WE KNOW WHY YOU DON’T WANT HER BACK
FAMILY OF BRITISH JIHADI BRIDE SPEAKS OUT
THE family of jihadi bride Shamima Begum say they understand why people in Britain “are angry and don’t want her back”. The teenager’s brotherin-law told how her mother openly wept after speaking to her daughter on the phone and pleaded for “compassion and understanding” on Begum’s behalf. Pregnant Begum, 19, left, was just 15 when she and two other girls from Bethnal Green, east London, travelled to Syria to join Islamic State, said this week she wants to “come home” to have her third child despite
showing little remorse for joining the terror cult’s caliphate in the Middle East.
But ministers have told Begum that “actions have consequences” and confirmed she must find her own way out of war-torn Syria.
Speaking yesterday brotherin-law Mohammed Rehman said: “The family spoke with Shamima today. It was very emotional. There’s a mixture of elation and sorrow. We are happy that she’s alive but sad that things have come to this.
“She’s lost two children and put us all through a lot of heart ache. She’s also gone through a very difficult time herself.
“Shamima’s mother broke down when she heard her voice. Until the interview with her appeared in the newspaper we didn’t know if she was alive or not. So you can imagine, this has come as a shock to us all.
“At one stage we thought she was dead. There has been no contact with her in almost two years.”
Rehman said that although they do not understand her decision to travel to Syria, the family hope she will return home and be “re-educated”.
“Shamima’s mum just cried and told her to come home. She promised to make her her favourite food,” he said.
“We want her to come back so that she can be re-educated. As a family we can’t understand how her head was turned like this and why she thought going to Syria was a good idea.
“I can understand why people in this country are angry and don’t want her back. What she’s done doesn’t portray Islam in a good light. But she was only 15 when she went to Syria. We are appealing for compassion and understanding on her behalf.”
Security minister Ben Wallace warned the teenager could be prosecuted if she returns four years after travelling to Syria from Bethnal Green, with her two friends Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase.
He said yesterday: “As a British citizen she has a right to come home.
“But we are very clear that
we won’t do consular services in Syria. It’s a highly dangerous part of the world.
“She therefore has to make her own way to Turkey or Iraq and then consular services are there.
“But anyone who goes out to fight or support organisations such as Isis (IS) – dreadful, horrendous organisations – should expect to be investigated, should expect to be interviewed and should at the very least expect, potentially, to be prosecuted. Actions have consequences. I’m not putting at risk British people’s lives to go and look for terrorists or former terrorists in a failed state.” She may face a
Temporary Exclusion Order which means she must organise her return to the UK in advance and would likely have to report to police and work with counter-radicalisation officials.
Begum, who says she is ninemonths pregnant and could have her third baby any day, believes the caliphate is “over” and that the terror group didn’t “deserve victory” because of “corruption”.
Speaking from a Syrian refugee camp she said: “I’m not the same silly little 15-yearold schoolgirl who ran away from Bethnal Green four years ago.
“I don’t regret coming here. “Mostly it was a normal life in Raqqa, every now and then bombing and stuff.
“But when I saw my first severed head in a bin it didn’t faze
me at all. It was from a captured fighter seized on the battlefield, an enemy of Islam. I thought only of what he would have done to a Muslim woman if he had the chance.
“Journalists can be spies too, entering Syria illegally. They are a security threat for the caliphate.”
Former Foreign Office and counter-terrorism minister Dr Kim Howells said: “She sounds to be completely unrepentant, she sounds cynical, she wasn’t fazed by the sight of these heads in a bin as she described it.
“And now she wants to take advantage of the NHS. You can bet your bottom dollar there will be a lobby to get this girl home on humanitarian grounds.”