British counter-terrorism police chiefs called upon Muslim women to urge their relatives not to travel to Syria to fight, urging them to report would-be jihadists “so that we can intervene and help”

British counter-terrorism police chiefs called upon Muslim women to urge their relatives not to travel to Syria to fight, urging them to report would-be jihadists “so that we can intervene and help.”

The national campaign for women to intervene follows a string of deaths of UK men who joined Syria’s war.

Scotland Yard said on Thursday that officers arrested 40 people on charges relating to the Syrian conflict in the first three months of 2014, compared with 25 for all of last year. The British authorities say around 400 Britons have traveled to Syria to join the fighting, and 20 of them have been killed, one of them in a suicide truck bombing.

“We are increasingly concerned about the numbers of young people who have or are intending to travel to Syria to join the conflict,” said Helen Ball, a senior counterterrorism officer for the Metropolitan Police. “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.”

Critics and campaigners questioned whether the police were trusted enough to get their message across.

“We want to increase their confidence in the police and partners to encourage them to come forward so that we can intervene and help,” Ball said in a statement.

This came after France and the Netherlands unveiled steps to stop citizens from joining the Syrian war and vowed to take all measures “to dissuade, prevent and punish those who are tempted to fight where they have no reason to be.”