A London-based cab driver, Sunday Dare, has said a young boy nicknamed Jihadi Junior, who appears in an Islamic State video is his grandson.
Nigerian-born Dare made the claim in an interview with Channel 4 News on Monday. The boy, Isa Dare, was featured in a shocking new ISIS execution video wearing military uniform and declaring, “We are going to kill the kaffir (non-believers) over there.”
“In the IS video, the boy, who looks four or five, issues threats against “the unbelievers” in English. The video, which shows five people being murdered, is now being examined by the British security services,” the TV station reported.
Isa’s mother, Grace Khadijat Dare, 24, is said to have fled London and married the boy’s father a Swedish jihadi fighter, Abu Bakr, who has been killed.
The boy and his parents featured in footage exclusively obtained by Channel 4 News from an American Muslim convert and film-maker, Bilal Abdul Kareem, and first broadcast in 2013.
59-year-old Dare, who said he was certain that the boy was his grandson, accused ISIS of using the boy as a shield and for propaganda.
“He’s my grandson. I can’t disown him. I know him very well,” the TV station quoted him as saying. “He’s propaganda. They are just using a small boy. They are just using him as a shield.”
He also called on his daughter, a Muslim convert, who grew up in a Christian Nigerian family, to return to the UK and answer for her actions.
Dare said the 24-year-old had told him she was going to Egypt to study, only for him to find out she had fled to Syria.
He said he had reported his daughter to the police three times, telling them that she was acting strangely. But they ignored him, saying she was above 18.
“I’m totally disappointed. She was a Christian, she was brought up in a Christian way – all of a sudden she decided to become a Muslim,” he said.
He said Grace had called him from Syria weeks ago, but he dropped the phone on her in annoyance.
The Daily Mail reported that Grace swapped a comfortable life in Britain, where she was known for her dimples and her love of her mother’s home cooking, for the horror of Syria.
Dare, who is from Lewisham, South London, is described by friends as a bit of a tomboy who enjoyed wearing tight jeans and platforms, according to the report.
She had gone to college to study media studies, film studies, psychology and sociology, and was a popular young girl, the report added.
She reportedly converted to Islam at the of 18 and started worshipping at the Lewisham Islamic Centre, which is linked to radical cleric Abu Hamza and the Woolwich killers of Lee Rigby.
There have been several reports about British teens travelling to Syria to join ISIS in recent times.
PUNCH