Teen brother of UK’s youngest convicted terrorist 'flees to Islamic State on holiday jet'
THE teenage brother of Britain’s youngest convicted terrorist has fled to Syria to join Islamic State on a holiday flight, it was feared last night.
Hassan Munshi and next-door neighbour Talha Asmal, both 17, are understood to have flown to Dalaman in Turkey on a Thomas Cook flight from Manchester Airport hours after vanishing from their homes on March 31.
Police believe the friends have already crossed into Syria. The boys lived with their families in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, a mile from the former home of 7/7 bomber Mohammed Siddique Khan.
In 2008, Hassan’s brother Hammaad was jailed for two years for being part of an al-Qaeda cell. He was just 15 when he was arrested on his way home from a GCSE exam. Police found two bags of ball bearings, often used as shrapnel by suicide bombers, in one of his pockets.
Blackfriars Crown Court heard he was snared by a group of “cyber groomers” that set out to brainwash the vulnerable to kill “nonbelievers”. Hassan’s granddad, Sheikh Yakub Munshi, 78, is an Islamic scholar who also lives in Dewsbury and was the driving force behind a secretive Sharia court exposed by the Daily Express in 2007.
Sheikh Munshi, who moved to Britain from Pakistan in the 1960s, was part of a Muslim delegation which travelled to Nato’s Brussels HQ to discuss terrorism in 2005. He refused to comment yesterday.
A woman at the family home said: “There is no-one here who wants to say anything.” There was no reply at the homes of Hassan Munshi or Talha Asmal. But one neighbour, restaurant manager Israr Hussain 40, said: “It has come as a massive shock. They are a lovely family, very well respected.
“These are 17-year-old boys. Their parents are good parents, you can’t have CCTV cameras monitoring your children the whole time.”
He added: “I am not blaming police but there should be a better control system at the airport.” Hassan’s friend Talha is believed to have told his family he would be away for a few days on a school trip. But when they could not contact him they alerted police.
A North East Counter Terrorism Unit source said the boys were already thought to be in Syria. With local elections looming, Dewsbury councillors were refusing to comment yesterday.
But Kirklees Council chief executive Adrian Lythgo said: “We need to talk openly about the risks posed to our young people and to work together to protect them.”
