The husbands of two women who are feared to have taken their children to Syria have begged their families to come home during an emotional press conference in Bradford.With the ordeal of the last eight sleepless days since they last spoke to their children etched on their faces, Akhtar Iqbal and Mohammed Shoaib used the conference to tearfully urge their wives - both sisters - to get in touch after arriving in Turkey six days ago, from where they are feared to have travelled to Syria and territory controlled by the Islamic State.His voice cracking with emotion, father-of-five Mr Akhtar said: “I am shaking. It’s been too many days. I don’t know where are you. Please come back home, so we can live [a] normal life. Please, please come back home… Sisters Khadija Dawood, 30, Sugra Dawood, 34, and Zohra Dawood, 33, went missing with their children aged between three and 15, after they left Bradford for an Islamic pilgrimage to Medina, Saudi Arabia.West Yorkshire Police have confirmed that all 12 family members have boarded a flight to Istanbul, according to the husbands' lawyer, stoking fears they plan to cross the border into Syria.The disappearance of the three families is thought to be largest single incidence of Britons believed to be
trying to reach Syria.Akhtar Iqbal, the husband of Sugra Dawood, appealed to his wife to contact him and said: "Please, please call me. It's been eight, nine days, you are out and we don't know where you are.Describing how he was shaking with fear, Mr Iqbal, whose five children Ismaeel, three, Mariya, five, Zaynab, eight, Ibrahim, 14 and Junaid Ahmed, 15, are with their mother, went on: "I miss you, I love you. All of you, I love you a lot. I can't live without you."To my family, please, please call me [so] at least I know where you are, are you safe?"Echoing Mr Iqbal’s pleas, Mohammed Shoaib wept as he pleaded with his wife Khadija Dawood to bring home his children: five-year-old Muhammad Haseeb and Maryam Siddiqui, seven."We had a perfect relationship, we had a lovely family. Please contact me whenever you want. I'm not angry, please come back, everything is normal, come back to normal life please. They are young kids, seven and five. We had a perfect relationship, we had a lovely family, I don't know what happened.
Please contact me whenever you want," he said, before placing his face in his hands.Earlier, Balaal Hussain Khan, a lawyer acting for the fathers, said the police were notified five or six days ago about the disappearances, and that the men have not spoken to their children since 8 June.He told the press conference that there was "no indication whatsoever" that the women would flee or they they had been radicalised, as the family were in regular contact in Saudi Arabia, and the women had said they missed their husbands and were looking forward to coming home.Mr Khan added that the family practise a "moderate version of Islam" and "at this stage, the family members are law-abiding citizens, there's never been any trouble, never been any suggestion of radicalisation.""The children were going to school, doing everything normally," he said.It is understood that the women's brother is fighting with Isis extremists, who have claimed swathes of Syria since they established a so-called Islamic State in Iraq a year ago.
Mr Khan confirmed that police are investigating the family member, but said it would be "inappropriate to comment.""If the brother-in-law knows anything about his family members, please get in contact and send them back if they are in Syria," he said, adding that the men had not been in touch with him.The disappearance of the Bradford families is the latest evidence of the steady trickle of Britons managing to leave the country to join Islamist extremist groups, some of whom are added to an increasing death toll.It emerged this week that Talha Asmal, 17, from nearby Dewsbury, had become Britain’s youngest suicide bomber after blowing himself in an ISIS operation in Iraq, alongside the death of Thomas Evans, a white Muslim convert who was killed fighting for Somali terror group Al Shabaab.Baroness Warsi, the Conservative peer who also knew the Asmal family, warned that the Government was failing to offer sufficient collaboration with the Muslim community to ensure it could combat the threat of radicalisation from
face-to-face contact with extremists and, increasingly, over the internet.She told BBC News: “Sadly over the last six or seven years there has been a policy of disengagement with British Muslim communities.”The former Foreign Office minister added: “It is incredibly odd and incredibly worrying that over time more and more individuals, more and more organisations are considered by the government to be beyond the pale and therefore not to be engaged with. It is now time to end that policy of disengagement and start speaking to the British Muslim communities, and empowering them to do more.”Mr Iqbal and Mr Shoaib had considered travelling to Turkey to find the sisters, but police advised against it due to safety concerns.Mr Khan appealed for anyone with information to come forward, and said: "If there are any friends of the wives or even the children who might have known about this trip, where they are going or if there has been any contact with anyone other than the family members, we are quite keen on you contacting either the police, my firm or the family directly."
West Yorkshire Police are now carrying out "extensive inquiries" and are working with authorities overseas in an attempt to locate the women and children.The National Union of Journalists has described more than 30 redundancies at Newsquest titles in London, the north-east and the Home Counties as a “massacre” and said the regional publisher appears to be “at war” with its staff. The union says that among those whose jobs are at risk are nine weekly and daily production journalists and a graphic designer at the Northern Echo – also under threat are six jobs at the Gazette & Herald including the editor and deputy editor, and the editors of three titles in Bradford. Newsquest wants to end its consultation on the redundancies by the end of May and impose the new regime from 1 June. Redundancies, pay freezes and reorganisations across Newsquest’s US-based owner Gannett in recent years have soured relations between staff and management, and generated resentment among staff towards the publisher of USA Today and regional newspapers across 30 states in the US.
As well as the losses in the north-east, the NUJ says nine editorial posts, including two deputy group editor roles, are being scrapped as part of a reorganisation of 18 Newsquest titles in north London, Essex, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire under a single group editor Tim Jones. A further nine posts are said to be at risk from 22 May under plans to merge four newsdesks into one based based at the Watford Observer, though three new posts will be created. NUJ Northern and Midlands organiser Chris Morley said: “The words used by our members following today’s announcements are ‘shell shocked’ and ‘job massacre’. After so many casualties and waves of cutbacks at Newsquest centres, it does seem that the company is at war with its staff. There may be jobs for some at Bradford, but who would trust the company enough to move home with the real risk the post will disappear in the near future? “At a time when the company’s US bosses are wallowing in obscene, mega-handouts and patting themselves on the back, staff at their UK outpost have been hung out to dry.”
Gannett, which held its AGM on Wednesday, is in the midst of spinning off its newspaper publishing division from its more profitable TV business. Morley added: “These potential job cuts came from nowhere and they take the company nowhere. I suspect this is just a sacrificial appetiser for the US moneymen on the day parent company Gannett announces its big demerger. Our members in the affected centres are devastated and once again morale has sunk to new levels. If this is supposed to be the bright new future under the new debt-free publishing business, it has got off to the worst possible start.” The NUJ has also drawn attention to a “cringe-inducing corporate video” featuring Gannett chief executive Gracia Martore and her executives singing The Lego Movie theme tune Everything is Awesome. NUJ national organiser Laura Davison said: “It’s Gannett which is living in a dream if they think everything is awesome at Newsquest. Gannett’s rapacity has been driving deep cost cutting at the expense of Newsquest’s core asset, local journalists producing quality local journalism for their readers.