Moazzam Begg, director of the controversial advocacy group Cage, has encouraged people to go to Syria and "defend the revolution" against President Assad, as he accuses the Government of using Isil as "a stick to beat" Muslims with.

The former Guantanamo Bay detainee also described two young British men who were imprisoned for 13 years after travelling to Syria to join an al-Qaida-linked terrorist group as "really good brothers".

The Telegraph has revealed the danger posed by returning jihadis, disclosing that a third of Islamist terrorists convicted of plotting atrocities on British soil were able to slip into the UK after training or fighting abroad.

Keith Vaz MP, the Home Affairs select committee, said the figures were "extremely concerning", and warned that we need to stop people leaving in the first place because once they are radicalised "it is very difficult to turn them around".