Letting IS fighters back is inviting the wolf to dinner, says battling Briton

Letting Islamic State jihadis return to the UK is like "inviting the wolf to dinner", a Briton fighting against the murderous group has warned.

Having battled the extremists for the past three years alongside Syrian Democratic Forces, Macer Gifford said there was a "real risk" those returning could carry out terror attacks.

Earlier this month Max Hill QC spoke of "losing a generation" by automatically using the courts to punish those who have travelled to the war zone, with the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation calling for a focus on "reintegration".

But Mr Gifford, 30, from Cambridge, has issued a plea to the Government to sit up and listen as he states it is not possible for former IS fighters to come back and be reformed.

"As someone who has been out here and seen what the Islamic State is like on the ground and what they have done to the people - this is a wake up call and a warning to Britain," he said.

"When I see a man like this official who said he wants these young people back, when I see them saying this on national television - you are inviting the wolf to dinner.

"You are inviting back into the country an insidious virus, that we are actually almost grateful to see go, because they have attacked us and in the places that mean the most to British people.

"That is our children in Manchester and the very heart of our democracy in London Bridge."

Mr Gifford, a former London-based banker who worked in foreign exchange before heading to the Middle East, and who uses a pseudonym to protect his family, said the fanatics could not be trusted.

"The foreign fighters are actually by far the worst, and the most aggressive, most deranged of all the Islamic State fighters," he said.

"They are the ones who have come from abroad and forced their twisted, perverse ideology on to the people. These are individuals who have had every opportunity to live a normal happy life in Britain, America, France and other places.

"Yet they've basically spat in the face of everything that we hold dear - our democracy, our shared values of secularism and multiculturalism.

"They have gone to Syria to butcher, murder and rape people, sell people into sexual slavery, and they tear up their passports as an act of defiance."

He said these battle-hardened jihadis, who are now being hunted by drones, are faced with the choice of dying or returning to the UK and riding out a prison sentence.

"You can't trust these people," he said, highlighting how they would not want to come back to Britain if they had not lost.

"Their concept of reality is way off, they can't be reformed in my opinion. They are completely lost to us as human beings."

Mr Gifford warned that those returning could carry out an attack on British soil as they look to "go out with more of an even bigger bang than dying in a ditch".

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