’Social neglect will turn ex–jihadis into walking time bombs’

London, January 19: Society, unfortutely, may not have been able to stop many a youth from treading a wrong path, but it is perhaps more unfortute that those seeking to return to the mainstream are given the cold shoulder.

The mother of a British youth who fought with the Islamic State (IS) jihadis in Syria has precisely this tale to tell, sharing during a televised interview to BBC her despair at being left without support since her son’s return, which The Independent cited on Monday.

What is worse, the woman, Linda, who travelled to Turkey to fetch her son James after he became disenchanted with the IS, warned that without vital support from the government, the hundreds of former jihadis, like her son, who have been scarred by their experiences among terrorists, were “walking time bombsa¿. Revealing herself on camera for the first time, Linda, a 45–year–old single mother from London who converted to Islam along with her son two years ago, said during BBC’s “Inside Out Londo¿ programme, that James has been left traumatised and was occasiolly violent because of his experiences in Syria. However, despite repeated requests, she said that they received no help from the government. Such a treatment of the scarred youth by the British government endangered the security of the country and made it prone to Paris–style terrorist attacks, according to Linda. As a teeger James abandoned his studies at Cambridge to become a jihadi in the Afghan civil war. (IANS)