A RESTAURANT owner has said he fears for the safety of his elderly mother and siblings who are living in Syria.

Bakir Ali-Najar, who lives in Headington, Oxford, is a Kurd who has been in the UK for more than a decade after claiming asylum because he was campaigning against the Syrian government.

He now runs The Olive Branch restaurant, in Corn Street, Witney, as well as Najars Place, a falafel kiosk in St Giles, Oxford.

But his elderly mother, five brothers and two sisters still live in a village north of Aleppo and he estimates that Islamic fighting force IS – also known as Isis or Isil – is a week away from their homes.

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The 39-year-old father of two, who is now a British citizen, said: “My family are on the border between the Kurds and the Arabs and they have nobody else anymore, but I cannot do anything.

“I have sent them money in the past but even money is no use anymore and I cannot contact them anymore. I just feel useless here.”

IS – which stands for Islamic State – is a Sunni jihadist group seeking to bring Muslim regions under its control.

The US and five countries from the Gulf and Middle East have this week begun bombing IS in Syria and it is believed Parliament is expected to be recalled tomorrow to discuss any UK role in air strikes.

Mr Ali-Najar’s concerns are compounded by the fact that he and his family are Yazidis, an ethnically Kurdish group which lives mainly in northern Iraq and whose religion is derived from Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Islam.

In a letter Mr Ali-Najar has written to Witney MP and Prime Minister David Cameron, saying: “When Isis took Shingal, a Yazidi region in Iraq, they raped, murdered, and sold women in markets as slaves.

“My brothers have teenage daughters. What will happen to them if the village is taken?”

He told the Oxford Mail: “We cannot wait until IS comes to our village and sells our teenage girls on the market but I have got family here so I cannot go there. And even if I did, what am I going to do there? They are all living in my mother’s house and everyone is in danger.”

Dr Hojjat Ramzy, representative of the Muslim community in Oxford and director of the Oxford Islamic Information Centre, condemned IS.

He said: “Islam does not allow you to kill innocent people. Bombing the country will not help. We need to talk to sort this out and see if we can bring the people who have killed these innocent people to justice.”

The Oxford Mail contacted Mr Cameron and the Foreign Office for comment, but neither responded.

An open letter to Islamists

  • THE founder of The Oxford Foundation has joined more than 100 religious Sunni authorities to sign an open letter to Islamic State (IS) fighters.

Imam Monawar Hussain, who established the foundation in 2009 to empower young Muslims and challenge extremist ideology, added his signature because he wants to contest what he calls IS’s “wrong agenda”.

He said: “We’ve been thinking about how we constructively respond to IS.

“What’s happening is that they’re using religion to justify their actions and own political motives. We’re challenging that argument. The letter undermines the claim of IS to any religious legitimacy for their violence perpetrated against the weak and helpless.”

In the letter it states: “You have mercilessly killed the journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, even after Sotloff’s mother pleaded with you and begged for mercy.

“Aid workers are also emissaries of mercy and kindness, yet you killed the aid worker David Haines. What you have done is unquestionably forbidden.”

Mr Hussain said he hopes that the letter will make an impact on “young people who might be impressionable to take note that this [terrorism] has nothing to do with Islam”.


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