Dawood family terrorist cell

The Dawood family terrorist cell refers to thirteen members of the same British Pakistani family who left the United Kingdom and joined the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria. First to leave was Ahmed Dawood. He had been fighting with ISIL in Syria for over a year when his three sisters and their nine children left their homes in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England together to join him in May 2015.[1]

The Dawood siblings were Ahmed, who was 21 in 2015, and his sisters Sugra, 34, Zohra, 33, and Khadija, 30. Sugra took her five children: Junaid Ahmed Iqbal, 15, Ibraham Iqbal, 14, Zaynab Iqbal, 8, Mariya Iqbal, 5, and Ismaeel Iqbal, 3. Zohra took her daughters: Haaiyah Binte Zubair, 8, and Nurah Binte Zubair, 5. Khadija took her two children Muhamad Hasseb, 5, and Maryam Siddiqui, 7.[2][3] The women left their husbands behind.[1]

Life in England

The Dawood family had nine children, two sons and seven daughters, all born and raised in Bradford.[1][4] The Dawood parents are Pashtun and the family practiced a conservative form of Islam.[4][5]

Zohra and her brother Ahmed were particularly close to one another, and Zohra was upset after his departure for Syria in 2013 or 2014.[1][4] Counterterrorism police encouraged the family to maintain contact with Ahmed after he joined the Syrian jihad.[6] Sugra reportedly kept in touch with Ahmed over Skype.[7] The sisters' husbands later suggested that by encouraging contact with Ahmed, the police had been "complicit in the grooming and radicalizing of the women."[8]

Zohra was in an arranged marriage with her husband, a first cousin from Pakistan.[1] He was an imam at a local mosque[9] and Quran classes were hosted in the couple's home.[5] Zohra reportedly enrolled at the University of Huddersfield. She and her sisters also attended Arabic language classes and were reportedly dedicated students.[5]

Neighbors of the couple said they rarely saw Zohra but that her husband was a very involved parent. One neighbor, for awhile, had thought her husband was a single father. According to the neighbors, Zohra was religious and knew a lot about Islam. She had previously worn Western clothes with a headscarf, but after she moved back into her father's home she began wearing a full veil and gloves.[1] Zohra reportedly confided in a friend that she was unhappy in her marriage and no longer shared a bed with her husband, and said she wanted to move to Saudi Arabia with her daughters because the UK was changing and "I don't want my children living in this society.[10][11]

Zohra and her husband separated in the autumn of 2014.[1] Her husband later said his wife had "shunned" him.[3] She took their daughters and moved back into her parents' home a mile away from her own, where Khadija and her husband and children also lived. A few weeks later, Zohra's husband returned to his own elderly father's home in Pakistan, and never spoke to his wife again.[3]

Sugra's two oldest sons, Junaid and Ibrahim Iqbal, attended Dixon Kings Academy.[12] Ibrahim created a website a few years before leaving, called "An 11-year-old’s point of view about Islam". He and his brother both had Facebook accounts.[5]

Junaid posted quotes from the Quran and from Islamic scholar Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah on his page, as well as photos from Doctor Who and Arrow. On his Facebook page, Ibrahim posted about a YouTube film, "Sword of Allah", the story of a Muslim warrior who "sought martyrdom in a hundred battles." He "liked" the Facebook page for the radical cleric Ahmad Musa Jibril, as well as the one for Ismail Menk, a cleric who called gay people "filth" and who had been banned from speaking at British universities. Ibrahim also "liked" the Facebook pages for several professional boxers, posted selfies of himself in his school uniform, and shared posts from the site UNILAD.[5] Shortly before his and his family's disappearance, Ibrahim told one of his aunt Zohra's friends, "I’m going to Syria to fight."[7][11]

Departure for Syria

On March 19, 2015, the Dawood sisters and their children attempted to fly out of Manchester Airport to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia but were prevented from doing so and questioned by security about their intentions under the Terrorism Act of 2000. They said they planned to on a religious pilgrimage. The questioning caused them to miss their flight.[7][9][13]

The women went to the police and complained that they had been prevented from flying, and sought written permission to leave Britain. A detective constable from the West Yorkshire Police wrote a letter for them, saying, "I can confirm the passengers do not have any restrictions on their movements out of or into the United Kingdom." The letter said they had been questioned by Greater Manchester Police "due to an ongoing Police investigation into a separate person" meaning Ahmed Dawood.[13] The women also sent formal written requests to ask that their school-age children be allowed to be absent from school for the time spent on pilgrimage, but got replies saying the requests were denied and their children's absences would be marked as unexcused.[14]

The sisters and their children left for Saudi Arabia on May 28 and this time they were able to fly.[3] They were supposed to return to the UK on June 11.[7] Instead, on June 9, the family members boarded a flight from Medina to Istanbul.[1] The sisters paid cash for the flight. They then crossed the border into Syria in two groups.[10] The first group went on June 17, and the second on June 18.[15]

On June 17, Zohra left a voicemail for her family back in England, saying she was in Syria and had left because of the continued surveillance by counterterrorism police, which she called "oppressive."[8]

Aftermath of disappearance

Sugra and Khadija's husbands made televised pleas begging them to return with the children. Sugra's husband cried during his statement, saying, "We had a perfect relationship, we had a lovely family. I don’t know what happened."[1] He also addressed his oldest son Junaid directly, asking the 15-year-old boy to contact him if he saw the broadcast.[16] A lawyer representing the two husbands said they were "normal people" who had had "no inkling" of their wives' plans.[17] Zohra's estranged husband in Pakistan said he was "shocked" by what had happened.[3]

The women's parents said they did not support their daughters' "leaving their husbands and families in the UK and of taking their children into a war zone where life is not safe to join any group" and added, "We plead to anyone thinking about making a similar journey not to go."[10]

Later in 2015, another British Pakistani family from Bradford, the Ameens, also disappeared and were also thought to have traveled to Syria. Farzana and Imran Ameen bought one-way tickets to Turkey for themselves and their five children 1 to 15 years of age, and left on October 6, 2015. Imran's brother had traveled to Turkey months earlier and was thought to be in Syria.[18] January 2016, the police launched a fresh appeal for information as to the whereabouts of both the Dawood family and the Ameen family.[19]

Fate of the family under ISIL

Sugra's son Ibrahim Iqbal continued to post on his Facebook account after his arrival in Syria, including a photo of himself dressed in combat gear and holding an AK-47.[20] He also posted photos of weapons and ammunition, and quotes from the Quran.[21]

In August 2016, Ibrahim (by then 15 years old) posted that "Allah has brought me to the khilafah and saved me from the oppression of the Kuffar" and urged the world's Muslims to travel to the ISIL caliphate and pledge allegiance to its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. A day later he posted, "Nobody has an excuse to be not fighting in the path of Allah. Physically fighting not in your mind as some stupid people say."[22]

He also posted tributes to his uncle Ahmed Dawood and to his older brother, Junaid, with the phrase "May Allah accept them." This is a common Islamic prayer for the dead, which suggests both Ahmed and Junaid had been killed by that point.[6] Ibrahim's Facebook page was later taken down.[20]

Nothing further is known of the Dawood family.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Bajekal, Naina (2015-06-19). "Why Three British Sisters Took Their Children to Join Jihadists in Syria". TIME. Retrieved 2026-03-15.
  2. ^ Grierson, Jamie; Elgot, Jessica; Halliday, Josh (2015-06-15). "Appeal issued for three sisters and their children missing after Saudi Arabia trip". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2026-03-15.
  3. ^ a b c d e "Bradford sisters: 'Syria-bound' family quizzed before earlier flight". BBC News. 2015-06-17. Retrieved 2026-03-16.
  4. ^ a b c Grierson, Jamie; Pidd, Helen; Halliday, Josh; Elgot, Jessica (2015-06-17). "One of missing Bradford sisters has made contact with family, say police". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2026-03-16.
  5. ^ a b c d e Halliday, Josh; Pidd, Helen; Elgot, Jessica (2015-06-17). "Missing Bradford sisters 'are from ultraconservative Muslim family'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2026-03-16.
  6. ^ a b Simpson, John (2016-08-08). "Isis recruit, 15, in tribute to dead brother and uncle". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 2026-03-16.
  7. ^ a b c d Dowling, Kevin; Henry, Robin (2015-06-21). "Teen 'liked' radical preacher before family left for Syria". The Times. Retrieved 2026-03-16.
  8. ^ a b "Bradford family: Police 'complicit in radicalising sisters'". BBC News. 2015-06-21. Retrieved 2026-03-16.
  9. ^ a b Pidd, Helen; Grierson, Jamie; Halliday, Josh; Dodd, Vikram (2015-06-17). "Bradford sisters: airport security checks disrupted previous flight plans". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2026-03-16.
  10. ^ a b c Cantilero, Monica (2015-06-22). "Woman sees no future in \'changing\' UK, joins ISIS with sisters and kids". Christian Today. Retrieved 2026-03-16.
  11. ^ a b "Missing Bradford sisters: Mother 'didn't want children to grow up in UK'". BBC News. 2015-06-19. Retrieved 2026-03-16.
  12. ^ Pidd, Helen; Elgot, Jessica (2015-06-16). "'Syria-bound' Bradford children went to school where teacher was stabbed". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2026-03-16.
  13. ^ a b Kachroo, Rohit (2015-06-24). "ITV News exclusive: Police gave Bradford family permission to leave UK". ITV News. Retrieved 2026-03-15.
  14. ^ Jeeves, Paul (2015-06-18). "Sisters feared to have taken children to ISIS camp were stopped from l". Express.co.uk. Retrieved 2026-03-16.
  15. ^ Paton, Callum (2015-06-19). "Missing Bradford Family: Isis smuggler says all 12 family members have passed into Syria". International Business Times UK. Retrieved 2026-03-16.
  16. ^ "Missing Bradford sisters: Fathers appeal over 'Syria' family". BBC News. 2015-06-16. Retrieved 2026-03-16.
  17. ^ Craw, Victoria (2015-06-18). "Mystery of the missing family". NewsComAu. Archived from the original on 2016-01-25. Retrieved 2026-03-16.
  18. ^ Elgot, Jessica; Grierson, Jamie; Halliday, Josh (2015-10-14). "Missing Bradford family left UK on one-way tickets to Turkey". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2026-03-17.
  19. ^ "Police issue fresh appeal over missing Bradford families feared to be in Syria". Bradford Telegraph and Argus. 2016-01-11. Retrieved 2026-03-17.
  20. ^ a b "British schoolboy posts pictures online from ISIS territory". The Hindu. 2016-08-09. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 2026-03-16.
  21. ^ Watkinson, William (2016-08-08). "Bradford teen taken to Syria by mother posts weapons cache and pledges Isis allegiance on Facebook". International Business Times UK. Retrieved 2026-03-16.
  22. ^ Bayliss, Charlie (2016-08-08). "Teen who was taken to join ISIS calls Muslims to wage jihad on UK". Express.co.uk. Retrieved 2026-03-16.
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