The Prime Minister wants to send an SAS rescue squad into Syria to bring back the British children of Islamic State fighters, it is claimed.
Boris Johnson is planning the the controversial repatriation scheme inside the Government’s top secret National Security Council (NSC), the Mail on Sunday reports.
However, it is believed that divided opinions inside NSC, which is made up of the Government’s most senior ministers and the heads of the security services, means there is currently a stand-off over the issue.
Critics are calling for the proposal to be scraped citing safety and legal issues.
(Image: PA)
A Whitehall source said: “It’s all very well virtue signalling now about bringing them home, but some of these children are now teenagers and have spent their formative years playing with AKs [AK47 assault rifles].
“It might be cheered now but when one of them blows up a shopping centre, who is going to get the blame?”
A final decision on whether a rescue mission will be launched is expected to be made next month.
There are around 30 children born to British parents who joined ISIS living in in camps in northern Syria.
They all have claims to UK citizenship.
(Image: PA)
If the repatriation plan is given the green light only those aged 16 and under will be brought back to the UK.
It is thought that NSC committee members Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and International Development Secretary Alok Sharma are leading the support for the plan.
Chancellor Sajid Javid , Home Secretary Priti Patel and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace are against it, while Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom and Trade Secretary Liz Truss are thought to be neutral.
The Chancellor adopted a hard stance to British nationals who travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight for ISIS when he was Home Secretary which included him stripping Jihad teenage bride Shamima Begum of her citizenship.
Last week the 19-year-old, who fled her home in East London in February 2015 when she was 15, issued a fresh plea to be allowed to return to the UK.
She fled with two other schoolgirls before marrying a Dutch jihadi in Syria. Her baby son, Jarrah, died in a refugee camp in March.
(Image: AFP/Getty Images)
Shamima was stripped of her citizenship after the security services found evidence that she helped ISIS fighters to prepare suicide bombs.
The Government says there is no means of helping the British children trapped in Syria because there is no UK consular access but the plans are thought to be the result of pressure from from the US Government and the Kurdish team that run the camps.
A Government source told the Mail on Sunday: “The Americans are leading the charge on this, pointing out what happens when these kids grow up radicalised. It’s a major headache now but just wait until a Briton cuts the head off an American.”
