The four children huddled around their mother appeared to be ordinary travellers, but this is the moment a family is feared to have started their journey from Britain to join Islamic State.
Zahera Tariq, 33, from Walthamstow, East London, left her council house on Tuesday with her children and boarded a flight for Amsterdam from the capital’s City airport.
She is now feared to be making her way to Turkey by coach in order to avoid security checks at airports. Police do not believe that she has crossed the border into Syriayet.
Ms Tariq’s husband, Yasair Mahmmood, 42, reported his family missing on Wednesday. Detectives have have launched an appeal for her to come back to the UK and Scotland Yard released CCTV pictures of Ms Tariq and her children at the airport before they boarded their flight.
Her three sons, Muhammad, 12, Amaar, 11, Aadid, four, and daughter Safiyyah, nine – all dressed in Western clothes – can be seen in the grainy footage with their mother, who is wearing a headscarf.
Zaineb Tariq, 28, Zahera’s younger sister, said Zahera’s husband was hospitalised over the weekend due to the trauma. Zaineb said: ‘Her husband is in hospital because of what’s happened. He had health problems before, but this worsened it.’
She added: ‘I am just in a mess right now because of what’s happened. I know my sister has left the country because the police came round last night and told me. I am too upset to speak.’ Neighbours also expressed their shock. Khalil Mohammadi, 38, a teacher, said Zahera was a devout Muslim and sometimes used to cover her face with a niqab.
He added ‘My wife saw her and her children leave the house on Tuesday. She thought nothing of it. She did not see them carrying any suitcase. This is very shocking.’
Commander Richard Walton, from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, said: ‘We’re concerned about Zahera and her four children and we’re doing all we can [...] to try to locate them and make sure they are all safe and well.
‘While we do have some concerns that Zahera may be thinking of travelling to Syria, there is no current information to suggest that she’s already travelled there.
‘Her family are extremely worried and we would urge anybody with information to contact us as soon as possible.’
A number of Muslims have fled the UK to live under Islamic State, which controls vast swathes of territory stretching between Syria and Iraq. More than 700 British jihadis are believed to have joined IS, of which almost a hundred are thought to be girls and women.
1,000 MISSIONS AGAINST ISLAMIC STATE: RAF NOTCHES UP MISSIONS
The Royal Air Force has notched up its 1,000th mission against Islamic State, defence sources confirmed last night, after a recent upsurge in UK military action against the terrorists.
The Mail on Sunday revealed last week that since the attack on British holidaymakers in Tunisia by an IS gunman, the RAF has stepped up its operations, dropping twice as many bombs on enemy targets as it did before the beach massacre. Missiles have been fired from Tornado jets and Reaper unmanned drones.
The MoD said last night: ‘The UK continues to play a leading role in activity that has, so far, seen IS lose 25 per cent of its territory in Iraq. We have around 800 people supporting operations against IS and have trained nearly 2,000 Iraqis on the ground.’