‘I was groomed’: Shamima Begum insists she ‘didn’t hate Britain’ when she fled to Syria – and now wants to face trial in UK

Published

4 years ago

November 21, 2021

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Shamima Begum, the Bethnal Green schoolgirl who fled to Syria and joined IS, has told Sky News she was groomed by friends and older men she met online before joining the terror group.

Speaking from a prison camp in Syria, Begum said she wanted to go on trial in the UK and invited British officials to question her in prison.

And she said that when she left the UK in 2015 she “didn’t hate Britain”, but hated her life as she felt “very constricted”.

In a wide-ranging interview, Begum spoke about her experiences with Islamic State and life in Syria.

“Can I keep my mask on?” Shamima Begum asks before the interview starts. “I’m looking ugly today.”

Begum now speaks with a soft American twang and little trace of her east London upbringing.

She wears yoga leggings, a pink sweatshirt, black baseball cap and a small handbag across her chest.

In almost any other context, she would be utterly unremarkable, but this is a prison camp in northeast Syria and Begum, now free of her strict black Islamic State dress, remains a captive of her notorious past.

She left home in London aged 15 for the promise of paradise, instead she found “hell, hell on Earth”.

Begum rejects accusations that she carried out atrocities as part of IS as “all completely false”.

“I’m willing to fight them in a court of law but I’m not being given a chance.”

She wants to do that in Britain but expects to go to prison even though the only crime she admits to committing is travelling to Syria itself.

Begum now believes she was groomed for “weeks and weeks and maybe even months and months. It wasn’t just a decision I made very quickly, it was a decision I thought about for a while.”

“I didn’t hate Britain, I hated my life really,” she said. “I felt very constricted, and I felt I couldn’t live the life that I wanted in the UK as a British woman.”

There is a childlike shyness to her, still. She rarely makes eye contact as we talk, often looking downwards and away; she interlinks her hands down by her waist, unconsciously closing her body a little as she answers my questions.

Perhaps she is a good actress, turning it on for the camera, but my instinct is that she is every bit as young and naive as you might expect of her 22 years. Naive, but not necessarily innocent.

Begum and I walk around al Roj camp together – mud and sand streets lined by white tents provided by the UN.

Begum is worried about recent fires, scared that her high profile will make her a target for inmates wanting to make a name for themselves.

“For a long time it [the camp] wasn’t violent but for some reason it’s become more scary to live here.

“Maybe the women have got tired of waiting for something,” she reasons.

We talk about her family – she misses them but doesn’t currently speak to them: “I don’t think they failed me, in a way I failed them. When the time is right, I want to reconcile.”

I ask her about her future: “It’s hard to think about a future when everyone tells you that you’re not going to go back.”

And she brings up her Dutch husband, the father of her three dead children, who fought for Islamic State and recently spoke about their “beautiful life” together.

Are they still officially married? “Yes.”

Does she sympathise with him? “No.”

Does she miss him? “No.”

Begum tells me that she rarely watches television but does have a stack of books in her tent, her favourites are by the Afghan author Khalid Hosseini. “I re-read the Kite Runner but I don’t know why people keep giving me books about war.”

By herself, she eats dried noodles, but is “having friends round to her tent for supper tomorrow night”. She won’t cook herself, instead she will buy it in from another woman on camp.

“I have hopes and dreams, things I want to do, to see,” she says, but won’t expand when I push her.

One of her friends, a Dutch prisoner called Hafedda Haddouch, tells me Begum often hides away in her tent for weeks. But Begum insists she’s not suicidal, when I ask her.

The small group of women are clearly Shamima’s support. They giggle and pose for photos, as vain as you would expect of anyone that age.

For some, Begum is a cause célèbre, unfairly imprisoned without trial and an example of a heartless Conservative government. For others, she is a terrorist, who still poses a threat to national security and should never be allowed back into the country of her birth.

Such is the visceral hatred of many in that quarter, you wonder whether a return to the UK would be wise at all for Begum.

Bangladesh, the country with which the UK claims she held dual-nationality, has rejected any association with her.

“There is no Plan B,” is her answer when I ask what she will do if the British government doesn’t reverse its position and reinstate her citizenship.

Have any British officials or lawyers visited her in prison? “Never” she claims.

Her opinion towards the media is conflicted – she blames past interviews and reporting “100%” for her current limbo, but also believes a high profile remains her only hope of release. There’s probably some truth in both those positions.

Almost a third of Shamima Begum’s life has now been lived in Syria. She is being held in prison, for an indeterminate amount of time, but hasn’t yet stood trial. That much is fact.

If she had been repatriated the day the caliphate fell, she might already be some considerable way through a guilty sentence, but the British government decided she was a risk to national security, a decision the Supreme Court upheld.

She has been disowned by the country she grew up in, cut off from the family she grew up with, and is now part of a prison population that is becoming an increasingly unsustainable burden on the Kurdish authorities who guard them.

Shamima Begum is the woman that nobody wants, and she knows it. When she closes her eyes at night she says she is haunted by “my children dying, the bombings, the constant running, my friends dying”.

Begum has already been judged, albeit only in court of public opinion, and for now, she is going nowhere.

The Shamima Begum interview was produced by Andrew Drury and Zein Ja’far and filmed by Jake Britton.

UK

British fighter jets defend Polish skies after Russian drone incursion

Published

49 mins ago

September 21, 2025

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British fighter jets defend Polish skies after Russian drone incursion

Two British fighter jets have flown their first defence mission over Poland after a Russian drone incursion into the country’s skies.

The flight was part of NATO‘s operation “Eastern Sentry”, launched to bolster Europe’s eastern flank after Poland shot down Russian drones earlier this month.

A Russian drone was intercepted flying over Romania days later, while three Russian jets entered Estonian airspace without permission for 12 minutes on Friday.

The three incursions into NATO airspace fuelled concerns about the potential expansion of Russia‘s three-year war in Ukraine and have been seen as an attempt by Moscow to test the military alliance’s response.

The incident over Poland prompted its prime minister, Donald Tusk, to warn that his country was the closest to “open conflict” it had been since the Second World War, while the UK announced it would provide Warsaw with extra air cover.

Two RAF Typhoons, supported by an RAF Voyager air-to-air refuelling plane, took off from RAF Coningsby, in Lincolnshire, on Friday night to defend Poland’s skies before returning safely early on Saturday morning.

Defence Secretary John Healey said the mission sends a clear signal that “NATO airspace will be defended”.

“I’m proud of the outstanding British pilots and air crew who took part in this successful operation to defend our allies from reckless Russian aggression.”

He said the mission was “especially poignant” coming as the UK marks the 85th anniversary of the Battle of Britain – when Polish pilots came to the aid of the UK – this weekend.

The head of the RAF, Air Chief Marshal Harv Smyth, said: “This sortie marks the RAF’s first operational mission on Eastern Sentry, reinforcing the UK’s steadfast commitment to NATO and its allies.

“We remain agile, integrated, and ready to project airpower at range.”

UK

Starmer to announce formal recognition of Palestine as a state

Published

10 hours ago

September 21, 2025

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Starmer to announce formal recognition of Palestine as a state

The UK will formally recognise Palestine as a state, it is understood.

Sir Keir Starmer is expected to make the announcement on Sunday after he said in July that the government would make the move unless Israel met certain conditions.

The prime minister had called on Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to take substantive steps to end the “appalling situation in Gaza“, agree to a ceasefire, commit to a long-term sustainable peace, allow the UN to restart the supply of aid, and not annex the West Bank.

The Israeli foreign ministry furiously rejected his statement, with Mr Netanyahu claiming that “Starmer rewards Hamas‘s monstrous terrorism and punishes its victims”.

Ilay David, brother of Hamas hostage Evyatar David, who was seen emaciated in a video last month, said giving recognition was “like saying to Hamas: ‘It is OK, you can keep starving the hostages, you can keep using them as human shields.’

“This kind of recognition gives Hamas power to be stubborn in negotiations. That is the last thing we need right now.”

There has been no ceasefire, and the situation in Gaza has deteriorated, with a declaration of a famine in Gaza City and the expansion of Israeli military operations.

Israel has launched a major ground offensive to seize all of Gaza City and destroy Hamas in an operation which has prompted widespread condemnation, with UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper calling it “utterly reckless and appalling”.

Earlier this month, a UN commission of inquiry concluded that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Israel said the claim was “distorted and false”.

The UK will join 147 of the 193 members of the UN who recognise Palestine ahead of the UN General Assembly in New York on Monday.

Other nations, including France, Australia and Canada, have said they plan to take the same step at the UN gathering as part of a broad international effort to put pressure on Israel.

During a joint news conference with the prime minister at Chequers on Thursday, Donald Trump said he disagreed with recognition, and US politicians have urged the UK and other allies to reverse their stance.

Sky News understands that Israel is considering options in response to the UK’s decision, but the strength of that reaction is still under consideration.

Family members of some of the 48 hostages still in captivity, after Hamas and other militant groups stormed into Israel on 7 October 2023, have written an open letter to Sir Keir, condemning the move.

“Hamas has already celebrated the UK’s decision as a victory and reneged on a ceasefire deal,” they said.

“We write to you with a simple plea – do not take this step until our loved ones are home and in our arms.”

The UK government is understood to be looking at further sanctions on Hamas, and has demanded the group release all hostages, agree to an immediate ceasefire, accept it will have no role in governing Gaza, and commit to disarmament.

UK

Heathrow among major airports hit by delays after cyber attack

Published

13 hours ago

September 20, 2025

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Heathrow among major airports hit by delays after cyber attack

Heathrow was among a number of major airports across Europe hit by delays after a suspected cyber attack that targeted a service provider for check-in and boarding systems.

The “technical issue” affecting Collins Aerospace, which provides check-in and boarding services for various airlines, resulted in 14 flights being cancelled at Brussels Airport on Saturday, and several more being delayed at London Heathrow, Berlin, and Dublin, among others.

‘Very clever cyber attack’ cancels flights in Europe – latest

Passengers have reported being unable to check in online, instead queuing for hours for staff to deal with them manually at desks and departure gates, only to be told their flights are not taking off.

Helen Steel, 49, left Dorset for Heathrow at 3am to travel home to Oslo, with her cat Thomas – but was “shouted at by staff” who told her she would not be able to fly until Sunday.

Describing the situation as an “absolute nightmare”, she said: “I’ve got an animal here, so I’m very concerned about his welfare.

“I’ve been shouted at twice and I broke down in tears because I was worried about him. None of us have had any information whatsoever. Whenever we ask ground staff, they shout at us.”

Ms Steel says she spent two hours in the queue on the phone to customer service and is now having to find a hotel to stay in overnight.

Sam arrived at Heathrow expecting to drop his girlfriend off for her flight to Rio de Janeiro – but was still at the airport seven hours later.

When they arrived, it was “chaos everywhere”, he told Sky News, with “nobody seeming to know what was going on”.

The couple say they were not told about the cyber attack by airport staff, finding out about it online instead.

After queuing for three hours, they made it to the front, only to be told the plane was not taking off, he adds.

“Her flight was at 8.40am and it was held back until 10.15am. At 10.10am they sent everyone away and told them to contact the airline. But there are no representatives for any airlines whatsoever. It’s been a bit of a farce.

“Nobody knew where they were going – and they were sending people left, right, and centre.

“She’s going tomorrow now, but we’ve got to find a hotel, and no one is here to give us any hotel vouchers. They just give you a piece of paper and say ‘you’ve got to pay for it yourself’.”

‘Insane queues’ and ‘skeleton staff’

Passenger Tereza Pultarova waited around 10 hours at Heathrow after she arrived at 4.30am for her flight to Cape Town via Amsterdam.

“We were kind of stranded here because KLM wasn’t able to issue us boarding passes digitally, and requested us to collect them at the check-in desk,” she said.

“And then they told us that there is some sort of global issue with the system they’re using for check-in and boarding, and they have to do everything manually. So then they were checking in people at the rate of, like, one person per 10 minutes.

“I’m not exaggerating. It was just insane, the queue wasn’t moving. And then suddenly they said, ‘Oh, the flight will be departing, we’re closing the gate’.

Maria Casey was due to fly to Thailand with Etihad Airways – but had to wait three hours to drop off her luggage at Heathrow, with staff taking between five and 10 minutes to deal with each passenger.

“The queues are terrible,” she told Sky News. “It was an absolute skeleton staff. Out of six of the desks there were probably two people”.

A Heathrow spokesperson advised people to arrive no more than three hours early for a flight and apologised for any inconvenience.

It is understood British Airways at Terminal 5 remains unaffected and is operating as normal.

Collins Aerospace said it is working to resolve the issue as soon as possible.

“We have become aware of a cyber-related disruption to our Muse (Multi-User System Environment) software in select airports, the firm said in a statement.

“The impact is limited to electronic customer check-in and baggage drop and can be mitigated with manual check-in operations. We are actively working to resolve the issue and restore full functionality to our customers as quickly as possible.”