UK authorities are working with Muslim women to convince them to not let their male loved ones go to Syria to fight against Assad.
As the Syrian conflict enters its third year, more British men are signing up to go to the Middle Eastern conflict zone and fight. In response, the Metropolitan Police is launching a campaign, asking women to persuade men to not travel to Syria.
'We are increasingly concerned about the numbers of young people who have [travelled] or are intending to travel to Syria to join the conflict,' said Helen Ball, national co-ordinator for counter-terrorism at the Met.
'We want to ensure that people, particularly women, who are concerned about their loved ones are given enough information about what they can do to prevent this from happening.'
The UK Government may not be pro-Assad, but British men going to fight for the rebels still isn't great news. Many anti-Assad groups are funded by, or are part of Al-Qaeda, and want to see the leader overthrown in the hope that Syria becomes a sharia state.
However, the Met are not going to criminalise anyone who is thinking of going to Syria,* Channel 4 News* reports: 'We want to increase their confidence in the police and partners to encourage them to come forward so that we can intervene and help. This is not about criminalising people, it is about preventing tragedies. We want to inform those who wish to genuinely help the Syrian cause how they can do so safely and legally.'
Around 400 Britons are believed to have travelled to Syria to join the fighting, with 20 estimated dead, one of whom is believed to have died during a suicide attack.
We do wonder, though, why UK authorities need to get women to dissuade men from fighting. Something about a woman's powers of persuasion? Seems like sexual jihadism in reverse or, at the very least, an anti-war tactic from the Middle Ages.
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.