‘DOZENS’ OF JIHADI BRIDES WANT TO GET HOME
As pregnant British ISIS recruit begs for rescue from Syria...
BRITAIN could be forced to take back a runaway Islamic State schoolgirl – and dozens of other jihadi brides fleeing their collapsing caliphate.
Ministers yesterday vowed not to risk UK lives to rescue pregnant teenager Shamima Begum,
who is begging to come home despite having ‘no regrets’ about her four years in Syria.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid said last night he would use all available powers to prevent Begum from returning to the UK, while security sources told The Times she would be treated as a ‘ national security threat’ if she returned to British soil. But if Begum, 19, makes it across borders to a British consulate, officials will have little choice but to allow her home so the NHS can care for her baby.
The Mail understands dozens more jihadi brides are poised to come back to Britain as their medieval caliphate is crushed.
Begum was just 15 when she and two other pupils from Bethnal Green Academy in London flew to Syria in 2015 to marry IS fighters. This week she shocked the world again by showing up at a refugee camp in Syria, having fled the terror group’s final battle.
The teenager declared no remorse but revealed her first two children had died and she was ‘terrified’ of theconditions in the camp. She ‘desperately’ wants NHS help with her third baby, which is due any day now.
Mr Javid said: ‘We must remember
that those who left Britain to join [IS] were full of hate for our country. My message is clear – if you have supported terrorist organisations abroad I will not hesitate to prevent your return.’
He told The Times: ‘If you do manage to return you should be ready to be questioned, investigated and potentially prosecuted.’
Begum’s mother broke down in tears after speaking to her long-lost daughter by phone – telling her to ‘just come home’. Her brother-in-law said he understood ‘why people in this country are angry and don’t want her back’ but appealed for compassion.
But there is furious opposition to the idea of Britain welcoming them back when they chose to embrace a terror organisation that horrified the world with videos of hostages, such as volunteer aid worker Alan Henning, being beheaded.
UK taxpayers could face enormous costs in repatriating the women, who will need to be kept under surveillance as well as being given protection against
‘Radicalised and brainwashed’ ‘Appealing for compassion’
potential vigilante attacks. As an extraordinary row broke out:
Mr Henning’s brother said it would be ‘disgusting’ if Begum was allowed home;
Security minister Ben Wallace said ‘actions have consequences’ but admitted as a British citizen, ‘she has rights – that’s the reality of it’;
A former police chief warned Begum could become a ‘lightning rod’ for the far-Right if allowed home;
A lawyer for her family said she should be treated as a victim;
A Bethnal Green imam said the former schoolgirls were a ‘danger for the community’, but Begum said: ‘I’m not the same silly little 15- year- old schoolgirl who ran away.’
In an extraordinary interview, Begum told Anthony Loyd, a correspondent for The Times who found her in the Al-Hawl refugee camp, that ‘I don’t regret coming’ to Syria.
She added: ‘When I saw my first severed head in a bin, it didn’t faze me at all. It was from a captured fighter on the battlefield – an enemy of Islam.’
Begum said that as of two weeks ago, her Bethnal Green classmates Amira Abase and Sharmeena Begum were alive. But both had chosen to stay in the town of Baghuz where IS is being crushed by Kurdish-backed Syrian forces. A fourth girl, Kadiza Sultana, was reportedly killed in 2016.
Shamima Begum’s brotherin-law Mohammed Rehman said: ‘ The family spoke with Shamima. It was very emotional. There’s a mixture of elamade tion and sorrow. We are happy that she’s alive but sad that things have come to this. 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.
‘We want her to come back so that she can be re-educated.
‘I can understand why people in this country are angry and don’t want her back. But we are appealing for compassion and understanding on her behalf.’
Mohammad Uddin, the father of Sharmeena Begum, said the girls should be forgiven because they were ‘radicalised and brainwashed’. Abase’s father, Hussen Abase, said: ‘They are no threat to us.’
Tasnime Akunjee, a lawyer for the girls’ families, said they were ‘victims’. He added: ‘I’m grateful she’s still alive, but she remains in danger.’ But Alan Henning’s brother Reg said Shamima Begum should ‘ absolutely not’ be allowed back. Mr Henning, 69, of Bury, Greater Manchester, added: ‘The authorities should take her passport off her. She her choice, didn’t she? She made her bed and she should lie in it.’
Dr Kim Howells, a former counter-terrorism minister, said: ‘She sounds to be completely unrepentant, she sounds cynical, she said 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.’
Sir Peter Fahy, former chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, said Begum could become ‘some sort of lightning rod for both Islamic and far-Right extremists’.
Sources said there were dozens of British women and their children in the camps spread across Syria.
Mr Wallace vowed that no diplomats would risk their lives to go and rescue Begum, but admitted: ‘She is eligible for consular assistance if she makes it to a country where there is that – Turkey, Iraq.’
The Prime Minister’s spokesman said those who went to Syria ‘must be in no doubt they will be questioned, investigated and potentially prosecuted’ on their return.
FOUR years ago, 15-year- old Shamima Begum and two classmates fled their homes in East London to join Islamic State.
Bewitched by propaganda on the internet, they travelled to Syria to become jihadi brides for the brutal terror group.
Now the warped adventure is over. As the medieval caliphate collapses, Begum – now 19 and heavily pregnant – has pleaded to be allowed back to Britain.
Not from a newly-discovered loyalty to the country she abandoned, nor because she realises her terrible error. On the contrary. ‘I don’t regret coming here,’ she says. ‘But I just want to come home to have my child.’
She has not shown one iota of repentance. Just a desire for a room in an NHS hospital to give birth. Given the savagery of IS – public beheadings, crucifixions and rapes – many will shudder at the prospect.
It is abhorrent she aligned herself with a group that executed British hostages and inspired atrocities on UK soil. Not unreasonably, many believe she should lie in the bed she made. As security minister Ben Wallace said: ‘Actions have consequences.’
The Mail shares that sentiment. Every fibre of our being recoils from having anything to do with Begum, who boasted she was ‘unfazed’ by seeing a severed head.
But with deep reluctance, we accept she is a British citizen – and our responsibility. Denying her access would breach international law. We also accept she was a vulnerable child when groomed at her computer by evil recruiters, and has since been indoctrinated by jihadists in Syria.
She must be thoroughly vetted to ensure she poses no security risk, and deradicalised. If she has committed battlefield crimes, she must be punished. If not, she must help police and the security services fight IS.
Like the overwhelming majority, we have no time for those who enjoy the advantages of our liberal society, then abuse it.
But offering someone the chance to atone for their mistakes is what separates us from the barbarians.