No-regrets IS Briton pines for home

LONDON, Feb 14, (AP): A pregnant British teenager who ran away from Britain to join Islamic State extremists in Syria four years ago has said she wants to come back to London, but her path home is not clear.

Shamima Begum told The Times newspaper in a story published Thursday that she is nine months pregnant and worried about the health of her unborn child.

“In the end, I just could not endure anymore,” she said, describing the death from illness and malnutrition of her first two children. “Now all I want to do is come home to Britain.”

The 19-year-old Londoner was found by the newspaper in a refugee camp in northern Syria. She was one of three schoolgirls from the Bethnal Green neighborhood who went to Syria to join IS in 2015 at a time when the group’s online recruitment program lured a number of teenage girls to its self-proclaimed caliphate.

They went to join a fourth teen from Bethnal Green who had already joined the extremists. Begum told the newspaper all four married Islamic State extremists in Syria.