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Isis video: Grandfather of Isa Dare says child begged to come home before appearing in propaganda

Police have not confirmed the identity of the child or suspected British militant in the footage

Lizzie Dearden
Tuesday 05 January 2016 11:37 GMT
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Isis grandfather speaks out

The grandfather of the young British boy featured in an Isis propaganda video threatening the UK has said the child pleaded for him to take him home.

Henry Dare, also known as Sunday, identified him as his daughter Grace’s son, Isa Dare, who she took to Syria when she went to join the so-called Islamic State in 2012.

“That is my grandson, I’d know him anywhere. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the pictures. I felt sick,” he told The Sun.

The boy, thought to be Isa Dare, threatened to kill the 'kuffars'

“They are pure evil for doing this to that child — pure evil. I burst into tears when I saw it was him. He doesn’t like it there.

“I spoke to him on the phone and he just said, ‘Grandad, come and get me’.”

Mr Dare accused Isis of using Isa, believed to be four or five years old, as a “pawn” and a “shield”.

He appeared in a propaganda video entitled “A Message to David Cameron”, where a British militant threatened the UK for bombing the terrorist group’s strongholds in Iraq and Syria, before five hostages were killed.

The boy thought to be Isa, now dubbed “Jihadi Junior”, was featured at the end of the footage in what appeared to be a warped trailer for a new execution video said to be “coming soon”.

“We will kill the kuffars (infidels) over there,” he said, while wearing military fatigues and an Isis headband, pointing towards a car in the distance where prisoners appeared to have been trapped inside.

Mr Dare said he wept after seeing his grandson paraded in front of the camera, telling Channel 4 News he felt Isa had been “stolen” from him.

He appealed for his daughter, who calls herself Khadijah Dare, to come home with his grandchildren and “face the music”.

Police said they could not confirm the boy’s identity but he bears a striking resemblance to the child seen in images posted online by accounts associated with Dare, including one where he is shown holding an AK-47.

Dare was brought up as a Christian in Lewisham, south-east London, but converted to Islam and started to change, her family said, with her father claiming he made three calls to police over her behaviour.

She travelled to Syria in 2012 and married Swedish Islamic fighter known as Abu Bakr, who is believed to have been killed in combat.

Khadijah Dare and her husband, Abu Bakr, in a Channel 4 documentary (Channel 4)

The pair appeared in a Channel 4 documentary in 2013, when Dare was reported to be pregnant with their first child, shown brandishing guns and playing with young Isa.

She used Twitter to call for more British Muslims to join her in Syria, vowing to be the first UK woman to kill a British or American hostage following the beheading of James Foley.

Police are working to determine whether the boy - thought to be aged under five - is Isa, one of the sons of Grace “Khadijah” Dare, a Muslim-convert extremist from Lewisham in south-east London.

More than 30 UK children had been made the subject of family court orders over radicalisation fears, Scotland Yard said in August. At that time, judges had considered cases involving 12 different families.

Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, the country's most senior terrorism officer, said in some instances the children were “almost babes in arms”, with ages ranging from two or three up to 16 or 17.

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