An Italian mother has made a heartfelt plea for help in finding her three-year-old son after she apparently identified him in an Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil) propaganda photograph.
Lidia Solana Herrera last saw her son in November 2013 when she gave him to his father before leaving home in Belluno in northern Italy and going to visit relatives in Cuba.
She claims her estranged husband Ismar Mesinovic instead took their son to Syria where he signed up to fight for Isil. Mr Mesinovic has reportedly been killed in the conflict.
Ms Solana Herrera this week said she had seen her son for the first time as part of an online propaganda campaign for the terror group and fought back tears as she begged people to help her find him.
She told Italian media she recognised the child dressed in a black Isil uniform and a headscarf inscribed in Arabic in photos that have been distributed via social media networks. In another picture the child is shown carrying a small AK-47 machine gun.
"That child is Ismail," Ms Solana Herrera said. "I pray every day that he will be brought back to me. I hope that he will come back here beside me. I think only of him, only him."
Ms Solana Herrera said she was separated from her husband and she was not suspicious when he took Ismail a year ago as he had previously taken the child outside Italy to visit relatives in Bosnia and Germany.
Investigators from Italy's anti-terrorism police in Padua and members of the secret services are conducting an investigation into the child's disappearance.
The newspaper said police were looking into a network of Islamists allegedly active in the Veneto region in northern Italy.
"I never had the faintest suspicion my husband was a terrorist," Ms Solano Herrera said.
"When I knew they had left for Syria it was like everything around me fell apart. My little one in Syria. You can only imagine how a mother feels in front of news like that."
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