Shamima Begum
Shamima Begum (born 25 August 1999)[1] is a British-born woman who entered Syria to join the Islamic State at the age of 15 in 2015.
In February 2019, Begum was discovered alive at the al-Hawl refugee camp in Northern Syria by war correspondent Anthony Loyd.
[18][19] The Daily Telegraph reported that Begum had been an "enforcer" in ISIS's "morality police", and had tried to recruit other young women to join the jihadist group.
[20] The report said that she was allowed to carry a Kalashnikov rifle and earned a reputation as a strict enforcer of IS's laws, such as dress codes for women.
An anti-IS activist was also reported by The Daily Telegraph as saying that there were allegations of Begum stitching suicide bombs into explosive vests so they could not be removed without detonating.
Later, investigative journalist Josh Baker posed as an ISIS member and was able to speak with the person responsible for convincing Shamima to join the group.
[22] In 2022, investigative journalist Josh Baker retraced her route through Turkey and uncovered a vast ISIS people-smuggling network that facilitated Begum's travel to Syria.
He also received hundreds of pages of secret files on the smuggler that revealed the man at the heart of the network, Mohammed Rashed, was conducting an intelligence operation.
"[25][26] Separately published in August 2022, Richard Kerbaj's book The Secret History of the Five Eyes claimed that Mohammed Rashed, who helped her travel to Syria, was passing information to Canadian intelligence, which was known to the Metropolitan Police.
Canadian intelligence was using Rashed for information on the Islamic State, while allowing him to help people to travel to Syria to work for them.
[27][28] In February 2019, The Times' war correspondent Anthony Loyd found Begum at the al-Hawl refugee camp in Northern Syria.
[32] Begum's frequent visits from journalists at al-Hawl earned the attention of female Tunisian IS camp members who threatened her if she spoke out against IS ideology.
[46] On 8 March, Syrian Democratic Forces announced that Begum's son Jarrah, whose imminent birth had apparently motivated her desire to return to the UK, had died in hospital the previous day.
He said that the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development were trying to rescue IS brides and that the decisions to deprive individuals of UK citizenship were based on evidence.
[48] It was reported in August 2022 that Begum’s lawyer claims the British authorities knew that Begum was helped to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State by a Canadian intelligence agent – as claimed by Richard Kerbaj in his book The Secret History of the Five Eyes – a factor that had not been brought to the attention of the Supreme Court.
[58] In May 2019, Bangladeshi foreign minister Abdul Momen repeated his position on Begum and added that if she entered Bangladesh she would face the death penalty due to the nation's "zero tolerance policy" towards terrorism.
[59] In August 2019, the Metropolitan Police requested media organisations that had interviewed Begum—the BBC, ITN, Sky News and The Times—to surrender any unpublished material they may hold about Begum.
[61] In July 2020, the Court of Appeal ruled that Begum could return to the UK to contest the government's decision to rescind her British citizenship.
[65] On 7 August 2024, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled she will not be allowed to challenge the removal of her British citizenship as the grounds of her case "do not raise an arguable point of law".
