ISIS bride Shamima Begum begs to be allowed back into the UK and put on trial: 'I would like to be at home'
British teenage ISIS bride Shamima Begum who once said she had no regrets joining the terrorist organization and claimed she was "unfazed" even after witnessing the beheading of a man as he was "an enemy of Islam" has begged for forgiveness and asked to be allowed to return to the UK.
We had previously reported that Begum had to flee the Al-Hol refugee camp in Al-Hawl in northern Syria after she received death threats due to her constant presence in the media and status as a sort of pseudo-celebrity.
A price tag had been placed on her head, and she and her newborn son, Jarrah, were subsequently moved to the Al-Roj refugee base.
The Daily Mail tracked her down recently and said they found her without a veil and sporting a fashionable diamante nose stud, but bemoaning her isolation. "I have no real friends," she said. "I have lost all the friends who came with me. Now I do not have anyone."
She said her "mental health situation is not the best" and claimed she needed therapy to deal with her grief. She said no one in the camp could begin to understand what she had experienced.
Shamima's change of stance comes at a time after the last ISIS stronghold in Baghuz fell this past March following a sustained onslaught by a US-led coalition and Russian airstrikes.
In the immediate aftermath, she had struck a defiant tone and said she hoped the caliphate would still emerge victorious, though it seems she now regrets those admissions.
In her interview, she said she hated the ISIS and feared those who continued to adhere to its extremist principles. She said she was happy she was no longer in the Al-Hawl camp that holds some 70,000 ISIS family members and has been described as a "ticking time bomb" of Islamism.
"I hate the Dawla [the IS name for itself] so much," she insisted. "I hate these women and what they stand for and what they believe in and that they think they can terrorize anyone who does not share their views."
She claimed she parroted those views before because she was afraid for herself and her unborn son. "When I came to this new camp a lot of dangerous women thought I was on their side," she said. "But it was a facade to protect me and my son. Now they have figured it out and they hate me."
She also brushed aside the rumors that she was a part of the Hesba — the ISIS' morality police who beat and tortured those who failed to meet the cult's strict dress and behavioral codes — and called it "bullshit."
Shamima said she just wanted to go back to the UK, even though she knew she would be facing punishment. "I would like to be at home," she said.
"There is more safety in a British prison, more education and access to family. I want to be taken back and put on trial in my own country. In a way, it is already a punishment being in this camp."