Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/LONDON: Shamima Begum — who is currently detained in a Syrian detention camp and in a legal battle with the British government to try to restore her British citizenship — has confessed that she joined the terror group, Islamic State (IS) when she fled Britain as a schoolgirl.
In interviews spanning more than a year, Begum, who had been stripped of her British citizenship, revealed that IS members gave her detailed instructions, but she also undertook her own planning for the journey in 2015.
Begum confessed to have been ‘relieved’ to leave UK
Giving her first full account of her flight to Syria, she told the BBC podcast The Shamima Begum Story that she felt “relieved” to leave the UK, saying she expected not to ever return once she left.
Begum said she is aware of that the public now views her “as a danger, as a risk, as a potential risk to them, to their safety, to their way of living”. But she is not the person that the public thinks her to be.
Thousands still held in Syrian detention camps
Begum is one of the thousands of men, women and children who have been held in Syrian detention camps and prisons since the IS “caliphate” was defeated in 2019. Many came from countries that do not want them back.
Shamima, 23, – who had three children in Syria, all of whom died – is in a legal battle to try to restore her British citizenship for her return to London.
The tribunal hearing has focussed on whether she was a victim of trafficking for sexual exploitation, or a committed IS volunteer who is a threat to the country.
