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This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find upsetting

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and some strong language

I'm curious about how you think people perceive you.

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

As... As a danger, as a risk, as a potential risk to them,

to their safety, to their way of living.

Do you understand why society has so much anger towards you?

Yes, I do understand, but I don't think it's actually towards me.

I think it's towards Isis, but when they think of Isis, they think of me

because I've been put on the media so much, you know?

But they only did that because you chose to go to Isis.

But what was there to obsess over?

We went to Isis, that was it, it was over.

They just wanted to continue the story because it was a story.

It was the big story.

But you do accept that you did join a terrorist group?

Yes.

I did.

Three friends stride confidently through Gatwick Airport,

heading to war-torn Syria.

Hundreds and hundreds of Western Muslims

have been attracted to this death cult.

Shamima has become a lightning rod and a polarising figure.

I don't trust her. I think she's dangerous.

I think she's radicalised.

Was she trafficked? Was she groomed?

When you throw your lot in with the devil, don't expect the niceties

of what Western democracies and Western justice stand for.

They were children. They were manipulated.

We've probably let this child down at some point.

Could Shamima Begum have been prevented from reaching Isis?

There would have been a possibility, yes.

They can't expect just to come back to the UK

and be welcomed with open arms.

I think she shouldn't come back. She's made her choice.

It's really complex. She's really complex.

She was radicalised here.

It's our mess and we should clear it up.

The runaway Isis bride has had her British citizenship revoked.

If you did know what I knew, you would have made

exactly the same decision. Of that, I have no doubt.

I woke up early in the morning, maybe five, six o'clock,

because, like, our flight left at, like, 12:00,

so we just wanted to be there early.

Our bags were already somewhere else - like, hidden somewhere else.

I had to make an excuse as to why I was going,

so I was just like, "I have extra classes that I need to go to,"

and my mum believed me.

I just stood there with her, you know, just being quiet and stuff.

And then I got on the bus and I said, "Bye,"

and she was being really quiet.

It's not normal for her to be so quiet.

She was just staring at me and not saying anything,

and I just said bye to her and I got on the bus and I left.

And I feel really guilty, obviously, not giving her a better goodbye,

knowing that I would probably never see her again.

At the airport, there's a photo of you

walking through Yeah.

What's going through your head?

I felt like I was, like, not inside my body.

It felt like a dream.

That was one of the scariest moments of my life.

Just handing the passport over to the man

and him just, like, not even looking at it,

just gliding it past and handing it back to me and telling me to go.

Did you think you were ever coming back to Britain?

Really, at that time, I just was not thinking.

My mind was, like, completely blank.

But I guess, yes, I thought, this is the last time

I'm going to see the UK, you know?

Did that worry you?

I mean, in a way, I felt kind of relieved.

Can you take me back to 15-year-old Shamima

and life before Isis?

Whenever I describe, like, London to people here, I just always

talk about my friends because I feel like my friends

were a significant part of my life.

Kadiza and Amira I met when I was 11,

and they were the fun part. They were the happy memories.

Amira was quite outspoken.

She was in different clubs, societies.

She was even on, like, posters and stuff around the school.

Kadiza, really tall, and she was quite beautiful, if I'm honest,

so she used to stand out in that sense.

Shamima was a ghost.

She was quiet.

I mean, I could hear a pin drop louder than her voice.

You know, she seemed like she was in her own bubble.

We were all different, but weirdly, we just fit together

like pieces of a puzzle, you know?

And then when we were 14, 15, you know, we became religious.

Was the Shamima before that not particularly religious, then?

Not at all.

Like, not at all.

What was the change?

Sharmeena became religious after her mum died.

She was my closest friend.

She was someone that you can confide in and she'll listen to you.

I mean, the way she was talking about it, it was very persuasive,

but even if it wasn't persuasive, I just wanted to go along with what

my friend wanted, you know, so I could be accepted.

I didn't want to give them a reason to, like, you know,

exclude me from the group.

I'm curious to know, like...

..about your sense of identity at that time.

I didn't feel British or Bengali.

I didn't feel Bengali because I didn't want to be Bengali

and I didn't feel British because I feel like I wasn't able

to be British even though I wanted to be, if that makes sense.

You want to be accepted by society but I didn't feel like

I was accepted by society either, because of racism and other things.

Obviously, I just wanted to be a bit more free.

Being Bengali myself and being a brown girl from the same area,

I can understand where she's coming from in the sense that

she felt like culturally she was different,

she was Muslim on top of that,

she came from a disadvantaged background,

so in society you are sort of seen as a black sheep.

You know, it doesn't take a genius to just stand in an estate

in Tower Hamlets and look around you.

And you would have kind of grown up in kind of...

..semi-poverty, like, situation.

It's ironic because it is set against the backdrop

of the City of London and the district of Canary Wharf.

It does become a very hostile, challenging environment

to grow up in.

It's really hard wanting to integrate into society

but your family holding you back

because their idea of being British is being loose and, like, immoral.

Cultural expectations on a young woman would have been,

yes, you're going to school now, but ultimately,

when you come of a certain age, you have to get married.

And then, basically, that's pretty much end of the line for you.

What was the Shamima like for your parents?

Just, like, depressed and quiet and obedient and just...

..not content with my life, and in a way resentful to my family

for, like... Like, I felt oppressed.

But that's an exaggeration.

At the time, because I was just a teenager, I felt oppressed.

But, you know...

The Sunni extremist group Isis has announced that it's establishing

an Islamic State, known as a caliphate,

made up of territory that it seized in Iraq and in Syria.

It's also proclaimed its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,

as the leader of all Muslims.

Iraqi government forces are still battling...

When did you first become aware of Isis?

When Sharmeena wanted to leave.

She sent me the news clip of the caliphate being announced.

She explained what it was and how we had an obligation to go

and, like, you won't be able to practise your religion properly

in the UK and, you know, like, the UK is racist and Islamophobic.

Why would you stay in a place that doesn't even want you?

You know, things like that.

I mean, when she first said it, it just sounded impossible.

I'm like, "We're only 15. We can't go.

"It's..."

And then she said, "No, other teenagers have already gone,

"so we can do it, too."

And what were your first impressions when she's saying this?

This girl is crazy.

This girl, she's crazy.

She's lost her mind. She's not there any more.

And then she just... She was like, "OK, fine,

"I'll just leave by myself, then." And then she did it.

And then she started contacting us from within Isis

and describing, like, the situation and how great it was,

and it just... It made it more real and it made it more possible.

We just immediately started planning.

I mean, Sharmeena already did it, so she just told us

and there were obviously other people online telling us

and, like, advising us on what to do and what not to do.

What shifts someone from sympathiser to traveller?

It was that the travellers knew someone who had gone,

so the barrier to entry becomes lower

if you know someone who has travelled.

I think it's...

..very reasonable to suggest that without Sharmeena,

Shamima does not go.

She's talking to her friend who's saying, "This is fantastic.

"Here's how you do it. I can arrange it for you.

"What are you waiting for?"

What did you think you were going to?

Like, an Islamic utopia? I don't know.

I'd only seen one small clip of an Isis propaganda video,

which was the Eid video.

Families in the parks together.

The men saying, you know, come here, come with your families, it's safe.

You know, you can live a good Islamic life here,

you can build a family, you can be happy, you can go to paradise.

For young people seeking a sort of solution to, you know,

problems that they're facing, that can suddenly become quite seductive.

Isis propaganda is well known for the ultraviolence,

but only about 8% or 9% of Isis' output was that ultraviolence.

Of course, that's the bit that captures the headlines

and therefore it's what we all know and associate with the movement,

but that's not the only part of the picture

that she will have been offered.

As the media would like to tell you,

things are pretty chaotic here,

but what I've come to see here is...

..there's actually a really good medical service being provided here,

lots of hospitals.

This is where your sense of identity and belonging

have their natural home and this is where all these issues are resolved,

and Isis propaganda was quite good at saying

this is a United Nations of Islam.

Whether you're Arab or not Arab,

black or white, none of these things matter.

This is James Wright Foley, an American citizen of your country.

As a government, you have been at the forefront...

There was a lot of very critical things of Isis

in the news at the time

and you must have had some awareness of that.

How do you ignore that, or how do you perceive that this is still

the right thing to do with all the atrocities that they're committing?

To be honest, I did not know about these atrocities because I...

As a 15-year-old, I did not watch the news.

I got my news on social media and, like, the people who 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."

President Obama has tonight described the beheading

of the US journalist James Foley by an extremist from Islamic State

as an act of violence that shocks the conscience of the entire world.

The aid worker David Haines, held for 18 months in Syria

before being murdered,

has been called a British hero by the Prime Minister.

In the last hour, a video has been posted on the internet

which appears to show the British hostage Alan Henning being beheaded

by an Islamic State...

Do you get why people will find it hard to believe

that you just didn't watch Isis propaganda in London?

Yes, I understand why. Because they weren't 15 and they weren't me.

They don't know my situation.

You know, maybe more people have access to...

I mean, especially journalists, they don't understand

why I wouldn't know, because they're journalists,

they search the deepest, darkest parts of the internet

for all these videos and they know every single detail about Isis,

I mean, these videos were on Twitter

and YouTube, so it didn't... But they were constantly

being taken down and 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.

Shamima Begum has claimed

that she didn't see the sort of videos of people being executed

that were so widely publicised. Do you think that's true?

Don't believe it and no reasonable person would believe it.

However...

Erm, however much you're 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.

The one time I did hear about an execution was from a kid in school.

He came and said that Isis had just burned a Jordanian pilot.

If I went online and I asked Sharmeena,

"Hey, is this true? Did they burn a pilot?

And she said, "No, it's a lie.

"What happened was, he was flying over Isis territory

"and Isis shot him down.

"The plane crashed and caught on fire and the video is of them

"dragging his body out of the flames."

And she just said the media just twisted it to make it look

like Isis had executed him.

And you believed her?

Yeah, because she was there.

And I wanted to be a part of the Islamic State.

And I just... It's like when you're in love and you just,

you don't want to 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.

Police have issued an urgent appeal for help in finding

three schoolgirls from London who are believed to be trying to join

jihadists fighting in Syria.

The three teenagers flew to Turkey on Tuesday

without telling their families...

Police say three missing schoolgirls believed to be heading for Syria

will be in grave danger if they reach the country.

The teenagers, who are pupils at Bethnal Green Academy

in East London, were last seen boarding a flight to Turkey

on Tuesday.

When the girls leave, at the beginning

they are seen as victims.

Our unease and or fear as a society that Islamic State can reach out

from Syria into the minds of British schoolgirls at their homes

and lure them away, two of them aged 15, to a war zone,

that was frightening, frightening on a number of levels.

So these are the images of the girls that the police have released.

This is Salman calling from the East London Mosque.

Is this to do with the news that broke today?

It is.

So is that your sister?

One of the individuals? OK.

Is it possible for you to come and visit me at the mosque?

For the first time when I spoke to Shamima's sister on the phone,

she was... she was distraught.

She was crying. She was asking for prayers and so on.

And that, that really broke me.

Just so that you're comfortable,

we've already had conversations with the police, Inshallah,

and we're going to try and get them to do as much as they can

to bring them back here.

And if you need anything, if you need anything from us right... Eh?

We're going to make dua, we're going to make dua.

Don't cry. Don't cry. Please, don't cry.

We will do everything that we can, yeah?

OK? Don't cry. All right.

I'll let you go now.

I think there was almost...

there was almost a feeling of loss before we knew that we had lost.

And it was... it was really hard to stomach.

While the world was looking for us, we were just in the coach station.

Yeah.

We, like, changed our clothes.

We, like, dressed a bit more Islamically.

We contacted the smuggler who's going to help smuggle us

across the border, and we just waited for him.

Then other families started to come into the coach station

who also wanted to come to Isis, and we sat there with them.

He finally came in the middle of the night.

We had to buy food, obviously, so the smuggler took us outside

to exchange money and to buy food,

and then he would, like, escort us back to the coach station.

But he said we're not allowed to go outside by ourselves.

So, we didn't.

How long are you sat at this coach station for?

For, like, an entire day.

Just sitting and waiting and sitting and waiting.

We finally get on to the coach after, like, one day.

We were in the coach for maybe half a day

until we finally got to Gaziantep.

Go, go for him. To this car.

Put your bags.

We all get separated and then got into a bunch of cars,

kept switching cars.

Maybe seven times.

We were just doing everything he was telling us to do

because he knew everything and we didn't know anything.

So...

What's the message that you're trying to get to her

if she does see this?

We love her and she's our baby.

If anybody is telling her that they're going to love her more

than us, they're wrong. No...

Nobody in this world can love her more than we do.

My little sister still sleeps in the same bed as my mum.

And, it's just...

Sorry, give me a second.

We just want her to come home.

If you watch this, baby, please come home.

Mum needs you more than anything in the world.

You're our baby.

We just want you home. We want you safe.

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, like, on their arms.

And it was just a bit surreal, you know, seeing it in person.

What are you thinking?

I mean, at that time, it was Really?

It was kind of exciting, yeah.

It was different. It was...

You weren't thinking, these men are dangerous?

These are potential terrorists?

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.

They take us into a room, they search us, they search our bags,

they take our passports, they take our phones.

And then they just tell us, "OK, wait here until the bus comes

"for you guys to go to Raqqa."

The woman in charge of the bus,

you know, she liked us, I guess, and she gave us a phone

and we just looked up...

It was the first time I really sat down

and watched all the Isis videos, and I was just in complete shock.

I was... I was just in shock. I don't know what to say.

What's going through your head when you're watching those?

I was just very disturbed, but I just couldn't say anything.

And I would look at my friends' faces to see if they're disturbed,

too, but their faces were too neutral for me to...

..react. You know, how I would want to react.

I mean, in that moment, did you want to change your mind?

I just thought, there's no turning back.

I've already done it. I might as well see it through.

Did you ever think about changing your mind at any point

along the journey?

No, not along the journey.

Not from the Syrian border. Yeah.

Anybody who saw those gruesome videos

and wanted to remain in any way associated with that organisation,

engenders very little sympathy from most people.

This is joining up with people who are against everything

we stand for and want to kill us.

That's as bad as it gets.

Three schoolgirls who disappeared from East London

last week have made their way into Syria.

It's feared that they're already under the control

of the extremist group, Islamic State.

I'll just explain...

I remember I read an article about her

and her other two friends that came.

I read on Daily Mail.

While you were in Raqqa?

They were all over the news.

Everyone knew about the arrival in Raqqa

and everyone was talking about it.

They just sort of obviously think that it's going to be really fun.

It's going to be some kind of adventure,

but it's really not running away to join the circus.

It's much more serious than that.

They could not believe in a million years that three teenagers

would leave their good, comfortable lives in the UK

and make it to Syria without being caught by the government.

Like, they could not believe it.

Now, when they got on that aeroplane, I don't know whether

they were terrorists or not, but the likelihood is

that by now, or very soon, they're going to be terrorists.

They brought us to the madafa at night-time

and we reunited with Sharmeena.

And I was just so happy to see her.

She was at the top of the staircase and we were at the bottom

of the staircase and we just, like, screamed our girly screams

and just, like, ran up to each other and hugged each other and cried.

And we were just so happy to see each other

and everyone was happy to see us.

You know, it was, it was a nice feeling, you know,

it felt like sisterhood.

All the negative feelings I had for her about lying to me

kind of just, like, washed away.

I was just so happy to see her safe and just there.

And we were just, like, all reunited and, like, together again.

It was happy. It was a happy event.

With the three schoolgirls beyond the reach

of their families and the police, this has now become a blame game

on how they could have made it to first Turkey and then Syria.

I wanted to try and find out if there's any scraps

of any information that would help us work out

if the girls were in contact with anybody in Syria.

In Shamima's house, we managed to discover a letter

from the Metropolitan Police - it was addressed to the parents

of these girls, requesting their permission to question

the girls officially around the disappearance of Sharmeena.

But it was clearly handed to the girls themselves

to give to their families.

And none of the families had seen it.

So, just so I'm getting this right,

before the three girls from Bethnal Green leave,

there's an active investigation into one of their friends

who's already gone to join Isis? That's correct, yes.

And nobody outside of the school,

in terms of families or anything like that, is aware of this?

No-one else is aware of this.

It was absolutely ludicrous.

What the families were uncovering was that the police knew a lot more

about these girls' liaison

with people who were grooming them, who were radicalising them

and hadn't shared that information with the families.

Could I call the committee to order?

This is a session...

The families are furious about a letter

from the police which might have alerted them the girls were about

to flee the country, a letter which they say they never saw.

This afternoon their families appeared before MPs complaining

that when a classmate ran off to Syria in December,

nobody told them.

Ms Begum, you are the older sister of Shamima.

Would it have been better if the police had handed the letter

directly to yourselves?

If we'd received the letter, we would have contacted

the police, found out where has this first girl gone,

if they gave us that information,

and I would have spoken to my sister.

Thank you very much. I'm sorry, we're running a tiny bit late.

We're most grateful.

The family want an apology because they think

things could have been handled much better.

What would you like to say about that, Commissioner?

Well, first of all, we're sorry if the family feel like that.

Clearly, it's a terrible situation they find themselves in.

I'm also sorry that the letter that we intended to get to them

didn't get through, because clearly that failed.

It was intended for them and it failed

and for that, of course, we're sorry.

I don't think we would go as far as saying,

therefore, that caused the girls to go.

Can you just tell me how you felt seeing that letter?

It made me and my friends feel like we need to

move faster, you know?

Before we get in trouble.

These three girls were not the first girls at that school

to be radicalised and, in fact, go to Syria.

So, one girl was already there.

Another girl was actually taken off a plane in an attempt to go there.

Presumably, though, if one girl goes, if the police are running

an investigation, it's probably not pertinent for them to share

information because it might interfere with their investigation.

Well, it depends on what your priorities are.

Is your priorities about gathering intelligence about these girls,

or is your priorities about safeguarding?

But I know that they were more interested

in gathering intelligence.

I was shocked to see how young the three girls were.

And so, following those developments

is something that I did do.

And you were in the intelligence community at that time?

I was, yes.

Just want to talk to you a little bit about Mohammed Rasheed.

This is a man that moved Shamima Begum to Syria.

We've got a dossier of hundreds of pages of information

that was gathered by law enforcement and intelligence.

It shows that Mohammed Rasheed was gathering information

on everyone he helped.

I forget to give you the passport.

Copies of their ID documents, flight tickets,

passports, and that Rasheed was even entering into Syria

and documenting the location of Isis fighters.

It also shows a confession by him that he provided Shamima's

ID documents to Canadian intelligence.

Do you know if Mohammed Rasheed was a Canadian asset?

I do not.

But if you did know, you wouldn't be able to tell me, would you?

No, I would not be able to tell you.

A very senior serving intelligence officer at an agency

has confirmed to us that Mohammed Rasheed was indeed

providing information to the Canadians.

How do you feel about that, hearing that?

If indeed he was working on behalf of an intelligence agency,

the activities that he was conducting are essential

to intelligence collection.

And so, you know, that, I don't have issue with.

But there is a line that I feel was crossed in this operation

that has, you know, risked the lives of minors.

And that's a line that should really not be crossed.

And so, this would be an operation that has gone wrong.

Do you think there's a possibility that Shamima Begum

could have been prevented Yes, there is.

There would have been a possibility and a way to prevent that.

Once we started to get settled into the madafa and I saw

the situation and I saw the way women were talking about, you know,

Islam and, like, the things that Isis were doing

and how they think it's so great, it started to make me realise

that this is really real and it's kind of scary.

There was maybe 100 women and there were, like,

probably more than 100 children.

It was so packed and it wasn't clean.

It was so horrible.

I was so desperate to get out.

I couldn't, I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it.

How do you get out of the madafa?

The only way is to get married.

There's no other way. You have to get married.

It almost felt like prostitution, really, in a way.

Like, I had to give my body away for my freedom.

Kadiza married a Somali-American man.

He worked in the hospital.

And Amira married an Australian.

I deliver this message to you, the people of Britain.

We will defeat you.

First you say, you know, "I want to get married."

And then they take down your information and they ask you

what your preference is for what type of man you want to marry,

like age and nationality and language.

And, I mean, if you want to be more detailed,

you can even like say what you want them to look like.

And they would just, like...

..get a list of the men, because the men have also

given their information, and just kind of, like, pair you up.

Well, my friend came to me.

Said there's a girl, she's interested in getting married.

Are you interested?

I said, "Yeah, I guess I'm interested. Yeah."

So we sat down.

We had a meeting, me and Shamima.

I was really shy. So he just, like, introduced himself

and then I introduced myself.

And then he was like, "You want to ask me questions?"

And I had, like, a list of questions I wanted to ask him.

She wanted to be allowed to visit her friends,

live close to the market.

Some things like this.

I said, "Yeah, no problem."

What did you want from him?

Like, as a husband?

Just... Just a partner in life.

To be my friend, to be my companion, to love, to love me.

I wanted to be loved because I felt like I was not loved.

So I just wanted someone, you know, to be there for me always

and to protect me and love me.

I just wanted a partner so I can get out and

find some rest with.

Spend my days in Syria, somebody to take a bit of care of me, you know.

I asked her if she knew how to cook.

She said, "Yes, I know how to cook."

I said, "OK."

Why was that important to you?

Because... Because I need to eat.

And I like nice food.

It was kind of exciting for me

because I'd never been in a relationship, so...

And I was... My entire life, I'm just surrounded by women.

So it was kind of a new concept, being with a man, for me.

It was a little scary as well because I was like, this is the man

I'm going to have to spend my life with,

for however long he's alive or however long I'm alive.

So it was just a little scary, yeah.

We don't have such a thing as dating, going out, having...

having a meal together.

You get to know each other, like, a little bit.

If you click...

..then you decide to take the step.

We want to get married, and that's it. We got married.

Then he took me to the park.

That was really weird, like, for the first time,

like, seeing the park, you know, the famous park

the Eid video was done in.

We sat down and we just started talking more.

I got more comfortable with him, obviously, when it was just

more one-on-one time and it was more chill and stuff.

I want to say good things about him because there obviously

were good things about him. He was very protective of me.

He did take care of me, you know.

He was funny. He was really funny, I'm not going to lie.

He used to make me laugh.

There was this small, like, theme park I took her to once.

We had a nice time.

Ferris wheel, it was a very small ferris wheel, old.

Took a ride in it.

I was just happy to be out the madafa and just breathing fresh air

and being outside.

What are you learning about Shamima?

She is... She was very young when she came.

She didn't have a lot of life experiences,

not a lot of person to get to know.

Most of her life experience and what makes her who she is today

is the life experience that she got in the Islamic State.

But when I got to know her, she was basically an...

..empty paper.

And what did you learn about your husband?

Because he'd been in Isis a lot Yeah.

I don't want to say.

Because as I understand it, he was an Isis fighter.

I guess, yeah.

Before I was married to him, he was, yeah.

How did you feel knowing that he was a fighter?

I mean, I thought he was doing the right thing.

So I just thought, you know, he was fighting for his religion

and for the State.

She had got a little bit of understanding

about how the marriage life works.

So that helped her out a lot.

What were those sort of values that she'd come to understand?

Er, respecting of the husband.

Trying to please the husband.

Obedience, of course.

To the husband. Yes.

So you expected Shamima Yes.

What does obedience look like to a husband?

When I ask her to do something and she does it, it's not very hard.

What if she doesn't want to do it?

If she has a valid excuse, she doesn't have to do it.

It's an interesting way of phrasing it - a valid excuse,

because that doesn't seem like there's much choice

in that dynamic between the two of you.

No, there is not, actually. No.

No.

So what you want, she has to do? Basically, yeah.

It doesn't seem, from where I'm standing,

that that's a particularly healthy place for somebody to be.

It doesn't seem like two people are equal in that relationship.

We're not.

But she chose for that and she's happy with it.

She's very happy with it and I'm happy with it, so...

When you say she's not equal to you in that relationship...

In terms of, I am the one in charge, basically, yeah.

So you're around 21 and Shamima would have been how old?

She was about 15 at that time.

So you decided to marry a child?

She was underage, yeah.

I wouldn't consider her a child now, but she was underage, yeah.

You might not agree with it, but that doesn't mean it's not right.

First I had to get a house.

I wasn't very successful.

So my friend, he was... he was nice enough

to give me a room in his house.

He was a married man from Egypt.

And that was our new home.

Did you feel positive about the relationship?

I mean, at first, yes.

He was obviously very nice to me at the beginning,

so it was OK.

And then what happened?

And then he just comes home one day and he's like,

"I have to go to prison."

And I was like, I'm like, "What do you mean?"

And he was like,

"It's OK. I think it will just be for, like, a couple of days."

Why did he go to prison?

Because they thought he was a spy.

How long were you together before Ten days.

And he asked the man and the woman in the house if they could

take care of me, if I could stay.

And they said, "Of course, she can stay as long as she needs."

She refers to an Egyptian with whom she stayed

in northern Syria. Now, who is that Egyptian?

She was very opaque with me about it.

It was one of the subjects she didn't want to go into

and kind of skipped around, which drew my attention to it.

If I was a cop, I'd be wanting to know, who is this Egyptian?

What was his influence on her? That's important.

You said that you and your husband stayed with an Egyptian family.

Do you remember any of their names or anything like that?

No.

And what were their names?

Their kunyas were Umm Qomra and Abu Qomra, that's it.

Yeah.

And you don't know No.

But you don't remember his actual name?

His non-kunya.

Think it was like Saeed Yeah.

I heard his wife say a few times and then him answer,

So that must be his name. Yeah.

What was his personality like?

He was really nice. He was, yeah, he was really nice to me.

He was like a father figure Yeah.

No.

You never heard anything, any sort of Arabic or descriptive term

No.

What's the significance of this man potentially being

an armourer for Isis?

Well, it would mean that he played a significant role

on behalf of Isis, providing weapons.

Why might Shamima change her story or potentially conceal

information from me?

There's fear. There's trauma.

Disassociation in itself could mean that people

would see her as a threat simply by that association.

There are also consequences in terms of, you know,

what she's able to freely say, knowing that, you know,

any information can also incriminate her.

So we've been told that he was arming Isis members.

No.

How do you feel about the idea that you were living with somebody

that was providing weapons to Isis members?

I don't... I don't know...

I don't know. I mean, I don't believe that personally.

And secondly, I don't know how to even respond to that answer.

What was it like being in Raqqa?

It almost felt like a movie, like I was in a movie.

Seeing the roundabout with all the, like, restaurants.

It was a lot to take in.

It was kind of like what I imagined, kind of not like what I imagined.

Seeing how everything was functioning and stuff,

like it was normal life.

Did it feel very different to Bethnal Green?

Yeah, it did. Yeah, a lot.

I mean, firstly, there were guns.

There were a lot of guns.

And secondly,

it just felt more restrictive walking around.

Like, when you go outside, you can't, like, lift up the first layer

of your veil that just shows your eyes.

You can't do that even though it's hard to, like,

walk in the street, you know.

If you do, even for one second, like, a guy from across the street

will, like, yell at you.

It's sort of well known that in Raqqa,

people would hold public executions.

No.

I mean, people might find it hard to believe that you didn't.

Well, I mean, I didn't go outside a lot because my husband

did not let me go out a lot.

And while he was in prison, the man I was staying with

also did not let me go out a lot, so...

How long was he in prison for? Seven months.

What were you doing for seven Sitting in that room.

Sitting in that...that room.

Just doing nothing.

Shamima Begum's told me that she rarely left

the home in Raqqa.

Do you think that's plausible?

When you look at this type of ideology,

the woman's place is really in the home.

You know, they wanted to grow the caliphate

and you can't do that without women.

So, predominantly, their role was to marry fighters

and breed children who they can train and radicalise

and be of the same ideology.

Did you question your decision yet?

Or did you still think you'd made the right choice?

I mean, I always, in the back of my mind,

was, like, questioning my decision.

But I just, I knew there was nothing I could do about it.

So I just had to keep, like, persevering and going on, you know,

trying to live this new life that I decided to be a part of.

There's Shamima's narrative, which is essentially

she was just a housewife, she stayed at home most of the time,

she got married fast.

Then there is the narrative that in fact

she was an active member of the terror group.

Shamima Begum does have some very big questions to answer.

There have been a number of allegations made against you

in the media over the years,

Mm-hm.

One such allegation is, did you ever help prepare suicide vests?

Not at all.

Did you ever try to recruit people or encourage them to join Isis?

No.

Never.

Did you communicate with friends back in London

I don't want to answer that question.

Did you receive any form of training?

Were you given any of that?

No, not at all.

Was Shamima part of Hisbah?

Were you ever a member of Hisbah, No.

So there's a woman in Hisbah who says she saw you

receiving some training.

No?

When I first came, when I first crossed the border?

At any point during your time in Isis.

I mean, I'd like to specifically know when

so I can say what I was doing instead.

Well, OK, let me rephrase it.

Any time during your life in Isis, were you given any form

of either religious training or weapons training?

No.

Do you feel...

..that it is fair to prosecute you for being a member of Isis?

You don't feel it's fair to prosecute you

No. Why not?

Because being a member of Isis...

..is defined as, you know, doing their bidding, working for them.

And I just did none of that.

If anything, I was about a non-Isis.

Mm-hm.

You were a member of that group.

That group was committing genocide and committing crimes.

You are part of a group that's doing those things

and as a result of that, you share some responsibility

for that group's actions.

I understand what you're trying to say, but really, I'm...

I'm not going to take responsibility for other people's actions.

It would have happened regardless of whether I was there or not.

I think one of the biggest struggles you're going to have

is because you...

..don't seem to associate your presence within Isis,

supporting the group.

There is...an accountability that needs to be had

for your membership of that group. Do you agree with that?

If I go to court and a judge says that I have to go to prison

for a certain amount of time for this, then, yes, I will go.

But you... Of course you would, because the judge has made

the decision, that's different towards what you feel.

And what I'm just trying to understand is...

..if you truly understand that you being part of this group

in some way helped them and was an act of support

Mm-hm.

Do you agree with that?

I understand what you're trying to say and I would take

responsibility for it. Yeah.

And you understand that that group committed acts like genocide?

Yeah, I do understand that.

So when you reflect upon that, how do you feel about your decision

to be a member of that group?

Ashamed of myself for being so stupid,

for falling for something like this.

Just...

..a lot of regret.

What happens on the day you were released?

Can you take me through that day?

It was a shock.

I thought I was a dead man walking.

All of a sudden, I get put into a van

and I get dropped off somewhere in the middle of Raqqa.

But of course, I was happy.

I was euphoric.

There was a knock at the door and I just, like, opened the door

and my husband came in and we just stared at each other.

And then we didn't say anything. We just hugged each other.

Gave me a very, very, very strong hug.

She was very happy to see me as well.

It was a very, very nice moment, yeah.

Were you surprised?

Yeah, I was really surprised.

I was surprised and happy, though, that he was out

and that he was not a spy.

We got an apartment of our own.

And I got to spend some time with her.

I got to know her.

He was a very different person

then when he... when I first married him.

He was just, like, very quiet and reserved and, yeah,

just didn't show his emotions much.

You know, it was hard for him to stay in Isis

after everything that they'd done to him.

He didn't want to continue being there.

He didn't want to fight for them.

Do you remember the moment that you became disillusioned?

Yeah.

After I got out of prison.

It's like, "What the heck is this? What did I come to?"

He had no friends because he found out that all his friends

were talking about him while he was in prison.

So he just cut them all off.

And I felt like I didn't want to see my friends, you know,

because they would just talk about how great Isis is

and I just didn't want to hear any of it.

So I was just at home with my husband.

And that was hard. You know, you start to lose your mind

when you're just only stuck with each other.

How was his behaviour towards you in that period?

Just taking out his anger and frustration on me.

Because of the situation he was in.

Was that abusive?

Yeah.

No.

And why?

Because just... it was just too hard.

What would have happened if you'd been caught?

Probably put in prison and tortured,

because they would assume that I'm a spy for wanting to leave.

If they could do it to my husband,

then they could maybe do it to me too, you know.

Hi. You OK?

How are you?

What? You feel scared?

Why do you feel scared?

I know what you mean.

I understand what you mean.

And it is, you know, where you're from, where you are,

I can understand.

I learned that Kadiza wanted to come back from her auntie.

She was crying,

saying that she was on her own and she wanted to come home.

Erm...

We'd been working with another family to get their daughter back

from Syria, unconnected to this, and we'd already formulated a plan.

So it was fortuitous.

A lot of people trying to get out of Isis by this stage

and Isis were desperate to stop people getting out

and they were executing them.

There was a point where Kadiza seemed to want to leave Isis.

Did you know she wanted to leave? I did not know.

This was the time where their husbands had died

and my husband had just come out of prison.

So I was with my husband mostly

and my friends were living together in their own house.

So all of this was going on without my knowledge.

I understand that you're feeling scared, yeah.

I don't trust your friends, you know, by the way.

I mean, she's a young woman and

she was in the impossible situation of trying to assess

whether staying where she was more lethal or less lethal

than trying to escape, which, of course, is lethal.

But, you know, these are the choices that war presents you.

I kind of just look forward for the next call,

and that's what keeps me going.

The night I heard the bomb, I didn't know at that time, like,

how much it would affect me.

The next morning, Amira and Sharmeena, they came to tell me

that Kadiza had been killed.

And then we were told we had to go to the hospital

and just to identify a body.

So we went and we identified her body.

That was one of the lowest points in my life, I guess.

Seeing her body like that, you know.

With her, it's just like...

..a constant reminder, you know, that she could be alive today,

but she's not.

And in a way, it might, it may be my fault, because if I had said,

you know, "I don't want to go to Isis. Guys, don't come either."

Or if I told the police the truth, maybe she would still be alive.

You know, maybe we would have never gone to Syria.

Maybe they would have never spoken to me again because they would see

me as a snitch, but they'd still be alive.

And that would be enough for me.

Yeah.

But they made their own decisions, didn't they?

They did. But I feel like I could have stopped it.

It's just how I feel.

Is it hard to carry that around? It is.

And if I ever do go back to the UK,

having to face their families is going to be really hard.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, maybe seven months,

the bombing started to get really bad and my husband looked at

the situation and he said,

"Raqqa is going to fall and I don't want to be here when that happens."

The situation looked very unstable.

I didn't want to be there for the fight.

But he also did not want me to be there in my condition,

because I was pregnant. I felt like I would not have been able

to survive Isis without him.

Even though there were hard times,

I thought, I told myself that it's worth it

because if I did not have him, I would lose my fucking mind.

So I told her, "We're going to have to move soon."

She says, "OK, we'll move."

So we pack our bags

and we went to Deir ez-Zor.

I was at the end of my, at the end of my pregnancy, you know.

I gave birth.

It was just by myself, you know, taking care of my daughter

with my husband. Didn't know much.

There was nothing more beautiful to me than my daughter.

So it wasn't easy, but still, you know,

that was the family element and I did get to enjoy, you know.

It was really scary because I didn't know anything about being a mum.

I barely knew anything about being an adult, let alone a mum.

But obviously, after I gave birth to my daughter,

the bombing scared me a lot more.

They made me realise that I'm not just responsible for myself.

I'm responsible for another human being

that completely depends on me, and I took that very seriously.

And it was... it was a really big burden on me.

And then right after I gave birth, I got pregnant again.

So I gave birth to my son, like, 11 months later.

Did you worry about bringing kids into that environment?

I didn't think it was going to end like that.

Didn't think it was going to be that bad.

There wasn't anything in the shops to buy any more,

like milk and diapers for kids and food.

And, like, everything became more expensive.

What happened to the children?

When you make wheat, when you make flour, there is a waste product.

Like the shells that they give to, I think, cows and stuff.

That's what we was making, like, a sort of soup of, I guess.

And there was some green stuff growing outside.

That's what we was eating for maybe months on end.

So first of all, my son, he passed away because

she didn't have breast milk.

And he couldn't eat.

Afterwards...

..my daughter, she...

..got really, really skinny

and at one point she couldn't stand up by herself any more and...

At one point I came home and I heard that she had stopped breathing

and they brought her to the hospital.

She was my world. She was my reason for living through everything,

through Isis and through my husband's abuse.

You know, she just kept me going, you know.

I always... I was living for her, you know.

I wasn't living for anyone else but her.

So when she died, it was like my entire world just

collapsed around me, you know?

But the only reason I didn't kill myself was obviously

because I was pregnant with my second son.

But if I had not been pregnant, I would have taken my life.

Pounded by artillery,

the last vestiges of the first modern-day caliphate are crumbling.

The supposed utopia becoming a mass of death and rubble.

I knew and everyone else knew that there was nowhere else to run.

This was the last place, you know. There's no plan B.

I was really depressed. I didn't want to get up any more.

I didn't want to get up and run from the bombs and the fighting.

I just wanted to, like, just lie down and die.

But my husband kept pushing me to, like, get up and go.

We walked out together with a group of Syrians and Iraqis.

From sun, sunrise to sunset we were walking

and I was heavily pregnant at that time.

So that was hard as well and I was severely malnourished as well.

We didn't know where we were walking.

We were just following the person at the front until we finally, like,

met these soldiers.

We spent a night in the desert.

After this we got separated.

I got taken to prison, my wife got taken to the camps.

And that's the last I've heard of her.

Would you want to reunite with Shamima?

Yeah, of course. She's my wife.

How can I live without her?

No.

Why not?

Bec... You know, I just stayed married to him in Isis

because I... to survive.

But out in the real world, I wouldn't need him

and I wouldn't tolerate his crap, because I don't need him.

But you did love him for a while, right?

I don't want to answer that question.

Thousands of women and children were coming out of Baghuz

and they were being bussed up to Al-Hol Camp.

Lots of wire, lots of tents, pretty ragged tents.

Kids, you know, pretty thin kids running around

through the kind of mud and dust.

All these women all still dressed in black, in full niqab.

These thin, quite undernourished women who have been through it

in a camp at the edge of a desert.

I just remember sitting in the administration block

and chasing this conversation on for a long time,

kind of in circles, with this administrator from the camp.

"I'd really like to speak to some of the British women

"who might have turned up here from Baghuz."

He then reappears with two women who are fully covered.

And so I say, you know, "Obviously I want to speak to you."

And she said something back to me in a London accent.

And I'm like, "Wait, hang on, wait. You're from London."

And she's like, "Yeah, I'm a sister from London.

"I'm a Bethnal Green girl."

She said, "I'm a Bethnal Green girl?"

"I'm a Bethnal Green girl.

"I'm a sister from London. I'm a Bethnal Green girl."

So the first thought that went through my head was,

right, OK, I need to take control of this environment now.

This is important.

This isn't a conversation with someone who's just come

out of Baghuz. This is Shamima Begum, this is a Bethnal...

one of the missing Bethnal Green girls.

And it was quite easy

between us, speaking.

It was immediately like,

"OK, you are straight out of Islamic State, straight out of Baghuz,

"but you're also a London girl."

And we could kind of have this slightly bipolar conversation.

Then you lived together in Raqqa or somewhere else?

What was that like?

Was that an experience which fulfilled your aspirations

of what it was...?

Did you ever see executions?

In the bins?

What was that like when you first saw that?

These are the heads of captives?

Being unfazed doesn't interest me so much.

What interests me far more is the logic around how that guy

had had his head cut off.

I said, "Who was he? A captive or what?"

And she said, "Yeah, he was captive. He was seized on the battlefield."

So I'm like, "Well, didn't it bother you that he ended up beheaded?"

And she's, "No. Just think what he would have done to a Muslim woman."

This is immediate radicalised logic.

She is speaking like that because, as I would exactly expect her

to speak, she's been with Islamic State for four years.

And that's how you speak, that's how you think.

When is your baby due?

Why do you think she walked out of Baghuz?

She wanted to save her baby's life, more than her own.

Some women wouldn't have wanted to come back to save the life

of their unborn child. They would have said,

"It's the will of God. I live in the land of caliphate.

"If Allah wants the life of my child,

"then he'll take it."

You don't automatically assume that a woman is going to say,

"I need to go home because I want the NHS to save the life

"of my unborn child."

Just before I left, I said, "Can I take a photo?"

And so she sat down and I just took five frames.

Straight to The Times. "Bring me home."

In one way, she's back from the dead.

She said she had no regrets about going.

But now, nine months pregnant, she wants to return home.

I don't know that Britain

wants people like that back in this country.

Is she still filled with hatred for this country?

If we do have a no-deal Brexit,

do you want to come back to the UK?

I mean, this is a woman who marries an Isis terrorist

and is, for all intents and purposes,

herself an Isis terrorist, isn't she?

She's 19 years old, she's an adult. We don't want her back.

You wouldn't have her back, then? No, no. Definitely not.

She should be done for treason. Yes.

And she's a risk for this country.

She should stay where she is. I'm telling you, she's a traitor.

Everybody had an opinion about Shamima Begum.

Every pundit was out there writing something on TV

saying this, that and the other.

You know, some people in the media was just saying,

let her die in the desert. I mean, this is the mainstream media.

This wasn't just on social media platforms.

After that interview, you know, I gave birth.

And while I was in the delivery room recovering from giving birth,

you know, there was a knock on the door and there were journalists

who wanted to speak to me.

You know, it's just a whole other thing.

Underneath her black abaya dress,

she cradles her two-day-old son.

Shamima Begum stuck with the extremists

until the very last moment.

But now she wants forgiveness.

So here's your opportunity, then, to apologise to some of the people

who were murdered by the group that you joined.

Some of the British men, some of the women, some of the kids

from Manchester who were killed in the Manchester Arena.

You must have heard about that attack.

What did you think about that?

I was shocked, but...

But?

I just couldn't...

I didn't know about the kids, actually, but... Don't know.

I do feel that is wrong, that, like, innocent people did get killed.

It's a two-way thing, really.

Because women and children are being killed back in the Islamic State

right now.

And it's kind of retaliation.

Like, their justification was that it was retaliation.

So I thought, OK, that is a fair justification.

Do you regret saying these things?

Of course I regret saying it, you know.

What would you say to survivors of that attack?

I'm so sorry that you went through this.

And I know I supported it.

And if I could, I would

spend the rest of my life trying to persuade people not to do things

like this who may fall into things like this.

How are you feeling?

I just gave birth, so I'm really tired. Yeah.

And can you tell me a bit about the child?

Yeah.

I felt very used by the journalists.

I felt like they did not care about my mental health

and where my mind was at that time.

Could you describe for us what it has been like

to live with and under Islamic State?

You know, at first it was nice.

It was like how they, you know, sold it...

I felt, like, an obligation to say the things I did

because of the women in the camps, you know,

who still had these radical ideologies, who still loved Isis,

you know, and who considered anyone who spoke bad about Isis

as non-Muslims.

And so, someone they could kill if they wanted to.

Shamima. Hello.

Take a seat.

Until our conversation this morning,

Shamima Begum had assumed she was coming back to Britain.

Have you heard anything new about your case?

No.

I only get information about my case every time a journalist comes to me.

What was the last information that you'd heard?

That not everyone wants me to come back

and it might take a bit of time for me to

come back.

They got this in the post.

But I'd come here with a copy of the letter

sent to her parents yesterday,

stripping her of British citizenship.

Please find enclosed papers that relate to a decision

taken by the Home Secretary to deprive your daughter,

Shamima Begum, of her British citizenship.

In light of the circumstances of your daughter, the notice

of the Home Secretary's decision has been served on file today,

19th February, and the order removing her citizenship

has subsequently been made.

OK, then.

What do you think?

I don't know what to say.

I don't know why my case is any different...

..to other people.

Was it just because I was on the news four years ago?

I feel like it's a bit unjust on me and my son.

Yeah.

But you've done this to your son.

I mean, this is a consequence of your actions.

Well...

I don't know what to say.

I don't know what to say.

She seemed dazed, shocked,

but in control.

Except she's not.

What did you feel when you found that out?

Just hopeless and depressed and...

For the British government to just completely renounce

any responsibility over me, it was, I felt like, you know...

..like I had nowhere else to go and my son also had nowhere else to go.

Like I had...

I just had no hope of living any more.

And I, you know, feared for my son and his life.

I absolutely understand the Home Secretary's move,

which has been upheld in our legal system,

that she should be stripped of British citizenship.

There has to be a consequence when you go and join an organisation

which is effectively dedicated to destroying Britain

and all it stands for and all its citizens,

for whom all of us are fair game.

After all the media attention, I was brought to this camp.

And then just one morning I woke up and he was really pale

and his lips were blue and he was struggling to breathe.

I went to the clinic and I said,

"Please, my son is, like, close to death.

"I don't know what's wrong with him.

"Please take him to the hospital outside."

And after, like, a lot of begging and arguing, you know,

they took me outside.

So we went to the big hospital, you know, and...

..they just put an IV in him and put me in a room with him alone,

away from everyone else, and just left me there, you know,

with the soldier standing outside the door, you know,

while he was still struggling to breathe.

He passed away maybe in the middle of the night.

Just, you know, I just was completely numb and emotionless.

I was like, "I think my son is dead."

So she called the doctor and he tried to resuscitate him

and it didn't work.

So they just left me in the room and I had to stay there all night

with his body because I couldn't be taken to the camp

in the middle of the night.

I had to wait until morning to take him to get buried.

The baby son of the teenager, Shamima Begum,

who has been stripped of her UK citizenship

for joining the Islamic State group, has died in Syria.

Shamima Begum's newborn baby has been buried in Syria

after dying of pneumonia.

The teenager who left London to join the Islamic State group...

The son of Shamima Begum, the teenager who left the UK

to join the so-called Islamic State,

has died in a detention camp in Syria.

The 19-year-old gave birth last month.

The Home Secretary, Sajid Javid,

stripped her of her British citizenship....

Oh, my God. Now this.

Yeah. Young woman, three kids dead, like, six month period.

Citizenship removed, you know, smashed to pieces,

national hate figure.

That wasn't a great moment.

Can you tell me how many times you were pregnant?

Five times.

You were pregnant five times? Yeah.

Yeah.

How do you feel now when you think back to your children?

I feel I could have done more to save them.

You know, like, got them out of this life.

In a way, I feel guilty for even bringing them into this world,

this horrible world, you know?

I'm curious, because we first started talking, believe it or not,

almost a year ago now.

What's changed since then?

Erm... Nothing. I don't know.

My, you know, my situation legally is still the same.

I'm still... I still don't have citizenship.

At least with prison sentences,

you know that there will be an end.

But here you don't know if there's going to be an end.

What do you think you'll be doing in seven years' time from now?

Yeah.

You don't think you'll be home? Nope.

Nope.

Why not?

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.

..Where they supported my decision unanimously,

and I think it's pretty clear cut.

Do you think it's kind of once a terrorist, always a terrorist?

Or, I mean, is she basically forever going to be stateless?

Do you think that that's what she deserves?

I am clear that the decision is both morally right,

absolutely right, but also is legally correct.

And it is the right one to protect the British people.

Shamima Begum has become the avenue by which people

are discussing Isis detainees.

And there's a lot of confusion.

What do we do next?

All of these Isis people are in detention now.

And what happens if you leave all these people out there?

The deprivation of citizenship, the leaving them over there,

that's all easy enough.

But actually, that in of itself isn't a solution.

This is a tinderbox that will ignite again at any moment.

And suddenly we're going to get sucked back in.

There's part of me that says if she is a threat

and she does need to be punished for what she's done,

then I'd rather she faced British justice, in which I have confidence.

The alternative being that she's in some

semi-secure camp, could escape,

could be released, could be liberated,

and if she is still a threat, could therefore still pose a threat

from another part of the world.

And that's the practical debate we need to have

and decide where we are safest, not where she is safest.

You can see she was groomed and manipulated,

so she should be able to come back.

But then on the other side, you think, if she does come back,

would other people who have the same toxic ideas that she had

think it's OK to do what she did?

Shamima bears prime responsibility for her own situation.

But even if she is guilty of a terrorist act

or of terrorist involvement,

she is still a child of our society and she is our responsibility.

Do you regret joining Isis?

Of course. I will regret it for the rest of my life.

Whether you can see it on my face or not, it kills me inside.

What would you say to your 15-year-old self now?

Don't do it, bitch. Just don't do it.

Really? Yeah, that's all I would say.

She wouldn't believe me anyway.

Like, she wouldn't have listened to me.

She'd have still decided to go? Probably, yeah.

She was too arrogant at that time.