Shamima Begum could be released from a Syrian detention camp almost 10 years after leaving the UK to join ISIS, according to a former camp guard.
Begum ran away to Syria to join the Islamic State in 2015, where she became the wife of a notorious IS member. She was stripped of her British citizenship in 2019 and has since fought for the decision to be reversed.
Now 24, she is known to be living in the al-Roj camp alongside thousands of female ISIS detainees, but could be “running free within days”. After the fall of President Assad to Turkish-backed forces in December, her own guards could release her.
However, the UK government has said just this week she will not be permitted to return, acting in the interest of national security.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Defence Force (SDF) which runs the camps has been attacked by Turkish airstrikes in recent days, as well as a ground assault by new Syrian government Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Mirror reports.
A former guard said: “If HTS and the Turks get close to the prison camps, the SDF could release all the prisoners. If they feel they can’t defend the camps because they need to defend their homes and loved ones, they will open the gates of hell.”
Begum left her home in East London with two close school friends, Kadiza Sultana, 16, and Amira Abase, 15, to travel to Istanbul in order to join ISIS. She ignored her family’s warnings Syria was a “dangerous place” and married Dutch-born hardline ISIS member Yago Riedijk, 27.
The couple had three children, all of which later died, before separating. Begum claimed he was tortured after being arrested for spying. In the ITV documentary The Return: Life After ISIS, she spoke about the death of her third child.
She said: “He was my last hope, he was the only thing keeping me alive. I didn’t know how. That day I just cried for all my children. I cried for all of them. No one could help me, no one could do anything.”
Begum left the UK nearly 10 years ago.
(Image: Metropolitan Police/PA Wire)
Begum was discovered again in 2019 by a British journalist in a refugee camp, alerting the government that she was still alive, prompting officials to remove her British citizenship and ban her from entering the country after deeming her a threat to the nation.
In a BBC interview the same year, she claimed she was drawn to the terror group’s promise of a “good life”. When asked if she was also attracted by “beheading videos”, she responded: “Not just the beheading videos, the videos that show families and stuff in the park. The good life that they can provide for you. Not just the fighting videos, but yeah the fighting videos as well I guess.”
At the time, her mother Asma Begum begged the government to reconsider the decision to remove her citizenship. A letter to the Home Office from the family’s lawyer, written on behalf of her mother, asked them to do so as “an act of mercy” following the deaths of her children.
Her sister Renu Begum said the family made every “fathomable effort” to stop Shamima from joining ISIS. In a letter to the then-Home Secretary, she wrote: “That year we lost Shamima to a murderous and misogynistic cult. “My sister has been in their thrall now for four years, and it is clear to me that her exploitation at their hands has fundamentally damaged her.”
In 2020, the Court of Appeal initially allowed her to enter the UK to appeal her citizenship. However, this was overturned by the Supreme Court the following year, finding national security concerns outweighed her right to an effective hearing.
Shamima Begum fed for Syria in 2015
(Image: ITV)
In 2021, she agreed to be photographed in a Syrian detention camp, and was pictured looking drastically different, wearing Western clothing, sunglasses and no head covering. She denied her Westernised appearance was a publicity stunt.
She said at the time: “I have not been wearing hijab for maybe more than a year now. I took it off for myself, because I felt very constricted in the hijab, I felt like I was not myself. And I feel like it makes me happy, to not wear the hijab. I’m not doing it for anyone but myself. I’ve had many opportunities to let people take pictures of me without my hijab on, but I did not.”
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She lost a challenge against the Supreme Court’s decision in February 2023, with her lawyer describing it as a “continuing injustice”. The following month, the BBC tracked down her former friend Sharmeena Begum, who initially inspired her to leave the country and join ISIS. Speaking to an undercover reporter, she referred to Shamima as a “failed ISIS bride on benefits”.
She added: “They’re making her seem too jihadi when she was nothing. She didn’t even have a suicide vest. She couldn’t even speak Arabic, so how could she be religious police. The woman could barely speak around people who were European because she was socially awkward. She always stayed in her house, her husband didn’t allow her to go out.”
During another appeal in October 2023, Begum’s lawyers claimed the Home Office failed to consider legal duties owed to her as a potential victim of trafficking, branding it “unlawful”. The Guardian reported at the time she was in Kurdish custody in north-east Syria and regretted running away, and is said to have claimed she would “rather die than go back to IS” and be willing to face terror charges in a UK court.
In August 2024, it was ruled she would be refused citizenship on the grounds of national security. Her solicitor Daniel Furner said: “We are not going to stop fighting until she does get justice and until she is safely back home.”
However, Foreign Secretary David Lammy has said this week that Begum will not be allowed back in the UK. Speaking to ITV’s Good Morning Britain, he said: “Shamima Begum will not be coming back to the UK. It’s gone right through the courts. She’s not a UK national. We will not be bringing her back to the UK. We’re really clear about that. We will act in our security interests. And many of those in those camps are dangerous, are radicals.”
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