British teen who joined IS: ‘All I want to do is come home’
LONDON — When London teenager Shamima Begum fled Britain with two other schoolgirls in 2015 to join the Islamic State, it shocked a nation. Now, she wants to come home.
Begum, 19, i s nine months pregnant and living in a Syrian refugee camp. She says she doesn’t regret leaving Britain but now wants to return to give birth to her child.
“In the end, I just could not endure anymore,” she said in an interview with the Times of London. “Now all I want to do is come home to Britain,”
Her case raises broader questions about how to deal with the possible influx of Britons who might want to return following the territorial defeat of the caliphate. About 900 people from Britain are thought to have traveled to Syria or Iraq to join groups like the Islamic State, according to the Home Office, and of these, about 20 percent have been killed and 40 percent have returned.
Ben Wallace, Britain’s security minister, told the BBC on Thursday that Begum could face prosecution if she returns.
Begum fled to Syria in 2015 when she was 15 years old. She vanished during Easter break along with Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase, two other schoolgirls from the Bethnal Green area of East London. The trio traveled from London’s Gatwick airport to Turkey, and then made their way to Syria.
The case stunned Britain. The young women were bright and came from seemingly stable and happy families. Their fleeing was seen as a warning of the lure the Islamic State could have for young Western women.
Sultana is thought to have died in an airstrike in 2016. The fate of Abase is unknown.
Her father, Hussen Abase, told Sky News on Thursday that the girls had “made a mistake” and should be forgiven.
“I’m not the same silly little 15-year-old schoolgirl who ran away from Bethnal Green four years ago,” Begum said in the interview with the Times.
Begum said that when she arrived in Raqqa, she went to a house for bridesto-be and “applied to marry an English-speaking fighter between 20 and 25 years old.” Within 10 days, she was married to a 27-yearold from the Netherlands. They had two children who died of malnutrition and disease.