Kill UK jihadis: Defence Secretary vows to 'eliminate' threat of fighters returning to UK
BRITISH citizens who have fought for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria should be barred from coming back to England and hunted down and killed, the Defence Secretary said.
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Gavin Williamson declared last night that he was prepared to use air strikes to annihilate the 270 UK passport holder still holed up fighting for ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
He told The Daily Mail: “Quite simply, my view is a dead terrorist can’t cause any harm to Britain.”
He added: “I do not believe that any terrorist, whether they come from this country or any other, should ever be allowed back into this country.
“We should do everything we can do to destroy and eliminate that threat.”
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Mr Williamson, who was installed as Defence boss after Sir Michael Fallon stepped down last month following sex assault allegations, has made the starkest comments yet on the issue.
In contrast, Max Hill, QC, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation took a more lenient approach when he said that the young people who had travelled to Syria to fight should be allowed back home to the UK.
He sparked condemnation after saying that many who joined ISIS were "naive" and he didn’t want to lose a generation who went to fight.
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Mr Hill told the BBC: “We are told that we do have a significant number already back in the country who have previously gone to Iraq and Syria.
“That means that the authorities have looked at them and looked at them hard and have decided that they do not justify prosecution and really we should be looking towards reintegration and moving away from any notion that we are going to lose a generation to this travel.”
He added: “It’s not a decision that MI5 and others will have taken lightly.”
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But Home Affairs Select Committee boss Yvette Cooper hit back blasting that “Travelling to a war zone to join an extremist terrorist group is a crime.”
“We must be clear that there will be serious consequences for those who take this dangerous course of action.”
At least 800 UK citizens are in Iraq and Syria fighting on behalf of the Islamic State.
Government figures show that half have returned home, 130 have been killed, and 270 are left fighting in the region.
According to The Daily Mail, RAF pilots are using stealth tactics to assassinate the British jihadis left fighting in the Middle East.
Using drones and fighter jets they are carefully weeding out the ISIS fighters - especially ones who want to take what they’ve learned back to the UK to carry out attacks.
The RAF have stepped up their killing spree in the wake of a series of deadly terror attacks in the UK in Westminster, London bridge, Parsons Green, Finsbury Park and Buckingham Palace.
Mr Williamson condemned the jihadis who want to harm their countrymen.
The Defence boss said: “They hate everything that Britain stands for, hate our values, hate that Britain is a beacon to the world of democracy and tolerance.
“Our forces are right across the globe degrading and destroying that threat, making sure that these people who want to bring destruction, death, bloodshed onto our streets aren’t able to come back.
“That is an important part of the jigsaw as what we actually do on the streets in Britain.
“Every day we have got British service personnel making a difference to make sure some of those people that want to cause that harm are never able to come back to this country. That is something I am incredibly proud of.
“Make sure there is no safe space for them, that they can’t go to other countries preaching their hate, preaching their cult of death.”
