JIHADI BRIDE GIVES BIRTH AND SAYS: I DESERVE SYMPATHY
BRITISH jihadi bride Shamima Begum sparked fury last night by insisting she deserves sympathy as she showed off her newborn baby.
The 19-year-old, who fled the UK as a schoolgirl four years ago, said she still has no regrets about running away to marry an Islamic State supporter.
Begum, who gave birth to a boy over the weekend, used an extraordinary TV interview to plead her case for forgiveness and her hopes of a new life back in Britain.
Speaking from a Syrian refugee camp, she said: “A lot of people should have sympathy for me. I didn’t know what I was getting into when I left.”
The teenager, who fled with two school friends in 2015, surfaced at al-Hawl refugee camp in northern Syria last week.
She had married Yago Riedijk, a Dutch Muslim convert and wanted terror suspect, and given birth to two children who died as babies.
Her reappearance has sparked a vigorous debate about whether she and other former IS fighters and their wives should be allowed back into Britain.
In her TV interview she insisted she was just another mother and had not taken part in IS atrocities or joined in with its propaganda.
As she spoke, wearing an Islamic headdress, her baby, wrapped in a white blanket, was cradled on
camera by another woman. She said: “I just was hoping that for the sake of me and my child, they could let me come back.”
Asked if her flight from Britain, where she was a pupil at Bethnal Green Academy, east London, was a mistake, she said: “In a way, yes. But I don’t regret it because it’s changed me as a person. It’s made
me stronger, tougher, you know.” She insisted that nobody had any reason to believe that she would be a threat if she returned.
She added: “They don’t have any evidence against me doing anything dangerous.
“When I went to Syria I was just a housewife. The entire four years I stayed at home, took care of my
husband, took care of my kids, I never did anything. I never made propaganda, I never encouraged people to come to Syria.
“They don’t really have proof that I did anything that is dangerous.
“It would be a really big shock to go back to the UK and start a life again. It would be really hard.
“I’m still kind of in the mentality
of planes over my head and having the emergency backpack and starving and all these things.”
Begum said she was lured to Syria after watching news and videos on the internet.
She admitted to knowing that IS thugs were carrying out beheadings, executions and other atrocities before her departure. She
added: “I started becoming religious just before I left. From what I heard, Islamically that is all allowed. So I was okay with it.”
Defending her time abroad, she added: “I married my husband, I wouldn’t have found someone like him back in the UK. I had my kids, I did have a good time there.
“It’s just that then things got harder and I couldn’t take it any more and I had to leave.”
She said she fears being poor and having her baby taken away if she ever manages to return to Britain.
But critics last night accused the Londoner, who admitted being unmoved by the horrors of IS life, of cynical self-preservation.
Emma Fox, research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society think-tank, told the Daily Express: “Every time Shamima Begum speaks she sounds less and less remorseful.
“The only sympathy we should have is for the victims of IS – not its supporters. This is a committed member of IS and a defender of jihad. Her views expose just how dangerous she is.
“It is outrageous for Miss Begum to expect the taxpayer to pick up the tab for setting her up with a new life, jumping the queue on Brits who have not turned their back on our values.”
Speaking through solicitor Tasnime Akunjee, Begum’s family said: “We understand both she and the baby are in good health.
“As yet we have not had direct contact with Shamima.
“We are hoping to establish communications with her soon.”