Chilling telltale clues Shamima Begum is STILL a threat to Britain as she admits it was ‘exciting’ joining ISIS
TELLTALE clues reveal Shamima Begum is still not willing to tell the whole truth on her four years with bloodthirsty ISIS fanatics.
She makes a fresh bid for sympathy in a new BBC documentary tonight – but also admits it was “exciting” being smuggled into Syria to join gun-toting killers.
6
6
6
Shamima, now 23, was interviewed at the camp where she is being held in northern Syria following the collapse of the ISIS “Caliphate”.
She was just 15 when she and two school pals sneaked away from home in Bethnal Green, East London, in February 2015.
She was “in love” with ISIS and desperate to join, she tells BBC2 doc The Shamima Begum Story, which airs tonight at 9pm.
The ISIS bride tells how they flew from Gatwick to Istanbul, where an ISIS handler waited with them for a bus.
After arriving in Gaziantep near the Syrian border, they met ISIS smuggler Mohammed Rasheed – who was also allegedly selling info to Canadian spies.
He secretly recorded video footage of Shamima and her pals Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana at the bus station being helped into separate cars.
Shamima says they switched cars “about seven times” before crossing into the ISIS badlands.
She said: “We crossed the border. It was just a big field of nothing.
“And there were like men wearing all black with their faces covered, with guns on their arms.
“And it was just a bit surreal, you know, seeing it in person.
“I mean at that time it was kind of exciting. It was kind of exciting, yeah. It was different.”
She said she did not think of them as dangerous terrorists, adding: “No. I thought they’re here to protect me.
“They have these guns to protect me and to protect women like me and to protect the Muslims.
“So I did not think in my wildest dreams that they would hurt me.”
She also said she never changed her mind about joining ISIS – even after being handed a phone to watch gruesome execution videos.
She said: “I just thought, there’s no turning back. I’ve already done it, I might as well see it through.”
Shamima went to ISIS capital Raqqa where she married Dutch jihadi Yago Riedijk – six years older at 21.
She has begged to be allowed to return to the UK and has appealed against a decision to strip her of British citizenship.
Supporters claim she is a victim of trafficking – but the government says she went to Syria with her “eyes wide open” and is a danger to society.
Previous reports have claimed she was a member of the brutal ISIS religious police, carried an AK-47 on street patrols and sewed suicide bombers into their explosive vests.
She denies all the claims in the new BBC doc, claiming she was “just a housewife” who was rarely allowed outside.
However the film also reveals Shamima lived for seven months with a mysterious Egyptian who allegedly supplied ISIS with weapons.
The ISIS bride claims she did not know his name – but also hails him as a “father figure” and says she does not believe he was a notorious arms dealer.
It is one of several scenes where she appears reluctant to admit the truth.
Propaganda videos
Shamima claims she “did not know” about ISIS atrocities – such as the filmed beheadings of British aid workers – before she left London.
She tells the BBC doc: “I got my news on social media
“And the people I spoke to on social media were saying, no it’s not true, it’s an exaggeration, they’re just trying to make ISIS look bad because they hate Islam.”
Filmmaker Josh Baker reminds her the sick videos were not only big news at the time but were all over YouTube and Twitter.
She blusters: “But they were constantly being taken down and like being deleted so it was very hard to watch these videos.
“And the people who I was talking to who were in ISIS didn’t send these videos either.”
However she goes on to say she did watch ISIS propaganda portraying Raqqa as “utopia”.
And she admits she was aware of a video of a Jordanian pilot being burned to death in a savage public execution.
She claims her close pal Sharmeena Begum – who had already fled to Syria – convinced her it was a media lie.
She says: “Because she was there and I wanted to be a part of the Islamic State and I just…
“It’s like when you are in love and you just don’t wannFa see the person’s faults.
“So you just like, push them to the back of your head or you just completely deny that they are there. You know.
“Like I was in love with the idea of ISIS. So I just always made excuses for them.”
Tory MP Tim Loughton hits back: “I don’t believe it. And no reasonable person would believe it.
“However much you are a teenager watching At Home With The Kardashians, doing loads of stuff on social media, being physically welded to your mobile phone – nobody, particularly three intelligent students from East London, could have been absolutely oblivious to the horrors that were being waged by Daesh out in Syria and Iraq at that time.
“It just doesn’t wash.”
Life in Raqqa
Shamima struggles to stifle a smirk and frequently looks away while being quizzed about her life in ISIS capital Raqqa.
She says it “almost felt like being in a movie” and gushes about how “normal” it was – although very different from Bethnal Green.
In a previous interview with The Times, she admitted she was “not fazed” by seeing severed heads in bins.
In the BBC doc she claims she never witnessed public executions as her husband did not allow her outside.
Shamima shifts in her seat when asked if she ever stitched suicide bombers into their vests. She says: “No. Not at all.”
She also denies trying to recruit for ISIS – but laughs when asked if she communicated with friends back in London.
“I don’t want to answer that question,” she says.
She also denies receiving any form of ISIS training or being part of the feared Hisbah religious police.
However another woman who admits being a member of the Hisbah also speaks to the filmmaker.
She reveals she personally saw Shamima at a training camp where women received weapons training and religious instruction.
Mystery Egyptian
Shamima recalls her happiness at being married to jihadi Riedijk – and her shock when he was sent to jail as a suspected spy days later.
The film reveals she lived for the next seven months in the house of an older man who was originally from Egypt.
And she appears extremely uncomfortable being asked about his identity.
Filmmaker Josh Baker says he asked her about the man known as Abu Qomra repeatedly over six interviews.
She gives various answers, at first claiming she can’t remember his name, then saying his real name was Saeed.
And she adds: “He was really nice to me, like a father figure.”
Smiling nervously, blinking and shaking her head, she claims she had no idea he was a senior figure in ISIS.
However a neighbour in Raqqa tells the doc: “He was responsible for providing weapons.
“He was a vicious person, a bad person – bad in the full sense of the word.
“If she was living with him she would have know all the details about his life.
“It’s impossible she didn’t know”.
Asked about claims he was an armourer for ISIS, Shamima responds: “I don’t believe that.”
An intelligence expert tells the film Shamima has good reason to fear being associated with such a dangerous figure.
‘Unfair’ whine
Also in the documentary, Shamima blames the press for “obsessing” over her links to ISIS, and moans it would be “unfair” to put her on trial for supporting the terrorists.
She also apologises for crass comments about the Manchester Arena bombing, which she previously said was “retaliation” for air strikes in Syria.
And she says she regrets joining ISIS, and would tell her teenage self: “Don’t do it b***h”.
She adds she no longer believes she will get back to the UK, saying: “Because ISIS was the worst thing of the 21st century and I was a part of it and now I have to face the consequences of my actions.
“And this camp is the consequences of my actions.”
The documentary was filmed alongside a ten-part podcast.
The BBC was slammed for giving Begum a “platform” last month.
And an author who also interviewed Begum said she is faking remorse to rehabilitate her image.
6
6
6
