London jihadi Abu Rumaysah poses with gun and newborn baby
The British jihadi Abu Rumaysah, who skipped bail while facing terror charges and allegedly fled to the Islamic State, has posted an image online posing with a baby and an automatic rifle.
.jpg)
After weeks of speculation as to the whereabouts of the Walthamstow radical Islamist, Abu Rumaysah returned to Twitter this week announcing: “What a shoddy security system Britain must have to allow me to breeze through Europe to the Islamic State.”
Real name Siddhartha Dhar, 31-year-old Rumaysah is a British-Indian from a Hindu family. He claims to have fled with his wife and four children to Syria.
Other Jihadi fighters on Twitter were sceptical of the account and requested he post an image from Syria to prove it was really Rumaysah.
@aburumaysah1435 @shariah4pak when was the last time you saw me? In person?
— Abdulrahman Muhajir (@muhajir_1) November 25, 2014
The radical Islamist obliged today with a picture posing with a baby in a bear-suit onesie in one hand and a rifle in the other.
He tweeted: “With my newborn son. #GenerationKhilafah”, suggesting his fifth child had been born in IS-controlled territory.
With my newborn son. #GenerationKhilafah pic.twitter.com/TsM0T520Kq
— Abu Rumaysah (@aburumaysah1435) November 26, 2014
While Rumaysah’s flight from under the noses of police may have caused some embarrassment, his close friend and radical preacher Abu Baraa appears overjoyed to learn of Rumaysah’s whereabouts.
Thinking about Abu Rumaysah makes me smile :)
— Mizanur Rahman (@Abu_Baraa1) November 26, 2014
Rumaysah failed to appear at a bail hearing in London earlier this month and prosecutor Luke Ponte told Westminster magistrates’ court he had boarded a coach to Paris on 27 September.
He had been arrested in anti-terror raids along with nine other men, including radical preacher Anjem Choudary, in September. Weeks before his arrest Rumaysah had told Channel 4 News that he wanted to move to the so-called Islamic State and offered to renounce his British citizenship to do so.
Read more: Radical Muslim 'flees to Syria' while on bail
“I would love to live under the Islamic State, I’d love to live under the Shariah, and I hope that one day Britain gets to live under the Shariah as well,” he explained.
“I think it’s very naive of the government to think that they can prevent Muslims from desiring to migrate there and live under Islam peacefully.
“I think it’s in the interests of the government to allow citizens in this country to migrate to places where they want to. It’s better for them to do that than to allow them to go underground and off the radar.”
Reality check
After his Channel 4 News appearance Rumaysah’s story went global with Rumaysah providing several interviews to US TV networks.
Rumaysah boasted to our crew how he had studied under Omar Bakri and Abu Hamza. After converting to Islam in his early 20s, he went on to become a student of Anjem Choudary and a leading activist with Al Muhajiroon offshoots.
He would not confirm if he would take up arms if allowed to leave Britain for Syria. At the time, he said: “There is a war taking place around the world, there is a conflict between those who believe sovereignty belongs to God and those who believe sovereignty belongs to man, and there are people killing each other.
“Now whether I support that or don’t support that, I think we need to take a reality check.”