‘We will not risk lives over Syria IS girl’

TERRORISM: The security Minister has ruled out launching a rescue mission to Syria after a London schoolgirl declared that she wanted to return to the UK four years after she joined the so-called Islamic State.

THE SECURITY Minister has ruled out launching a rescue mission to Syria after an east London schoolgirl declared that she wanted to return to the UK four years after she joined the so-called Islamic State.

Ben Wallace stressed he would not put British lives at risk to “go and look for terrorists or former terrorists”, adding that “actions have consequences”.

His comments came after Shamima Begum, inset, gave an interview from a refugee camp in northern Syria saying she wanted to come home.

She was one of three schoolgirls, along with Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase, from Bethnal Green Academy who flew to Turkey February in 2015, before crossing into Syria. Another girl, Sharmeena Begum, also from Bethnal Green but not related to Shamima, had travelled to Syria two months earlier. She was reported to have been killed in an air strike in 2016.

Shamima Begum said she had heard the other two girls may still be alive.

In an interview with The Times newspaper, she said “I don’t regret coming here”, adding: “I’m not the same silly little 15-yearold schoolgirl who ran away from Bethnal Green four years ago.”

Now 19, she said she was nine months pregnant with her third child. Her other two children have died.

“In the end, I just could not endure any more,” she said. “I just couldn’t take it. Now all I want to do is come home to Britain.”

Mr Wallace said anyone returning to the UK from the conflict abroad should expect to be investigated by police.

While refusing to comment on individual cases, he said: “I’m not putting at risk British people’s lives to go and look for terrorists or former terrorists in a failed state. There’s consular services elsewhere in the region and the strong message this Government has given for many years is that actions have consequences.”

But the former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Lord Carlile, said Shamima Begum will have to be accepted back into the UK if she has not become a national of any other country.

She was married 10 days after arriving in Raqqa in 2015 to a Dutchman who had converted to Islam. The couple left Raqqa in 2017 and a fortnight ago escaped from Baghuz, IS’s last territory in eastern Syria. Her husband surrendered to Syrian fighters, while she is now at the refugee camp in the north of the country.

The Government estimates 900 people “of national security concern” travelled from the UK to engage in the conflict in Syria and Iraq. A fifth have been killed while overseas, and 40 per cent– 360 – have returned to the UK.