LONDON: A member of the Daesh gang dubbed “the Beatles” due to their British origin is suspected of recruiting as many as 25 fighters from his home area of west London.
Notorious terrorist Alexanda Kotey, who is in custody in the US awaiting trial over the beheadings of Western hostages in Syria, is suspected of having radicalized dozens of young men.
The group was known as the “Westway warriors” because they lived near a major motorway flyover called the Westway in the London suburb of Ladbroke Grove.
Details about members of the terror gang have been popularized in a new BBC film based on investigations by Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper.
It was revealed that the number of fighters inspired to travel to Syria is almost double what was previously documented.
The fate of some of the fighters is unknown, raising concerns that they could slip under the radar and return to Britain to plan and conduct attacks.
Kotey, 37, has hired Sabrina Shroff, the American defense lawyer who is helping Abu Hamza.
The Finsbury Park Mosque hate preacher — who was sentenced to life without parole on terrorism charges — has lodged an appeal to be released from maximum-security prison ADX Florence in Colorado on humanitarian grounds.
Kotey and El-Shafee Elsheikh, 32, another captured member of the “Westway warriors,” are due to go on trial in January next year.
If convicted they could face life imprisonment, likely in solitary confinement and without the opportunity for parole.
The BBC documentary, “Secrets of an Isis Smartphone,” follows a 2019 investigation by the Sunday Times that tracked Britons in the Iraq and Syria conflicts through video and photos recovered from a Samsung smartphone.
The Galaxy phone is thought to have been used by up to four British Daesh members. Files on the device were uploaded to a hard drive shared with a Sunday Times reporter by Western-backed forces in Syria after Daesh lost its territory.
Two of the phone’s regular users — Choukri Ellekhlifi, 22, and Fatlum Shalaku, 20 — were among Kotey’s Ladbroke Grove group.
Shalaku’s older brother Flamur, 23, also joined Daesh from west London. They were all killed in combat or suicide bombings.
Kotey was previously thought to have recruited around a dozen Daesh fighters from his west London suburb.
But Ghino Parker, who was a youth worker for the local council when Britons were regularly traveling to join Daesh, told the BBC that many more young men had been “lost” to the terror group.
“There were definitely young people that came through our service years ago that we lost to Syria,” she said. “Actually, the last number that I heard ... is that we lost around 26 from west London.”
Kotey and Elsheikh were captured in Syria in January 2018. They have been stripped of their citizenship and were flown to the US in October 2020.
They pleaded not guilty to eight charges each of the torture and murder of Western hostages. The pair are being held in solitary confinement in Alexandria, Virginia, where they are awaiting trial.
Daesh Briton recruited dozens of fighters in London
https://arab.news/cbu3r
Daesh Briton recruited dozens of fighters in London
- Alexanda Kotey in custody in US awaiting trial over beheadings of Western hostages in Syria
- Kotey, 37, has hired Sabrina Shroff, the American defense lawyer who is helping Abu Hamza
Bangladesh halts controversial relocation of Rohingya refugees to remote island
- Administration of ousted PM Sheikh Hasina spent about $350m on the project
- Rohingya refuse to move to island and 10,000 have fled, top refugee official says
DHAKA: When Bangladesh launched a multi-million-dollar project to relocate Rohingya refugees to a remote island, it promised a better life. Five years on, the controversial plan has stalled, as authorities find it is unsustainable and refugees flee back to overcrowded mainland camps.
The Bhasan Char island emerged naturally from river sediments some 20 years ago. It lies in the Bay of Bengal, over 60 km from Bangladesh’s mainland.
Never inhabited, the 40 sq. km area was developed to accommodate 100,000 Rohingya refugees from the cramped camps of the coastal Cox’s Bazar district.
Relocation to the island started in early December 2020, despite protests from the UN and humanitarian organizations, which warned that it was vulnerable to cyclones and flooding, and that its isolation restricted access to emergency services.
Over 1,600 people were then moved to Bhasan Char by the Bangladesh Navy, followed by another 1,800 the same month. During 25 such transfers, more than 38,000 refugees were resettled on the island by October 2024.
The relocation project was spearheaded by the government of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted last year. The new administration has since suspended it indefinitely.
“The Bangladesh government will not conduct any further relocation of the Rohingya to Bhasan Char island. The main reason is that the country’s present government considers the project not viable,” Mizanur Rahman, refugee relief and repatriation commissioner in Cox’s Bazar, told Arab News on Sunday.
The government’s decision was prompted by data from UN agencies, which showed that operations on Bhasan Char involved 30 percent higher costs compared with the mainland camps in Cox’s Bazar, Rahman said.
“On the other hand, the Rohingya are not voluntarily coming forward for relocation to the island. Many of those previously relocated have fled ... Around 29,000 are currently living on the island, while about 10,000 have returned to Cox’s Bazar on their own.”
A mostly Muslim ethnic minority, the Rohingya have lived for centuries in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state but were stripped of their citizenship in the 1980s and have faced systemic persecution ever since.
In 2017 alone, some 750,000 of them crossed to neighboring Bangladesh, fleeing a deadly crackdown by Myanmar’s military. Today, about 1.3 million of them shelter in 33 camps in the coastal Cox’s Bazar district, making it the world’s largest refugee settlement.
Bhasan Char, where the Bangladeshi government spent an estimated $350 million to construct concrete residential buildings, cyclone shelters, roads, freshwater systems, and other infrastructure, offered better living conditions than the squalid camps.
But there was no regular transport service to the island, its inhabitants were not allowed to travel freely, and livelihood opportunities were few and dependent on aid coming from the mainland.
Rahman said: “Considering all aspects, we can say that Rohingya relocation to Bhasan Char is currently halted. Following the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s regime, only one batch of Rohingya was relocated to the island.
“The relocation was conducted with government funding, but the government is no longer allowing any funds for this purpose.”
“The Bangladeshi government has spent around $350 million on it from its own funds ... It seems the project has not turned out to be successful.”
