Mother accused of taking toddler to Syria 'wanted to die a martyr'
A mother, accused of taking her toddler to Syria to join Islamic State (IS), posed with firearms wearing the logo of the terror group, a court has heard.
Tareena Shakil told relatives she was going on holiday to Turkey in October 2014 but is instead alleged to have travelled to Raqqa, the capital of IS, to join the militant group's ranks.
Deleted photographs recovered from her phone showed what prosecutors claimed was Shakil wearing an IS balaclava with her child, after arriving in Syria.
Another picture allegedly showed the 26-year-old with an AK47 assault rifle wearing a burkha and posing under an Islamic State flag.
Another included a burkha-clad woman with a small child brandishing the same type of weapon on an apartment balcony.
Opening the case against her, prosecutors alleged Shakil either married or arranged to be married to a jihadi fighter, and posed her toddler for photographs wearing clothing daubed with the IS logo.
While in Syria, she is alleged to have told friends and relatives in the UK she was "happy as Larry" in Raqqa and asked them to visit, according to the Crown.
In a WhatsApp conversation with her father Mohammed Shakil, she wrote: "I can leave, but I don't want (to)."I want to die here as a martyr... There are too many blessings dying as a martyr."
Outlining the case, Sean Larkin QC, for the prosecution, said Shakil was radicalised in 2014, researching and then posting messages and pictures in support of IS - images of which were shown to jurors.
She is alleged to have searched for the teachings of extremist preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, killed in a US drone strike in 2011.
Shakil is also said to have sent a Twitter message to Sally Jones, the widow of British jihadi Junaid Hussain killed in a US drone strike in Syria, saying "I wish I was there".
In October, she changed her Facebook and Twitter profile pictures to the black flag of Islamic State, and left her husband in the UK to travel abroad.
Shakil, of Beechfield Road in Sparkbrook, Birmingham, is thought to be the first British woman to return from the IS heartland to face such terror charges.
She has gone on trial at Birmingham Crown Court where she also faces another charge of using social media to encourage acts of terrorism.
Mr Larkin said CCTV captured the mother with her child leaving from East Midlands airport on October 20, 2014.
"Although she booked a return flight, she was not going to come back, and this was no spur-of-the-moment decision," he said.
She left notes to her family urging them not to cry adding "We will meet again", jurors were told.
Concluding his opening, Mr Larkin said: "She goes, we suggest, knowing she's abandoning the land of the kuffar - here - joining the Islamic State, being housed, fed, looked after, arranging a marriage, or marrying."
Shakil was arrested by British police at Heathrow Airport in February last year after arriving back on a flight from Turkey.
In interview, she told officers she was kidnapped and taken to Syria but had managed to escape.
For the defence, Tim Moloney QC told the jury that she had travelled to Syria and "told lies about what happened" but denied any wrongdoing.
Shakil, originally from Burton on Trent in Staffordshire, has pleaded not guilty pleas to both the charges. The trial is scheduled to last up to three weeks.