to pay a people smuggler to get him out of Raqqa, the de-facto capital of ISIL’s so-called caliphate, which fell to U.S.-aided forces in 2017.

They were convicted of wiring Jack 223 pounds in September 2015, but acquitted of attempting to send another 1,000 pounds that December, transfers that were blocked by authorities, The Guardian reports. The jury could not reach a verdict on a third charge of sending money.

Sally Lane and John Letts, parents of Jack Letts, arrive at the Old Bailey court in central London on

Jan. 12, 2017. DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS / AFP/Getty Images

“We have been convicted for doing what any parent would do if they thought that their child’s life was in danger,” Letts, an organic farmer, and Lane, a former book editor, said in a statement outside court. “The heavy price we paid today is an indicator of the love we have for our children. We are committed to help Jack return home.”

John Letts grew up near Chatham, Ont., and Lane’s family moved to Ontario when she was a child, but the couple emigrated back to England after meeting in Canada, settling in Oxford. They and their two children all have joint citizenship.

Jack Letts travelled to the Middle East in 2014 after converting to Islam.

Court heard that a member of his mosque had warned the parents that he might have been radicalized and they should confiscate his passport, but they still bought him a plane ticket to Jordan in 2014 for a “grand Middle East adventure.”

Letts was only 18, but married a woman in Iraq and eventually ended up in ISIL-controlled Syria.

He came to British authorities’ attention when he posted extremist sentiments on Facebook, saying about a picture of a schoolmate — named Linus Doubtfire — in army uniform, “I would love to perform a martyrdom operation in this scene.”

When his parents angrily challenged him about the posting, he responded: “I would happily kill each and every one of Linus Unit personally. This message for you, mum and (younger brother) Tyler, I honestly want to cut Linus head off,” according to The Daily Telegraph.

“I hope he finds himself lost in (Iraqi cities) Beji or Fallujah one day and sees me whilst I’m armed and I will put six bullets in his head.”

We have been convicted for doing what any parent would do

Lane testified that she was horrified when she learned Jack was in Syria and screamed at him, “How could you be so stupid?”

Defence counsel Henry Blaxland had earlier said the prosecution of the couple was “inhumane to the point of being cruel,” according to the BBC.

But prosecutor Alison Morgan told the court that “parents turning a blind eye to the obvious is not a defence.”

John Letts has fought hard to convince the Canadian government to help free his son from a prison in Kurdish-held Syria, the British having all but refused to act. Emails suggested Global Affairs Canada was initially eager to help, but later suggested it did not have the ability to intervene in the region.

In an interview by Britain’s ITV earlier this year, Jack Letts played down his Canadian identity when asked whether he felt British or Canadian.

“I did at one point in my life have a Canadian passport, I don’t know if it’s still valid,” he told the channel. “If the U.K. accepted me then I’d go back to the U.K., it’s my home. But I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

No, Jack, your home is somewhere warmer, much warmer.

ISIS Out of Iraq But Driven Into Syria by the U.S.

Iraqi government: Islamic State 'completely defeated' in country

By Allen Cone 

Iraqi soldiers hold up the Iraqi national flag after totally liberating central Mosul on July 10. Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi on Saturday announced the remaining Iraqi region under Islamic state control, near the Iraqi border with Syria, was now under complete control of Iraq's armed forces. Photo by EPA

UPI -- Iraq's prime minister announced Saturday that the country's defense forces completely liberated the nation from the Islamic State.

"Our heroic armed forces have now secured the entire length of the Iraq-Syria border," Haider al-Abadi posted on Twitter. "We defeated Daesh [Islamic State] through our unity and sacrifice for the nation. Long live Iraq and its people."

Last month, Iraqi forces and Iranian-backed militias began a final campaign against the militants along the country's Syrian border. The targeted area, largely desert, was about 11,000 square miles.

In all, the Islamic State controlled more than 34,000 square miles from the Mediterranean coast to south of Baghdad. Rawa was the last liberated city since the Islamic State took control in 2014.

More than 3.2 million people were displaced from the country, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency.

In a post on Twitter, the government said that the armed forces have secured the west desert and the entire Iraq-Syrian border. "This marks the end of the war against Daesh terrorists who have been completely defeated and evicted from Iraq," the post said.

Desert offensive Maj. Gen. Abdul Amir Rashid Yarallah said the forces liberated the desert between the provinces of Nineveh and Anbar. "And, thus, the liberation of all Iraqi territory has been completed from the rule of the [Islamic State] gangs," Yarallah said in a statement.

The Global Coalition conducted about 25,000 airstrikes during military operations there.

Thousands of ISIS fighters left Syria in secret deal with U.S., defector says

By Dominic Evans and Orhan Coskun Reuters

Then Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) spokesman Talal Silo speaks during a news conference in Hukoumiya village in Raqqa, Syria, June 6.

REUTERS/Rodi Said/File Photo

A high-level defector from Kurdish-led forces that captured the Syrian city of Raqqa from Islamic State has recanted his account of the city’s fall, saying thousands of ISIS fighters – many more than first reported – left under a secret, U.S.-approved deal.

Talal Silo, a former commander in the Syrian Democratic Forces, said the SDF arranged to bus all remaining Islamic State militants out of Raqqa even though it said at the time it was battling diehard foreign jihadists in the city.

U.S. officials described Silo’s comments as “false and contrived” but a security official in Turkey, where Silo defected three weeks ago, gave a similar account of Islamic State’s defeat in its Syrian stronghold. Turkey has been at odds with Washington over U.S. backing for the Kurdish forces who led the fight for Raqqa.

Silo was the SDF spokesman and one of the officials who told the media in mid-October – when the deal was reached – that fewer than 300 fighters left Raqqa with their families while others would fight on.

However, he told Reuters in an interview that the number of fighters who were allowed to go was far higher and the account of a last-ditch battle was a fiction designed to keep journalists away while the evacuation took place.

He said a U.S. official in the international coalition against Islamic State, whom he did not identify, approved the deal at a meeting with an SDF commander.

At the time there were conflicting accounts of whether or not foreign Islamic State fighters had been allowed to leave Raqqa. The BBC later reported that one of the drivers in the exodus described a convoy of up to 7 km long made up of 50 trucks, 13 buses and 100 Islamic State vehicles, packed with fighters and ammunition.

The Turkish government has expressed concern that some fighters who left Raqqa could have been smuggled across the border into Turkey and could try to launch attacks there or in the West.

“Agreement was reached for the terrorists to leave, about 4,000 people, them and their families,” Silo said, adding that all but about 500 were fighters.

He said they headed east to Islamic State-controlled areas around Deir al-Zor, where the Syrian army and forces supporting President Bashar al-Assad were gaining ground.

If this is true it is a deliberate attack on Syrian forces by sending 3500 armed men to Deir al-Zor to counter the Syrian offensive. It didn't work, Deir al-Zor fell anyway, but it was obviously a hostile act intended to prolong the war in Syria.

For three days the SDF banned people from going to Raqqa, saying fighting was in progress to deal with militants who had not given themselves up.

“It was all theater,” Silo said.

“The announcement was cover for those who left for Deir al-Zor”, he said, adding that the agreement was endorsed by the United States which wanted a swift end to the Raqqa battle so the SDF could move on towards Deir al-Zor.

U.S. at odds with Turkey

It was not clear where the evacuees from Raqqa ended up.

The Syrian Democratic Forces deny that Islamic State fighters were able to leave Raqqa for Deir al-Zor, and the U.S.-led military coalition which backs the SDF said it “does not make deals with terrorists”.

“The coalition utterly refutes any false accusations from any source that suggests the coalition’s collusion with ISIS,” it said in a statement.

However, a Turkish security official said that many more Islamic State personnel left Raqqa than was acknowledged. “Statements that the U.S. or the coalition were engaged in big conflicts in Raqqa are not true,” the official added.

He told Reuters Turkey believed those accounts were aimed at diverting attention from the departure of Islamic State members and complained that Turkey had been kept in the dark.

Ankara, a NATO ally of Washington’s and a member of the U.S.-led coalition, has disagreed sharply with the United States over its support for the Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters who spearheaded the fight against Islamic State in Raqqa.

Turkey says the YPG is an extension of the PKK, which has waged a three-decade insurgency in southeast Turkey and is designated a terrorist group by the United States and European Union.

Silo spoke to Reuters in a secure location on the edge of Ankara in the presence of Turkish security officers. He said the security was for his own protection and he denied SDF assertions that he had been pressured into defecting by Turkey, where his children live.

A member of Syria’s Turkmen minority, Silo said his decision to speak out now was based on disillusionment with the structure of the SDF, which was dominated by Kurdish YPG fighters at the expense of Arab, Turkmen and Assyrian allies, as well as the outcome in Raqqa, where he said a city had been destroyed but not the enemy.

The Raqqa talks took place between a Kurdish SDF commander, Sahin Cilo, and an intermediary from Islamic State whose brother-in-law was the Islamic State “emir” in Raqqa, Silo said.

After they reached agreement Cilo headed to a U.S. military base near the village of Jalabiya. “He came back with the agreement of the U.S. administration for those terrorists to head to Deir al-Zor,” Silo said.

The coalition said two weeks ago that one of its leaders was present at the talks but not an active participant in the deal which it said was reached “despite explicit coalition disagreement with letting armed ISIS terrorists leave Raqqa”.

ISIS re-enters Syria’s Idlib after clashes: monitor

Civil defense members inspect the damage at a site hit by airstrikes on Tuesday, in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib. (File photo: Reuters)

AFP, Beirut

The ISIS group has seized territory in Syria’s Idlib province after clashes with rival militants, nearly four years after being expelled from the region, a monitor said on Friday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said ISIS had captured the village of Bashkun after clashes with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a force dominated by a former Al-Qaeda affiliate.

The capture comes after days of fighting between ISIS and HTS in neighbouring Hama province, during which ISIS captured a string of villages in the northeast of the region, the Observatory said.

The capture of Bashkun puts ISIS back in Idlib nearly four years after it was first expelled from the province in northwestern Syria after battles with rival militants and rebel groups.

ISIS has seen the so-called “caliphate” it declared in 2014 across parts of Syria and Iraq crumble in recent weeks, losing key cities such as Raqa and Mosul.

It now holds just a few patches of territory in Syria, and on Saturday Iraq’s prime minister declared the war against the jihadist group in his country was now over.

More than 340,000 people have been killed in Syria’s multi-faceted war since the conflict began with anti-government protests in March 2011.

American's, allegedly, have 2000 troops in Syria - 4 times as many as previously reported, and an unknown number of 'contractors'. All are there, allegedly, fighting ISIS. The middle report above makes it clear that the Americans are not just fighting ISIS, but are attempting to ensure that Assad does not win back control of Syria. 

There are a couple of possible reasons for this: 1. They want to reduce Iran's influence in the region; 2. Saudi Arabia wants to reduce Iran's influence in the region; 3. They want to prolong the fighting for commercial reasons.  

Whatever the reason, Europe should be screaming blue murder at the prolonging of the civil war. Many a Syrian migrant in Europe would go home if it was safe to do so, even to a destroyed country. At least, the flow of war refugees would slow. Is it the BS report that Assad was responsible for using chemical weapons in Khan Sheikoun that has them refusing to allow Assad to be part of a Syrian solution? 

ISIS Syrian Capital Raqqa Hit by Uprising, Defections

200 militants are said to have switched sides and are now fighting against ISIS

© Stringer / Reuters

A popular uprising in Islamic State stronghold Raqqa reportedly resulted in dozens of deaths as militias clashed with the terrorist group’s fighters. Some 200 militants are said to have switched sides and are fighting against their former comrades.

Several local sources say the clashes in Raqqa have been escalating for several days and resulted in numerous defections from the ranks of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL, also known as Daesh, an Arabic pejorative term).

"About 200 Syrian militants of Daesh took the side of residents of Raqqa, which forced the terrorists to organize roadblocks at the entrance to the city," one source told Sputnik.

Reports of desertion have been confirmed by Alalam news and Hamrin news.

The black IS flag has been replaced

with the national flags of Syria

After heavy clashes with IS fighters on Sunday, its former members helped the locals secure at least five neighborhoods in the city, where the black IS flag has been replaced with the national flags of Syria.

According to witness reports, Raqqa citizens now control the al-Dareiyeh, al-Ramileh, al-Ferdows, al-Ajili and al-Bakri neighborhoods.

"The split within the organization occurred as a result of internal differences in their ranks, and led to armed clashes and dozens of deaths,” a source told Hamrin news.

Sources on the ground for Alalam news explained that many fighters are trying to escape Islamic State clutches as the Syrian Army and Kurdish fighters have made a number of advances around the city, and against IS positions across the country.

Of course, who wants to be on the losing side when losing means death? These are most likely men who are not radical Islamists or they would gladly be martyred to go to Paradise with their 72 virgins. Or, it could be that they are just smart enough to realize the absurdity of that concept.

"Since October of 2015, the Syrian Army has captured some 50 villages in eastern Aleppo during an offensive which halted the ISIL-imposed siege on Kuweires Airbase," the sources said.

The city of Raqqa is considered to be the Daesh capital and their major stronghold in Syria. It has been under the control of the jihadists since August 2014. Currently the Syrian Army and the Kurdish militias are carrying out offensives to liberate the city from the terrorist group.

"Furthermore, government forces have advanced along the M45-highway (Hama to Raqqa) and reached the Western side of Raqqa province. Meanwhile, Kurdish fighters of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have taken firm control of the Northern region of the Raqqa province," the sources added.

So, is this an ad-hoc event or is it the beginnings of a complete collapse of ISIS? It shouldn't take long to find out. Should ISIS collapse and go underground, would Syria turn on the YPG in an effort to re-take all of Syria? Will the Kurds relinquish the territory they have fought so long and hard to win. Will Erdogan go ballistic if the Kurds formed a new state on the border of Turkey? 

While there is some reason for measured optimism from this weekend's happenings, peace is still a long way from occurring, especially in northern Syria.

500 Families Returning Home as ISIS & Nusra Jihadists Withdraw from Damascus Suburbs

Well, this is a surprise

Al-Qadam district south of Damascus © RT Arabic / RT

Some 500 families are set to return to the devastated southern suburbs of Damascus, after ISIS and Al-Nusra fighters were allowed to withdraw from the area unharmed, as part of a “national reconciliation” deal with the Syrian government.

As part of the three stage withdrawal plan of the “reconciliation” more than 1,000 jihadists on Wednesday were provided with a safe passage to the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) stronghold of Raqqa in northern Syria. Al-Nusra fighters are making their way to Idlib, also in the north of the country, RR Arabic reports.

Al-Qadam district south of Damascus © RT Arabic / RT

Overall some 4,000 people, including the family members of extremist fighting units, were placed on the buses to head north. As part of the safety corridor agreement reached under the auspices of the United Nations and the the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) at the end of December, fighters had to surrender their arms.

Besides leaving the southern suburbs of Damascus, IS and Al-Nusra militants, mostly of foreign nationalities, have also moved out of the Palestinian Yarmouk refugee camp, which the fighters had been holding under their control since April 2015.

“Today is a happy and joyful day. Most armed ISIS units, that kept control of the Yarmouk camp and Al-Hajar Al-Aswad [city just 4 kilometers (2 miles) south of Damascus] have completed their withdrawal. This is about 4,000 people, including their families. This morning at dawn, they went away,” President of the Palestinian Reconciliation Committee, Sheikh Mohammed Omari, told RT Arabic.

At the same time around 1,300 fighters, Syrian nationals, have chosen to cut ties with the radicals, surrender and potentially join the national militia, according to Russian outlet LifeNews. In the Al-Qadam area alone, some 150 people had their legal status settled, according to Syrian state news agency SANA.

The clearing of the terrorist threat in the Damascus suburbs made it possible for the first batch of some 500 families to ready themselves to return to their homes in an area that looks nothing as it once did before the Syrian conflict erupted.

No kidding! Are they even going to want to return to that?

Al-Qadam district south of Damascus © RT Arabic / RT

Heavy fighting has left hardly anything but rubble and dusty empty streets. All of the buildings have been damaged or destroyed and barely any functioning infrastructure is left standing. But now, locals told RT Arabic, these ruins are a symbol of liberation, freedom from the tyrannical jihadi rule that reigned there ever since the suburbs were captured from the Free Syrian Army in 2014.

Another Journalist Murdered in Turkey - 3rd in 3 Months

Syrian journalist & filmmaker who exposed ISIS Aleppo atrocities assassinated in Turkey

Just Days Before Taking Asylum in France

Naji Jerf © Naji Jerf / Facebook

A prominent Syrian journalist and filmmaker, who produced anti-Islamic State documentaries was gunned down by unknown assailants in broad daylight in Gaziantep, Turkey. This is the third assassination of a journalist in the country over the last three months.

Naji Jerf, editor-in-chief of the Hentah monthly, known for his documentaries describing violence and abuses on Islamic State-controlled territories (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) was shot and killed near a building housing Syrian independent media outlets in the Turkish city of Gaziantep. His death was originally reported by a group of citizen journalists he was working with.

Jerf recently completed a documentary investigating violence and crime in the IS-held parts of Aleppo for the RBSS group ["Raqa is Being Slaughtered Silently"]. The film won a Committee to Protect Journalists’(CPJ) International Press Freedom Award in November.

According to reports, he was hit by a bullet in the head as he was walking in the street. He was taken to hospital, where he died. The attack happened in front of security cameras nearby, according to Turkish news outlet T24 website.

A friend of Jerf's has told AFP the journalist was "supposed to arrive in Paris this week after receiving, along with his family, a visa for asylum in France."

The Brussels-based European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) has said in a statement for RT that “the EFJ strongly calls on Turkish authorities to step up measures to protect Syrian journalists and media workers based in Turkey.”

“The EFJ notes that this killing comes after Islamic State claimed responsibility for the deaths of the executive director and the head of the production department for a Syrian media collective, in Urfa, in October. It seems clear to us that Syrian journalists and media workers who have fled to Turkey are not safe at all,” the statement stressed.

CPJ's Middle East and North Africa program coordinator Sherif Mansour said "Syrian journalists who have fled to Turkey for their safety are not safe at all," recalling several Syrian journalists as well as prominent Turkish opposition figures murdered in Turkey over the past months.

"We call on Turkish authorities to bring the killers of Naji Jerf to justice swiftly and transparently, and to step up measures to protect all Syrian journalists on Turkish soil," he added.

Earlier in November, president of the bar association and a campaigner for Kurdish rights, Tahir Elci was shot dead by unknown gunmen on a street in Diyarbakir in Kurdish-dominated southeastern Turkey. RT’s crew covering Kurdish protests following Elci’s murder was teargassed by the Turkish police while filming on the spot.

In October, two Syrian journalists, Ibrahim Abd al-Qader and Fares Hamadi – also an early member of RBSS group – were found slain in an apartment in the town of Urfa in southeastern Turkey.

Can Erimtan of the Istanbul Gazette has told RT the murderers might be “local supporters of Islamic State, given the fact they knew where to go and how to do their business.”

“As for the reason why this man [Naji Jerf] was targeted, he was working towards exposing the atrocities committed by Islamic State, and for that reason silencing him seemed like a fair option to them,” he said.

Erimtan added “there is a clear link between Islamic State and the Ankara government” and “[there is] a lot of ISIS activity in the country, [while] the authorities are either unwilling to take drastic measures [or are unaware] of what to do.”

Austrian ISIS 'Poster Girl' Beaten to Death After Trying to Flee ISIS – reports

These reports are not yet confirmed by Austrian government

Samra Kesinovic © interpol.int

A teenage girl who ran away from her home in Austria to join Islamic State in Syria has been beaten to death after trying to escape from the group, according to Austrian media. The girl traveled to the war-torn nation with her friend last year.

Austrian tabloid Kronen Zeitung reported that Samra Kesinovic, 17, was beaten to death by members of the violent extremist group as she tried to flee the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) stronghold of Raqqa.

The newspaper cited an unnamed Tunisian woman who reportedly also traveled to join the jihadists last year and lived with Kesinovic and her friend Sabina Selimovic, then 15, in Raqqa. The Österreich tabloid reported the same story, citing insider sources.

However, Austria's interior and foreign ministries have yet to confirm the news.

"We cannot comment on individual cases," Foreign Ministry spokesman Thomas Schnöll told the Austria Press Agency. Interior Ministry spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundböck also said that he could not comment on the situation.

Unconfirmed reports of the girls' fate also circulated last year, with UN counter-terrorism expert David Scharia stating that one had been killed in fighting and the other had disappeared.

Kesinovic and Selimovic arrived in Syria via Turkey in April 2014, and quickly became “poster girls” for IS. Photos on social media sites showed them carrying Kalashnikovs and being surrounded by armed men. According to Austrian police, the images were aimed at recruiting young girls to join IS.

At the time of their disappearance, the two teenagers left a note for their families saying, "Don’t look for us. We will serve Allah and we will die for him." The girls are believed to have been married off to IS fighters soon after arriving in Raqqa. However, by October 2014, there were reports that both girls wanted to return home.

Austrian authorities have accused a Vienna-based Bosnian Muslim preacher, Mirsad Omerovic (also known as Abu Tejda or Ebu Tejma) of recruiting the girls, who were born in Austria to Bosnian Muslim parents. He has denied the allegations.

As many as 130 Austrians have fled to Syria to join IS, according to UN estimates. At least half are believed to be of Chechen origin.