‘Don’t be homewrecker’ jihadi Scot tells ‘sisters’

A SCOTS jihadi bride has taken to Twitter to warn her ‘sisters’ back in the UK against contacting married men in Syria and to get their own militant husbands.
Aqsa Mahmood, 20, left, pictured at a family wedding. Picture: PAAqsa Mahmood, 20, left, pictured at a family wedding. Picture: PA
Aqsa Mahmood, 20, left, pictured at a family wedding. Picture: PA

Aqsa Mahmood, from Glasgow, who travelled to Syria earlier this year, advised women thinking of joining extremists in the Middle East ‘not to be a home wrecker’ in a series of Twitter posts last night.

Writing under an alias, the 20-year-old radical invited ‘sisters’ to use encrypted messaging services to make contact with those waging jihad abroad, but urged them not to ask questions ‘already answered’ in extremist blogs.

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The 20-year-old married an Islamic State fighter in February before her parents begged her to return in a public appeal.

She said: “Sisters please, for the sake of Allah, contact the sisters who are online rather than approaching the brothers. Also know the fact many brothers whom you contact and chat to are married. Have some self-respect and don’t be a homewrecker.”

Mahmood was one of the first Muslim women to flee the UK for the war zone after dropping out of a degree course on diagnostic radiotherapy - she is thought to have travelled through Turkey to Aleppo in November 2013.

She studied at £3500-a-term Craigholme all-girls’ school before going to Shawlands Academy for her sixth year, where it’s thought she developed radical beliefs.

It is understood she is now living in the IS-held northern city of Raqqah where temperatures dip well below freezing at night.

On Twitter she warned Scots girls who might also be thinking of following her: “Bun [forget] Scotland, the winters here are too much. Sisters please don’t forget to pack thermal clothing or you’ll regret it later on.”

Her parents Khalida Mahmood and Muzaffar Mahmood have spoken of their shock at Aqsa’s radicalisation and have appealed to her to come home.

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A spokesman for her family has said the Twitter posts were ‘torturing’ her parents who are trying ‘to move on with their lives’.

“The family are aware of recent tweets. The best advice they could offer Aqsa is to not to offer any advice to young Muslims to whom she is essentially offering a death sentence,’ Aemar Anwar, the family’s lawyer, said.

“It’s an extremely painful (situation) of mixed emotions - of extreme anger that their daughter has shamed them and shamed the community of Scotland. She has joined a cult that murders and tortures innocents. Yet again she’s out there tweeting, attempting to take other children from their families.

“It’s extremely difficult for her parents, not knowing whether she’s dead or alive, wondering whether she will ever return home safely and added to that is the anger and shame at what she continues to do. What she claims to do in the name of Islam doesn’t match with any of the values they taught her.”

Mr Anwar added: “It’s daily torture for them worrying about her yet having to get on with their lives. They have three other children to think about. She’s gone now, but there’s still this constant drip from Aqsa.”

Last month it was said as many as 2,000 Brits had travelled to Iraq and Syria to fight for IS.

In a September broadcast with the US network CNN, they insisted her upbringing reflected their moderate views.

Her father said: “She was the best daughter we could have. We don’t know what happened to her. We told her there was nothing wrong with prayer or reading the Koran.”

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Muzaffar Mahmood also revealed the last words Aqsa said to her parents before leaving: “Her last message was that ‘I will see you on the day of judgement... I will take you to heaven, I will hold your hand,’ that’s what she said. ‘I will become a martyr.’”

The privately-educated miltant is reported to have encouraged terrorist acts via a Twitter account under the name Umm Layth calling on people in Britain to repeat terrorist atrocities seen in Woolwich and the US. The account has since been deleted.

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