{"id":2659,"date":"2019-09-16T11:58:55","date_gmt":"2019-09-16T11:58:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.raqqa-sl.com\/en\/?p=2659"},"modified":"2021-03-25T06:10:32","modified_gmt":"2021-03-25T06:10:32","slug":"jailed-australian-islamic-state-member-says-charity-banquet-convinced-him-to-go-to-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raqqa-sl.com\/en\/?p=2659","title":{"rendered":"Jailed Australian Islamic State member says ‘charity banquet’ convinced him to go to Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An Australian member of the Islamic State group (IS) says he was convinced to go to Syria to fight after attending “charity banquets” in Australia.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Back then in Australia, Syria was all over the place, everybody was talking about Syria,” said the man, who gives his name as Jamil Ahmad Shqeir.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Everybody was really concerned about Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“That’s what influenced me, at the mosque, the speech would move me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I have never been to demos in Australia. I went to charity banquets.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shqeir told a Syrian television reporter that he was able to easily travel to Syria to join the conflict in its earliest stages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A lot of people helped me get in. I didn’t want to sit and watch.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

He said he left Australia for Syria in early 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He fought with another jihadist group, Jabat al Nusra, before joining its rival IS because he agreed with its goal of creating an Islamic caliphate in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“That seduced a lot of people,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He told Syria’s North Press Agency that Turkish soldiers allowed him to cross the border into Syria because they were opposed to the Assad regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“They stopped us at the border and checked the car,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The guards searched the bags. The Turkish soldiers said ‘if you want to do that to Bashar (al Assad), go ahead'”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shqeir said that when IS commanders discovered he spoke English he was assigned to train foreign fighters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said he never saw any IS leaders, and didn’t know about the enslavement and rape of Yazidi women and girls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I was far from the communities and was far from Yazidi selling. I didn’t know about it, I haven’t bought Yazidi women,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is one of at least seven Australian IS members who are being held in Kurdish prisons in north-west Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

North Press Agency has released interviews with four fighters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike the other interviewees, Shqeir never denies fighting with IS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also unlike the other Australians, Shqeir also does not ask to be allowed to return home to face punishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I don’t know about punishment in Australia, it’s an embarrassing question,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source : abc.net.au<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Australian member of the Islamic State group (IS) says he was convinced to go to Syria to fight after attending “charity banquets” in Australia. “Back then in Australia, Syria<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":2660,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-raqqa"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.raqqa-sl.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/11514236-3x2-700x467.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raqqa-sl.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raqqa-sl.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raqqa-sl.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raqqa-sl.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raqqa-sl.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2659"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.raqqa-sl.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2661,"href":"https:\/\/www.raqqa-sl.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2659\/revisions\/2661"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raqqa-sl.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raqqa-sl.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raqqa-sl.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raqqa-sl.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}