, 13 tweets, 3 min read Read on Twitter
IS supporter Shamima Begum admits to @BBCNews she was a poster girl for IS recruitment, apologises to Britain for joining IS and says she is ready to face prison if she’s allowed to return.
She still has sympathy for the group and equated its crimes to coalition airstrikes against the extremist group.
She said that despite being only 15 years old when she left Britain to join IS, she knew what she was doing and was capable of making her own decisions.
Throughout the interview she held her 2 day old son Jarrar. He’s named after her first son who died while she was in the caliphate. She says she would have let her first son become an IS fighter. Now wants her boy “to be British”.
She claims that her family never sent her money, but that her Dutch jihadist fighter husband, Yago Riedijk, received money from his family, while the couple lived under IS.
She says that she viewed propaganda videos from IS and al-Qaeda linked groups. She watched videos of the murders of British hostages, but when asked, said she didn’t know the names of any of the victims.
She says she knew of the IS inspired attacks in Manchester and elsewhere, but hadn’t realised women and children were killed.
Shamima Begum still believes IS propaganda. When I asked her about the enslavement, murder and rape of Yazidi women by IS, she said “Shia do the same in Iraq”.
She had little to offer in way of an apology to the millions of Iraqis and Syrians whose lives were destroyed by IS.
When I told her of another female IS returnee how had gone to prison in the UK and lost parental custody, she asked “how old was she?”
She does not have a UK passport. She used her sister’s to cross into Syria and says it was taken then and she never saw it again. She says she does not have a Bangladesh passport.
Shamima Begum left the interview to feed her two day old baby boy. He is under her abbaya. She says she hopes her family will gain custody of him if she is imprisoned.
ALSO: According to local sources 12 British women have arrived at the Al Hawl camp in northern Syria, in the last week. More are expected as the last of IS territory is retaken.
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