London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Monday, Sep 22, 2025

ISIS Bride Says Prepared To Face Terror Charges In UK

ISIS Bride Says Prepared To Face Terror Charges In UK

Shamima Begum was 15 when she travelled from her home in London in 2015 with two school friends to Syria, where she married an IS fighter and had three children.
A woman who lost her British citizenship after joining the Islamic State group said Wednesday she would be prepared to return to face terror charges so she can prove her innocence.

Shamima Begum was 15 when she travelled from her home in London in 2015 with two school friends to Syria, where she married an IS fighter and had three children.

Dubbed "IS bride", she was stripped of her British citizenship after a right-wing media outrage when she was tracked down by reporters to a displacement camp in 2019 and defended the jihadists.

The Supreme Court earlier this year rejected her permission on public safety grounds to return to Britain to challenge the government's decision.

But she has denied being directly involved in the preparation of acts of terror.

"I am willing to go to court and face the people who made these claims and refute these claims because I know I did nothing in IS but be a mother and a wife," she said.

"These claims are being made to make me look worse because the government do not have anything on me. There is no evidence because nothing ever happened," she told ITV.

Begum, now 22, said the only crime she had committed was "being dumb enough to join IS", and asked for forgiveness from all those who had lost loved ones to the extremists.

"I am so sorry if I ever offended anyone by coming here, if I ever offended anyone by the things I said," Begum, wearing a baseball cap and vest top, said from Syria.

Lawyers for Begum, whose father is Bangladeshi, have accused Britain of racism in its treatment of her, accusing the government of making her a scapegoat.

They have said she was "a child trafficked to and remaining in Syria for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced marriage" and the government's actions leaves her stateless.

Bangladesh's foreign minister has said he will not consider granting her citizenship.

Some 900 people are estimated to have travelled from Britain to Syria and Iraq to join IS, creating a legal headache for the UK authorities now the conflict is over.

About 150 are believed to have been stripped of their citizenship.

Begum, whose three children conceived after her arrival in Syria all died, was first seen in 2019 wearing a black hijab and said she did not regret travelling to Syria.

But she has since been seen in Western clothing and expressed remorse for her actions, and sympathy for IS victims.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Explosive Email Shows Sarah Ferguson Begged Forgiveness from Jeffrey Epstein After Taking His Money
Corrupt UK Politician Ed Davey Demands Elon Musk’s Arrest for Supporting Democracy
UK, Canada, and Australia Officially Recognise Palestine in Historic Shift
Alibaba Debuts Open-Source Deep Research Agent with Benchmarks Rivaling OpenAI
Marcos Faces Legacy-Defining Crisis as Flood Projects Scandal Sparks Massive Tide of Protests
China’s Micro-Drama Boom Turns Stalled Real Estate Projects into Lavish Film Sets
New Eye Drops Show Promise in Replacing Reading Glasses for Presbyopia
'Company Got 5,189 H-1B Visas, Then Laid Off 16,000 Americans': US Defends New $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee
Golf legend tells Omar she should be 'sent back to Somalia' after her Kirk comments
EU Set to Bar Big Tech from New Financial Data Access Scheme
China Bans Livestreaming and AI in Religion Amid Crackdown on Shaolin Temple Scandal
Documents Reveal Mandelson Failed to Declare Epstein-Funded Flights as MP in 2003
Dubai Property Boom Shows Strain as Flippers Get Buyer’s Remorse
Harris Memoir Sparks Backlash from Democrats for Blunt Critiques in ‘107 Days’
Germany Weighs Excluding France from Key European Fighter Jet Programme
Cyberattack Disrupts Check-in and Boarding Systems at Major European Airports
Japan’s ‘Death-Tainted’ Homes Gain Appeal as Prices Soar in Tokyo
Massive Attack Withdraws from Spotify Over Daniel Ek’s €600M Defence-AI Investment
Björn Borg Breaks Silence: Memoir Reveals Addiction, Shame and Cancer Battle
When Extremism Hijacks Idealism: How the Baader-Meinhof Gang Emerged and Fell
Top AI Researchers Are Heading Back to China as U.S. Struggles to Keep Pace
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
Trump Orders Third Lethal Strike on Drug-Trafficking Vessel as U.S. Expands Maritime Counter-Narcotics Operations
Trump Orders $100,000 Fee on H-1B Visas and Launches ‘Gold Card’ Immigration Pathway
Why Google Search Is Fading and AI Is Taking Its Place
UAE-US Stargate Project Poised to Make Abu Dhabi a Global AI Powerhouse
Federal Judge Dismisses Trump’s Fifteen-Billion-Dollar Suit Against New York Times, Orders Refile
France’s Looming Budget Crisis and Political Fracture Raise Fears of Becoming Europe’s “Sick Man”
Three Russian MiG-31 Jets Breach Estonian Airspace in ‘Unprecedentedly Brazen’ NATO Incident
DeepSeek Claims R1 Model Trained for only $294,000, Sparking Global Debate Over China’s AI Capabilities
SoftBank Vision Fund to Cut Nearly Twenty Percent of Staff in Bold AI Strategy Shift
Intel’s Next-Gen Manufacturing Gets a Lifeline from Nvidia’s Strategic $5B Deal
Erika Kirk Elected CEO of Turning Point USA After Husband Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
×