ISIS Bride Shamima Begum Says She’d ‘Rather Die’ Than Rejoin Group
Yaron Steinbuch, New York Post, September 15, 2021
ISIS bride Shamima Begum apologized for joining the terror group and appealed to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to allow her to return to the UK, saying in her first live TV interview she’d “rather die” than go back to the jihadists.
“I know there are some people, no matter what I say or what I do, they will not believe that I have changed, believe that I want to help,” she told ITV’s “Good Morning Britain.”
“But for those who have even a drop of mercy and compassion and empathy in their hearts, I tell you from the bottom of my heart that I regret every, every decision I’ve made since I stepped into Syria and I will live with it for the rest of my life,” she said.
Begum was just 15 when she and two classmates set off for Syria to join ISIS. She has said she married an extremist from the Netherlands and had three children, all of whom have died.
Now 22 and living in a refugee camp in Syria, Begum has sought to return home, but the British government revoked her citizenship on national security grounds in 2019 and she has fought unsuccessfully to have her passport restored.
Begum, who wore lipstick, a gray tank top and a Nike baseball cap for the interview, said she had been misled when she went to Syria.
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“{snip} At the time I did not know it was a death cult, I thought it was an Islamic community,” she said.
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