Voice Of Post

TOWIE-loving mother who ran away to Syria with her toddler son is arrested at Heathrow on her return to Britain, A 26-year-old mother who ran away to Syria with her baby son after she became fascinated with extremist propaganda was last night arrested at Heathrow airport.

Tareena Shakil was on a flight back from Turkey with her 17-month-old son Zaheem.She had secretly travelled to Syria last year to join Islamic State but had dramatically escaped from the extremist group after refusing to become a ‘jihadi bride’.

The former school prefect and fan of ITV show The Only Way Is Essex, begged border guards not to shoot her as she fled the fanatical terror group and crossed back into Turkey, she has told her moderate Muslim family.

Her father and ex-husband flew out in a bid to persuade the Turkish and British authorities to allow her and her toddler son to come back.

But last night, West Midlands police arrested the young mother on suspicion of Syria-related terror offences, child neglect and child abduction.

Her arrest by officers from the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit was pre-planned and intelligence-led.
Police said there was no threat to the safety of the flight or the airport.
Her child is the subject of a police protection order.

Single mum Miss Shakil, originally from Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire, is a psychology graduate who previously lived a Western lifestyle, listening to pop music like the Spice Girls, according to her family.

But last year she began calling herself Tameena al Amirah on Facebook, posting extremist messages including photographs of Islamist fighters and the ISIS black flag and describing herself as a ‘Slave to Allah’.

However once in Syria, she soon realised she had fallen victim to ‘false propaganda’, a friend told The Sun.
‘They tried to force her to marry a man and when she refused he attacked her,’ the friend said.
‘She decided she couldn’t take it any more, broke into a property and stole her passport.’

According to one human rights group, the fanatics have already executed more than 100 foreign fighters for wanting to quit jihad and leave Syria.

But despite the risk to her life, she decided to ‘go it alone’ the friend said, and set off for Turkey.
After bribing a taxi driver to take them to the border, she braved armed guards on the Syrian side to scale a barbed wire fence with her son in her arms while shouting out ‘I’m desperate!’ in Arabic.

‘The border guards didn’t fire for some reason - maybe because she was carrying her son,’ the friend told the paper. ‘Her hands were hurt and her feet cut to ribbons climbing the fence.’

Miss Shakil then ran across a stretch of ‘no man’s land’ before she was met by Turkish guards who took her into detention.