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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Would you join a terrorist organisation to avoid splitting up your family?

154 replies

HeartsAndClubs · 07/10/2021 11:22

Rhetorical question obviously.

Islamic State mother Nicole Jack says 'don't sweep us under carpet' www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58814804

This woman is bleating on about how she and her children should be allowed to return to the UK, and says openly that the only reason she joined ISIS was because her husband did and she didn’t want to split up her family.

This wasn’t a teenager who some might argue could have been groomed, this was a mother of 4, a grown woman, who made a conscious choice to put the ISIS ideology before the welfare of her children, and now she feels she deserves sympathy.

Surely if splitting up her family had been the only reason, she would have moved on after his death, rather than marrying another terrorist?

And surely saying that she hasn’t seen a beheading doesn’t mean she doesn’t know that they happen?

I just can’t imagine on what planet someone who is of moral thinking would actually be so desperate to keep their family together that they would join isis to do it.

Obviously she clearly didn’t do it for that reason. Obviously she believes in what ISIS stands for, but thinks she can pull that sympathy card now.

If anything I think the children could be brought back and placed in care here to get them away from her.

OP posts:
GermioneHranger · 07/10/2021 11:25

😂 I'll give ten points to Hufflepuff for her story telling.

GinIronic · 07/10/2021 11:29

No sympathy from me. Your bed. Lie in it.

Feelslikealot · 07/10/2021 11:37

She's a British citizen and so are her children. Bring her back to face justice for whatever crime she's committed (what crime has she committed just out of interest?) And keep an eye on them but don't leave her children languishing in a refugee camp. Surely they're more at risk of being radicalised in the camp than they are here? All they're doing is creating more isis brides.

Can't help but think if they were white they wouldn't have been left there.

FrownedUpon · 07/10/2021 11:42

What a stupid woman. The damage she has done to her children.
Leave her there. It’s the life she chose.

KrisAkabusi · 07/10/2021 11:44

She should be brought back and she should be tried here. Leaving her as someone else's problem isn't right.

Bloodypunkrockers · 07/10/2021 11:47

They want to stick together then let them. They can all stay there

Not our problem

Drivingmisspotty · 07/10/2021 11:50

I do see your point. But I think it is bound to be massively more complicated than that. Just look at how abusers can control and coerce their victims, how cults can brainwash their members. And men involved in ISIS are hardly renowned for their respectful behaviour towards women. We can’t assume she was free to just leave her husband or the community once he died.

I’m reserving judgment as to whether she ‘obviously agrees with ISIS’ or not.

And as a PP said if they are British citizens they have a right to be in their country even if we don’t like them.

SirenSays · 07/10/2021 12:07

I think it was Sky that sent a reporter around one of these camps. It was full of little children chanting things like Death to America. What happens when they grow up and leave these camps, they can't hold them forever.

Unsuremover · 07/10/2021 12:08

Is she not saying if she didn’t go her husband would have taken the children and left her, her choice was go with them or leave them to fend for themselves under IS. Also remarrying probably wasn’t a choice. Not sure how these “Isis brides” are supposed to have freedoms no other women under the regime has.
I don’t think they should be left in a refugee camp, but then I don’t think anyone should.

Blossomtoes · 07/10/2021 12:11

This reply has been deleted

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wombatspoopcubes · 07/10/2021 12:16

@Feelslikealot

She's a British citizen and so are her children. Bring her back to face justice for whatever crime she's committed (what crime has she committed just out of interest?) And keep an eye on them but don't leave her children languishing in a refugee camp. Surely they're more at risk of being radicalised in the camp than they are here? All they're doing is creating more isis brides.

Can't help but think if they were white they wouldn't have been left there.

Since we all were at war with ISIS surely that makes her a traitor?
GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 07/10/2021 12:36

Who knows what was going on with the husband though. And if she feels any continued loyalty not to say he was abusive.

At the end of the day, it’s not the children’s fault. They are British and should be brought back.

ShaneTheThird · 07/10/2021 12:40

@Feelslikealot

She's a British citizen and so are her children. Bring her back to face justice for whatever crime she's committed (what crime has she committed just out of interest?) And keep an eye on them but don't leave her children languishing in a refugee camp. Surely they're more at risk of being radicalised in the camp than they are here? All they're doing is creating more isis brides.

Can't help but think if they were white they wouldn't have been left there.

It's illegal to join a terrorist organisation.
knittingaddict · 07/10/2021 12:49

By split up the family you mean man leaves and I keep the children? Of course I wouldn't, but I don't have the same lives that these women do. Not excusing it at all, but it hard to say what I would do in another women's shoes and one with a life very different to mine.

HalfShrunkMoreToGo · 07/10/2021 12:56

I think she and the children should be bought back, according to the article the children have grandparents in the U.K. who could look after them while mum is in prison or deported, whatever is decided by a judge.

Leaving children who were born in the U.K. in a Syrian refugee camp just because their parents made awful decisions seems cruel.

gogohm · 07/10/2021 13:16

The children should be brought back and put into a therapeutic foster care situation with lots of extra support, they didn't choose their life. As for her, she needs to be tried for aiding terrorists

Cuddlyrottweiler · 07/10/2021 13:19

People do crazy things because they're afraid of breaking up their family. Women stay with men that beat and rape themselves and their children because they're afraid of being a single parent. I can believe someone would follow their husband into this aswell.

Tal45 · 07/10/2021 13:20

She's full of shit like all the rest of them, I have no sympathy for her - but those poor kids. I don't know what the answer is for them though, after what they will have been indoctrinated with and having terrorist parents they will be a huge terrorist risk when they grow up, wherever they are. If they bring the children back without her I would imagine that would make them even more of a risk knowing that the UK government was responsible for splitting up their family and not allowing their mother back - they would be very resentful. Leave them there they get further indoctrinated, bring the mother back to go to jail and that is likely to lead to them growing up resentful too. I don't think there are any easy answers for those poor, poor kids now.

Maybe i'm missing something but if she was in the UK and her husband was threatening to take the kids to ISIS without her if she didn't go too then i'm pretty sure the police would be willing to get involved in that one and make sure they were kept safe. If she was not allowed a phone and not allowed out at home then she could have said something at the airport to the forces there. Most people would do literally anything to avoid their children being taken to live under ISIS, she did nothing.

Feelslikealot · 07/10/2021 13:24

Oh not this again. It’s getting very old. Yes, of course not wanting to import known terrorists and their sympathisers must be because we’re racist - even if the Home Secretary is brown

Not importing them if they belong here. It's repatriation.

RudestLittleMadam · 07/10/2021 13:27

The children should be brought back here and given lots of assistance to get over what they’ve been through and witnessed, for their own sake and everyone else’s. Their mother is an idiot for thinking people would believe her version of events and selfish for effectively holding her children ransom- she said she won’t let them return without her. As a mother I understand that but also as a mother if the only way I could get my kids out of that place was if I stayed there I would like to think I’d send them on their way. They didn’t choose this. One was literally baby when she was taken over there and the others weren’t much older.

Blossomtoes · 07/10/2021 13:27

It’s repatriation that’s not in the national interest.

Feelslikealot · 07/10/2021 13:30

Oh i missed where she was put on trial and all relevant evidence considered to establish that she's guilty of a crime. A country can't just wash it's hands of its citizens.

Willyoujustbequiet · 07/10/2021 13:37

I feel sorry for the children.

I'd remove them from her - one child has already died in an airstrike. She's not protecting them or acting in their best interests. Let her rot. She min made her bed. Save the kids.

HarrietsChariot · 07/10/2021 13:43

She should never be allowed back, she and her children have to live with the choices she made. Leaving them to rot in a camp in Syria is nothing compared to what IS would have done if they'd taken this country over. She has dual nationality so has other options than returning to the UK - oh, guess what, Trinidad don't want terrorist scum either.

LaetitiaASD · 07/10/2021 13:53

@FrownedUpon

What a stupid woman. The damage she has done to her children. Leave her there. It’s the life she chose.
Why do you mention the damage done to the kids if you don't care about them?