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I spoke to Jack Letts in October last year, now that his parent's trial is over, it can be broadcast. And here are some additional details on his radicalistation, his service in the Islamic State and what he would describe as his road to repentance.pic.twitter.com/L8XyLeNdeY
He fought for IS in Deir Ezzor, Syria, Fallujah, Iraq and elswhere. He said he wanted to kill; but didn't. After almost losing his arm in battle, he taught IS "cubs", kids under 15 years old. Jack Letts says he also worked on IS propaganda videos and their magazine Dabiq.pic.twitter.com/6VhxHfspyZ
it took him three months to get to Syria. His intent from leaving Oxford was always to join IS. Via kuwait and Jordan ("the British diversion", he called it), he spent 24 hours in Turkey and crossed into Syria at Al Rai. He never expected to return.pic.twitter.com/K6F4hvilD1
"At the borders, I just remember getting shot at by the Turkish police and that was the only thing that was in my brain, trying not to get shot… (hole in the fence was closed) "There was some Russians with us. They opened the gate.. We got to the other side"
He was radicalised, in part, by a British IS cell from Portsmouth, most of whom are now dead. "Abu Uthman" was his "tazkiyah", or reference when joining IS. He only met the Portsmouth gang - in fact, one of them - in Syria, just before the british bangaldeshi was killed.pic.twitter.com/vzIGpmRBw7
This peer to peer communication is what made IS recruitment so successful. In the past if you wanted to join Al Qaeda you could only listen to tapes from Osama Bin Laden and had to make your wary to Tora Bora. IS engaged with its recruits and gave them a path to the caliphate.
Jack Letts said, "when I started to hear about people making Hijra people emigrating to Syria and stuff like this, I actually used to try and convince people not to do it". But the Portsmouth group flipped him. "Through them, I came to ISIS, really", he told me.
At one point during the 1'15'' interview i said, "Islamic State". Jack Letts corrected me, "The so-called Islamic State. If it was an Islamic state, I wouldn't have left." He said the group were mafia, but it was a mafia he married into.pic.twitter.com/kKiTrabntr
In Fallujah he got married to a well connected IS family. "So I sat with her a few times, I spoke to her and over a period of time, I got to know her... with her brother being there and sometimes her father as well, actually, and I liked her and I decided to get married."
His wife is likely still alive; they had a child together. But Jack Letts decided to leave IS before the baby was born. It's not known if they are still in touch. (Many imprisoned IS foreign fighters exchange letters with their local wives, via a Red Cross scheme.)
When he went on the run from IS - after, like many foreign fighters, being imprisoned by IS - he hid here in Raqqa. Weirdly, i took shelter in the same apartment during the fighting in Raqqa. Jack had already vacated...pic.twitter.com/TdYTcHRaGe
This Jac, chose a different path. Jac Holmes went to fight IS alongside Kurdish forces. This pic was taken in Raqqa a month before he was killed by a homemade bomb. He told me Jack Letts, via Facebook, once threatened to behead him.pic.twitter.com/i9htemq5NP
i asked Jack Letts why he took the different path. He thought "Why do I have this nice life, and others don't? And then, on top of that, the idea of it being an Islamic State and it's actually your duty to do this... It was just a bit.. A weird sort of confusion I entered into."pic.twitter.com/GfCz3BdYRM
He says he wanted to kill Shia militia and Syrian regime forces, but believes he didn't kill anyone. Throughout the interview he said he say no point in lying and that he was being as honest as possible. A kurdish guard was present but Jack Letts said he was not under duress.pic.twitter.com/y9axvcMcbv
British newspapers have made much of his mental health. (They seemed less concerned about the mental health of Shamima Begum, the Beatles, etc). So i asked him about that. He's been diagnosed with Tourette's and severe obsessive compulsive disorder.pic.twitter.com/V0sSihcgtX
He was angry that his parents told the press about his mental wellbeing, which he viewed as a personal matter. While in solitary confinement he said he would speak to himself: "You wouldn't be able to sit with my like this. You'd say I'm insane."pic.twitter.com/852wIVmhMK
at the time of the interview, in October last year, he said: "now it's a lot better. I know myself slightly better now. I have some people with me that speak English and stuff like this, so I've gotten a lot better. But it's still terrible, the situation"
"the main reasons I left the so-called Islamic State is because they started to kill people I know them personally that are Muslims. I had a group of about 20 friends that all left the so-called Islamic State. They all left at one time. One by one, they started to kill them."pic.twitter.com/k3okFKtcYY
He was caught trying to escape to the border with Turkey. He expected safe passage through Nusra controlled territory. He said, "They would help us leave. They would get us a smuggler. Nusra Front not great guys, but they're a lot more trustworthy Than the Free Syrian Army".
Jack Letts: "I've repented from what I did, and it's not important in a sort of legal sense, but that's why I left. I realized what I did was wrong, religiously and also in a moral sense."pic.twitter.com/taj4scdbUI
Unlike almost every other British IS member i have interviewed, Jack Letts hasn't yet been stripped on his citizenship. The others, Shamima Begum, "the beatles", etc are mixed race, and he is a white canadian dual national.pic.twitter.com/IYao8p2eyO
A British diplomatic source explained that Canada was dealing with his case and that Britain did not want to jeopardize that process. Still, he agreed it didn't look good. In Oct, Jack Letts believed his only hope out of Syria was Canada.
Letts in limbo: "Every country is just running away from what supposedly its laws tell it to do, and no one knows what's going to happen with us. So there's a feeling of stress and there's a feeling of regret. Regret without result. ... we're just being left like dogs"pic.twitter.com/yWCV3KOIn9
Thanks for reading. In any interview, there are questions you don't get to. I didn't get to ask Jack Letts his thoughts on the Yazidis who suffered horribly at the hands of IS. But i did write this for the latest @NewStatesman - remember the victims -https://www.newstatesman.com/world/middle-east/2019/06/five-years-slave-islamic-state …
Final thought. The speed of radicalization among these men, & in some cases women, is the thing i find most frightening. We've spoken to parents whose kids had normal lives: studied hard, hung out with girls, played football then in a month or two, they abandoned it all for IS.pic.twitter.com/hNfn95kzKy
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