Two 22 year old British men from Birmingham have both been sentenced to 12 years and eight months having pleaded guilty to travelling to Syria and ‘engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts.
Mohammed Nahim Ahmed and Yusuf Sarwar, both from Birmingham, travelled to Syria in May 2013, where they are believed to have spent eight months with the al Nusra Front, an affiliate group of the al Qaeda network in Syria.
Before leaving the UK, Sarwar faked documents in order to convince his family that he was travelling to Turkey as part of a two-week trip organised by Birmingham City University, where he was a student. Ahmed told his family he was going on holiday with Sarwar. The men bought one-way tickets to Turkey then crossed the border to Syria.
West Midlands Police first became aware, when Sarwar’s parents reported him missing and subsequently both men were arrested by West Midlands Police Counter-Terrorism Unit when they returned to the UK via Heathrow Airport in January 2014.
Traces of military grade explosives were found on their clothing and pictures on their cameras showed them with weapons. West Midlands Police Detectives used satellite imagery to establish from the photographs that the men had been in and around Aleppo, one of the main conflict areas in Syria. Consequently, both men pleaded guilty to terrorist charges.
Information prodided by BBC – More available at:
