Jihadi bride injured in air attack ‘given prosthetic and £500k council house’

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A British jihadi bride who lost her arm in an air strike is reportedly living in a £500,000 council house and has been fitted with a prosthetic limb.

Samia Hussein lost her arm when coalition forces launched an attack on a weapons store next to her home in Raqqa, Syrian which was under the control of Islamic State.

The 27-year-old joined the terror group in 2015 and was arrested when she arrived back into Britain in February 2020.

The Metropolitan Police told The Mail on Sunday that she had not been charged with any offence but remained “under investigation”.

While it is not known how her artificial arm was funded, one of her relatives said: “It’s from the NHS, definitely.”

Hussein was born and raised in London and moved to Nairobi, Kenya in around 2012 to live with her stepfather and study for her A-levels.

She then enrolled on a degree course in journalism at the United States International University in Nairobi in 2014, months after IS declared its caliphate.

Hussein began watching IS propaganda videos with university friends and according to her own account, was being groomed online by terror chiefs at the same time.

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It is understood that she left Kenya and entered Syria via Turkey in early 2015.

She first stayed in a “madhafa”, or guesthouse, for IS women in the town of Manbij, which was nicknamed ‘Little London’ because of the large numbers of British jihadis living there, where women were forced to stay until they married an IS man.

Hussein married a fighter called Abu Suleiman, also known as Abu Maryam and they lived in Manbij for six months before moving to Raqqa.

The air strike left her in hospital for seven months where she had her arm amputated, lost a breast and suffered severe leg injuries.

Hussein was captured during the battle of Baghouz – the last IS stronghold in Syria – in early 2019 and was detained at the al-Hol prison camp, where she was interviewed by independent film-maker Alan Duncan, who has made a three-part documentary about IS.

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She told him: “At that age [20], it was a vulnerable age you’re in, trying to find a purpose in life… I left my career of being a journalist, probably working for Al-Jazeera.

“It’s sad that for really four years, four years went down the drain… I left everything, thinking I was coming for a better cause.

“The Islamic State, they take your mind. They show the good side of what they are doing, and you see nothing else at all.”

When asked about IS’s sickening violence, Hussein said: “I didn’t do anything. I played no part in it, OK.”

Hussein said she wanted to leave IS as soon as she entered Syria, but feared she would be killed and was effectively kept against her will.

She flew back to Britain 18 months ago and was arrested at Heathrow Airport under anti- terrorism laws before being released.

She is now living in a new-build council house with members of her family in West London, where similar properties cost between £500,000 and £600,000.

Neighbours said the family had been living there for the past two years.

A relative of Hussein said she had a prosthetic arm fitted about a year ago, around three months after her return to the UK, during the time the NHS was struggling under the Covid pandemic.

The relative added: “The Government is involved anyway. So she’s got classes that she signs with them. So they are involved, because she was very young when she was taken [to Syria].

“She got brainwashed anyway, and they found a way to bring her back. Actually, the British Government brought her back.”

Tory MP Tom Hunt said: “If you went to Syria to join IS, which was and is an avowed enemy of this country, then you have abdicated your British citizenship. You should not be allowed to come back, let alone be put in a council house and given expensive treatments on the NHS.”

Fellow Tory MP Andrew Bridgen added: “I just hope this woman has been thoroughly assessed and she does not pose a threat to national security or her neighbours.”

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