IS suspects say they are desperate to return to their former lives in UK

IS suspects say they are desperate to return to their former lives in UK

Sky News has been given special access to British and Irish citizens being held in eastern Syria who are accused of fighting for Islamic State (IS).

None of the three - including a doctor who has worked in dozens of NHS hospitals - have been seen or heard on British television since they were arrested by the US-led coalition forces who are fighting IS in the region.

Two are British medics - one being the doctor, the other a pharmacist from Birmingham - and the third is an Irish citizen who encouraged his wife and child to join him with the extremists.

'I'm not a danger': British IS suspects' plea

All three are now begging their governments to intervene to get them out of jail in the war zone where they are being held and take them back home.


The plight of thousands of foreigners accused of joining the caliphate is a major headache for their home countries, as many of the governments view them as a potential danger after years spent under the control of extremists.

But all three insist they pose no risk and are simply desperate to resume their former lives.

Interviews with them were conducted separately and at different times in two separate locations, both on Kurdish bases with a coalition presence throughout.

Image: Much of Syria remains a war zone

Sometimes one, two or three men in uniform were in the room and we were instructed not to film them.

In two out of the three interviews, a member of the coalition forces recorded them.

Sky News was also asked to sign a form agreeing not to ask questions about the conditions of their detention.

But all three men did tentatively broach the subject without a prompt and each spoke about the cold, cramped conditions and poor food.

They also all spoke about dozens of fellow foreign IS suspects being held alongside them, including US, French, German and Russian nationals.

Image: The prisoners were held in different locations

Mohammed Anwar Miah, 40, is the qualified pharmacist from Birmingham.

He first went to Syria in 2014, seemingly after being investigated and struck off by the General Pharmaceutical Council for inventing false employees at the pharmacy where he worked.

Little has been seen of him since a short recording of his arrest last August appeared online a few weeks later.

The clip, which appears to be from Snapchat, shows him blindfolded with his hands tied behind his back.

He is asked to identify himself and he insists he travelled to Syria to help with humanitarian work.

Asked if he joined "daesh" (a derogatory term for IS), he says he worked in a hospital in an IS-controlled area.

In his interview with Sky News, he did not want to talk about the circumstances of his dismissal from work, saying only it was '"complicated", and denied he was disenchanted with Britain.

But he admitted that if he had not lost his job, he probably would not have gone to Syria.

Image: The US-led coalition has detained many suspected IS fighters

"I was not supporting IS in any way," he said.

"Had I been there or not been there I would not have benefited them. The people who benefited from me were the local civilians, just the local people."

When asked if he had seen any news in the three-and-a-half years he was in IS territory, which catalogued the executions, amputations and floggings that the terror group carried out, he said: "Very, very little. Very, very little.

"When I first got there, the internet was always very weak and then they went through a period where they said the internet is not allowed. And then they said TV is not allowed too.

"They removed everybody's dishes and they put them in one place and it was forbidden to have a TV in your house."

He met and married a Syrian woman while there and they had one child.

His wife was pregnant with another when he said they decided to try to leave the area.

He said: "It's very difficult to leave. It's very dangerous to leave.

"Even when I left I handed myself in, I wasn't captured. I left in August 2018 and me, my wife and my child, we had to literally escape without telling anybody."

See inside an Islamic State house

As soon as coalition forces saw him, he was segregated, separated from his wife and arrested as an IS suspect.

But he insists he is a moderate British Muslim - that is how he describes himself.

He said: "I can say to everybody in Britain that I'm not an IS fighter. I'm not a dangerous person. I came here to do humanitarian work. I have hurt nobody. I have done nothing wrong. I worked in a hospital.

"People have labelled me with IS because the area was controlled by IS. But I just did my job working in a hospital. I'm not a danger to anybody. I did humanitarian work and if they want evidence, I mean the evidence is there."

He is clearly clinging to the hope that the British authorities will repatriate him, insisting he has done no wrong but ready to answer any questions and face whatever justice his compatriots decide he needs to face.

The other medic - who appeared to have been brought to the interview separately - is Muhammad Saqib Raza.

He strode into the interview room and immediately asked me for any identification papers to prove who I am. I handed him my press card and my passport - he appeared not to have been told he would be speaking to us.

His story is an extraordinary one, but he asked: "Why would I make this up? This is my story and I can't change it."

Image: Muhammad Saqib Raza is a Pakistani-born doctor

The Pakistan-born doctor, who moved to England in 2008 and gained British citizenship under the highly skilled migrants programme, worked for eight years in the NHS.

He travelled up and down England doing locum work in more than 20 NHS hospitals.

He said he was duped into crossing into Syria after being told he could help Muslims and gain valuable work experience with treating war injuries in the Turkish-Syrian border town of Jarabulus.

Instead, he ended up being taken under armed guard to Raqqa, being sold to IS, and spending more than a year in and out of first IS prisons, then coalition jails.

He is growing ever more desperate, and asked: "Why am I still sitting in prison? Why am I not being given any justice?

"Is there no justice? Britain is one of the strongest countries in the world. And why has my country abandoned me when I needed it the most?"

Image: The men say they were IS prisoners before being captured by coalition forces

The third man interviewed by Sky News is a naturalised Irishman, originally from Belarus.

Alexander Bekmirzaev, 45, spent more than 20 years living in Ireland and was granted an Irish passport.

He left for Syria in September 2013, intending to stay for just a few months, but the following January he urged his wife to join him and bring their nine-month-old boy along too.

He told Sky News: "I'm not a terrorist. I'm an ordinary person. I hope I'm a good husband and a good father, you know.

"Well many people said, 'How can you bring your family to a war zone?' I made the biggest mistake of my life and I've paid my price. I've paid the price."

Image: Alexander Bekmirzaev spent more than two decades living in Ireland

The former security guard is now imploring the Irish authorities to take him back. He insists he did not fight.

He said: "I refused to fight. And at the end, if you did not fight, you did not eat. I did not fight so I did not eat.

"I ate grass. My family ate grass."

He claims IS forced him to drive injured people to hospitals, which he did for a year - transporting people from Raqqa and Al Bab - but was overcome with depression and mental illness and stopped working altogether.

Now he is extremely thin after being effectively held captive by the extremists in the last remaining IS pocket near Hajin.

"I wasn't captured," he insists.

"We handed ourselves over to the Syrian Democratic Forces."

Image: Alexander Bekmirzaev told Alex Crawford he wanted to go 'home'

He was arrested as soon as he approached the armed SDF checkpoints a little over a month ago.

Now he is desperate to "come back home".

He said: "I'm 45-year-old person - I don't know how long I've got left in my life. I want to come back home. I want to live a peaceful life. I want to go to the mosque, pray, I want to go to work. I want to take care of my family. That's all."

But with the region so unstable and the impending withdrawal of US troops, he fears there could be fresh battles between the Syrian regime, the Kurdish YPG and the Turkish military.

He is worried that he and other foreigners accused of being IS fighters could be traded for prisoners.

"If they hand us over, Bashar al Assad (the Syrian President), he will kill us," he said.

"He will."