Friday, January 25, 2019

UK: 3 members of a Somali family jailed for promoting ISIS Propaganda

(London) Three members of the same family, have been jailed for possessing Islamic State (IS) propaganda in the UK . At the Old Bailey on Friday, 30 year old Asma Aweys, her husband 27 year old Abdulaziz Abu Munye,, and her 33 year old brother Ahmed Aweys, 33, were sentenced to 19 months, 15 months and 25 months imprisonment respectively.

Ahmed Aweys (left) Asma Aweys (centre) and Abdulaziz Abu Munye (right) 
The family's extremist views were revealed after a tip off that Ahmed Aweys and his two half-brothers were planning to break into a Muslim-run jewellery shop in Ilford Lane, east London. They were caught red-handed and during searches of their homes police also found £60,000 in cash and £10,000 in gold. However it was when the Police searched their phones that their gravitation towards ISIS became apparent. Messages found on their phones showed Ahmed Aweys discussing fraud with his brother-in-law Abdulaziz Abu Munye, a former street robber, and telling him he was entitled to take from the 'kuffr' [infidels].  Prosecutors said some other members of the family appeared to be of 'like mind-set' and either actively supported or were at least 'quiet in response' to extremist chat.

Two of Aweys brothers Wail and Suleyman, had travelled to Syria in early 2015 and are believed to have died in the fighting a few months later and tried to use that angle in which to claim that their penchant for  promulgating  ISIS material' was simply them trying to work out what had happened to their missing siblings. The thing is it doesn't explain statements such as:
  • 'We are embedded in their societies, we are the enemy within.’
  • 'The biggest advantage that we have is we are embedded in their societies, we are the enemy within and they know not.'
  • 'Bowling with kafir heads...lol'.
The distribution of the ISIS online magazine Dabiq:
(Which featured guidance on how to conduct vehicle attacks, issue four had a step by step guide to knife attacks, and issue five had instructions on how to make Molotov cocktails and napalm and how to 'inflict misery and destruction upon the enemies of Allah' and with the 'objective of how to kill a large number of people or to disrupt financial stability of a country, both aimed at terrorising the enemies of Allah.')

and the video Flames of War 2:
(The 58-minute video, released by al-Hayat Media, the media wing of ISIS, on November 29, 2017 in Arabic and English and showed 'brutal executions of various kinds, battle footage, and made references to attacks in the West,')

When Asma Aweys was questioned by the Police regards her very polarised ISIS messages including  gloating how the Westminster terror attack was 'the decree of Allah' , she claimed she did not realise her messages could get her into trouble.

Two months after the attempted robbery, a sister, Hafsa Aweys, was stopped trying to leave the country with children from the family, including a child of Ahmed Aweys, using someone else's passport to get to Morocco. I wonder why she felt the need to relocate to an Islamic land.