The London family of a “jihadi bride” accused of acting as a recruiter for Islamic State have pleaded for help in trying to bring her children back to the UK.
Tooba Gondal, 25, is reported to be among a group of female alleged jihadists being deported from Turkey to France.
French national Gondal, who lived in Walthamstow before leaving for Syria in 2015, had pleaded to be allowed to return to the UK with her two children, Ibrahim, three, and Asiya, 18 months.
But France’s Centre for Analysis of Terrorism said she was being sent to France under a plan by Turkey to expel foreign jihadists from its jails.
Gondal’s older brother is believed to have petitioned MPs for help in repatriating the children.
Writing online, he said: “We’ve not made contact with her [Gondal] for the past month and are desperate to bring Ibrahim and Asiya home.”
A relative at the family home in Ilford said today: “Of course [we are missing her] — we are a family. She might end up in France, that’s what we’ve heard.”
Gondal is accused of being an IS matchmaker, attracting women from the West to marry fighters in Syria.
She is reported to have recruited Bethnal Green schoolgirl Shamima Begum.
