Open-minded to the possibility that some British citizens who have gone abroad to fight for international jihad may have since had sudden epiphanies and may want to return to the UK with “good intentions”, the former foreign secretary has said they could be used by the government to deter others from fighting.
The suggestion came during a discussion on the Andrew Marr Show on the BBC, in which William Hague, now Leader of the House of Commons, said although “we haven’t had a lot of those people coming back yet and saying they want to be of assistance”, assistance will be on hand to help them “recover and assist others”, should any come forward. Adding that the top priority remained the security of the people of the UK, Mr Hague said “but of course we have to be sure that they do have good intentions”, reports The Times.
Although the concept has yet to be fully fleshed out, it could work in a similar way to programmes where former drug addicts go into schools or meet people at high-risk of offending to share experiences and ‘scare’ them into good behaviour.
It has emerged recently that some of those radicalised by Islamist propaganda to an extent where they would go abroad to fight for the Islamic State, or one of a number of other radical groups have since become disillusioned. Early in the conflict, the aim for many was to defeat President Assad, the leader of the Syrian rump state, however the continually shifting sands of the war means many have ended up fighting other groups instead.
In this image are the Brighton four, who left for Syria at the start of the year joined al-Nusra, a cadet faction of Al-Qaeda which is an enemy of Assad but an intermittent on-off ally of the Islamic State, which it sporadically finds itself in conflict with. Although three of the four have now been killed in battle, there is no suggestion the last remaining Brighton boy wishes to return home or has softened his views after nearly a year of intense fighting.
Fears of ‘blow-back’ from the conflict and resultant terror attacks against the United Kingdom and others have resulted in 200 arrests linked to the conflict this year, as the security services work endlessly to keep up with the sheer volume of British residents coming and going to Syria and Iraq.