A British woman who fled her home in the UK with her husband to join Daesh in Iraq has begged the UK government not to sweep her "under the carpet" and to "open their minds" to allow her and her three daughters to return from Syria, the BBC reported on Thursday.
Nicole Jack of Shepherd's Bush, West London and her young children are being held in Camp Roj, a detention centre for relatives of Daesh terrorists. The 34-year-old reportedly said she and her kids are "out of sight, out of mind" for the UK government.
Jack claims that despite living under Daesh rule for three years, she's not a security threat to the UK.
"We're out of sight out of mind and that's it... I think that's what the issue is, I would say to them 'deal with the issue, don't sweep it under the carpet,'" Jack told the BBC.
The widow to two militants added that she thinks the British government should "at least try to understand" why she left the country for Daesh, without "having just a closed mind, like stay out there and rot."
According to the report, in October 2015, Jack left London with her husband, Hussein Ali, and four children to join the terrorist movement in Iraq, after informing her family that she was moving to Somalia to start a new life. She claimed that her husband threatened to break up the family if she refused to accompany him on his trip, but he was killed while fighting for the terrorists the following year.
Jack then married another fighter who was Trinidadian like her – he was called Adil de Montrichard, also known as Adil Roberts. The couple travelled to Syria in 2017. Later, De Montrichard and Jack's ten-year-old son Isaaq were reportedly killed in a coalition attack.
Despite living with Daesh militants, the woman says she never saw any heinous acts.
"I haven't seen a beheading in my life," she said.
Jack said in an interview with the BBC that she doesn't understand people who oppose the return of Daesh brides to their home countries because she argues she poses no danger at all.
Jack is imprisoned in the same camp as the infamous Daesh bride Shamima Begum, a fellow Londoner whose UK passport was revoked on security grounds in 2019. Begum also insists she's not a security threat to the UK. Jack reportedly said she doesn't know if she still has her UK citizenship.
However, she claims that she will not allow her children to return to the United Kingdom without her.
"I know for sure if my kids are separated from me they will not be in a stable situation, because we are a unit," she is quoted as saying.
The children's grandmother, hospital nurse Charleen Jack Henry, says the kids should be allowed to return.
"It is not fair and it is not right for these children to be languishing in this place," she stated.
Henry added that their mother should also be allowed to return to the UK to "face the consequences."
At least 16 British mothers and between 35 and 60 British children are reportedly incarcerated in Syrian camps. Kurdish officials in charge of jails and camps in northern Syria have pleaded with Western countries for assistance in dealing with foreign Daesh members, as well as their spouses and children.
They have repeatedly urged countries to return their nationals to their homelands. Sweden, Finland, Belgium, and Germany, among others, have reportedly returned children and their mothers.
*Daesh (also ISIS, IS) is a terrorist organisation banned in Russia and many other countries.