Flood of home-grown jihadis to return to the UK as ISIS loses territory in Syria and Iraq
And security bosses left asking 'what can we possibly do with the child soldiers?'
BRIT security services are preparing for a flood of fleeing home-grown jihadists as ISIS continues to be pounded by air strikes from the US-led coalition and Russia.
Although the Islamist group has suffered increasingly from desertion in recent months, up until now very few of the foreign fighters have returned to Europe from Syria and Iraq.
The numbers coming to Britain for instance, has learned, have been in no more than single figures for the last eight months.
But that trickle could soon turn into a flood if ISIS continues to lose territory and suffer more heavy losses in Syria.
These radicalised warriors will present a severe threat in the near future, “a ticking time bomb” as they try to break out of the region, say security officials.
And they insist a coordinated policy is needed to confront the impending crisis.
The problem has been compounded by a dramatic and sickening increase in the use of children, including those of Western parentage, by ISIS to carry out executions of prisoners.
A photo appeared last week of a young boy, said to be British, in the act of shooting Kurdish fighters captured by Isis.
The 11-year-old, it has been claimed, was the son of Sally Jones, a British woman who had converted to Islam and joined ISIS in Syria.
The terror group is believed to have around 1,500 child fighters in its ranks.
The vast majority are Syrian and Iraqi, with Yemen and Morocco supplying most from Arab countries.
There are also around 50 children from Britain are currently in the self-declared “Islamic State”, along with smaller numbers from France and Australia, among Western countries.
“What one does with these children need to be considered,” said a senior British security official.
“Some of them have who have been used to carry out these criminal acts are below the age of criminal responsibility in many countries in Europe.
"We know of children from the West who had been taken to Syria, but there are also children who have been born there to European parents. As we know Daesh (ISIS) are now bringing five-year-olds into their jihad.
“But the real problem would be with the thousands of adults. A number of states are liaising on this, but the policies will depend to an extent on political and legal considerations in individual states.”
Around 27,000 foreign fighters are believed to have joined Isis since the start of Syria’s civil war five years ago, with between 5,000 and 7,000 of them arriving from Europe to join the group and other hardline rebel organisations such as Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda affiliate.
Just under 800 have travelled from the UK.
Jihadists have been using the Turkish border to get in and out of Syria, sometimes with the connivance, it has been claimed, of the Erdogan government.
But the Turks are now carrying out military operations against Isis, and its militants have now lost control of points they had occupied in the area.