As Shamima Begum appears for the first time in two years, the Mirror takes a look at what happened to the two friends who accompanied her during her dangerous journey to ISIS territory
Shamima Begum, the Bethnal Green schoolgirl who became an infamous jihadi bride, has been pictured for the first time in years as she remains stuck in exile.
At the tender age of 15, Begum left her family behind to join the Islamic State (ISIS), a decision that led to her being stripped of her British citizenship and confined to a detention camp in Syria.
Now 26 and still longing for home, Begum spoke briefly with the Daily Express from the ‘filthy’ camp, with reporters noting that “her eyes were somewhat sunken, and she seemed pale, as well as very thin”. This has once again sparked conversation about whether or not Begum should ever be allowed back on British soil.
Less is known about Begum’s two school friends, Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase, who were just 16 and 15 respectively when they embarked on the perilous journey from London to Syria in February 2015. The trio, all straight-A students at Bethnal Green Academy, saw their lives take a dramatic turn.
As Begum’s story resurfaces, we delve into what happened to her classmates and fellow ISIS brides, Sultana and Abase.
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The three girls made global news when CCTV footage of them passing through metal detectors at a London airport was released in a frantic attempt to prevent them from reaching their destination. Travelling alone, Begum sported a leopard print scarf, Abase donned a bright yellow hoodie, and Sultana wore a grey checked scarf and jumper, reports the Mirror.
The girls were spotted again on CCTV at a bus terminal in Istanbul, Turkey, lugging their heavy bags through the snow and waiting to board public transport. But by the time the police appeal was launched, it was already too late – the girls had crossed the border and married ISIS fighters in Syria.
Their roles within the caliphate remain unclear. Begum insists she was merely a housewife, while intelligence sources suggest she was involved in sewing explosives into suicide vests.
Sultana, the eldest of the three girls, had wed an American ISIS fighter. However, in phone calls to her sister in the UK, captured for ITV News, she expressed her desire to return to the UK but admitted she was “scared”.
Her sister Halima, speaking immediately after the call, said: “She sounds very terrified. She did get very emotional there as well. I feel really helpless. What can I do? It’s really hard. I don’t think she’s ever made a choice by herself. That was the first one and a very big one. I just look forward to the next call and that’s what keeps me going.”
It is believed that Sultana died in a Russian airstrike a few weeks later in May 2016, although this has never been independently verified. The family’s solicitor, Tasnime Akunjee, told BBC Newsnight they received a report of her death in Raqqa.
Mr Akunjee elaborated: “I think she found out pretty quickly that the propaganda doesn’t match up with the reality.”
He also revealed: “The problem with that was the risk factors around leaving are quite terminal also, in that if ISIS were able to detect and capture you, then their punishment is quite brutal for trying to leave. In the week where she was thinking of these issues, a young Austrian girl had been caught trying to leave ISIS territory and was, by all reports, beaten to death publicly, so given that that was circulated in the region as well as outside – I think Kadiza took that as a bad omen and decided not to take the risk.”
Years later, Begum reflected on the loss of her friend, stating: “Her house was bombed. Underground, there was secret stuff going on, and a spy had figured out that something was going on, and other people got killed as well. At first, I was in denial. I thought if we died, we’d die together.”
Abase wedded ISIS fighter Abdullah Elmir, an 18-year-old Australian, who earned the nickname the Ginger Jihadi due to his ginger hair. He met his end in a drone strike in December 2015.
Abase had been keeping in touch with her mum, Fetia Hussen, back in the UK via social media, but the messages abruptly ceased, leading her mum to believe her daughter had also passed away.
However, Begum has previously claimed Abase is still alive.
Begum wed an ISIS fighter and Dutch national, Yago Riedijk, 27, when she was just 15 and bore three children with him, who all subsequently died.
In 2019, Begum was stripped of her British citizenship and subsequently lost her appeal to get it back in 2023.
As reported earlier this year, Begum reportedly now flogs food parcels she has been given in a detention camp by aid agencies to raise enough cash for Western clothes and hair dye.
Last year, Begum attempted to overturn the government’s 2019 decision to strip her citizenship on national security grounds.
However, in August 2024, judges ruled that she would not be permitted to challenge the removal at the Supreme Court as the grounds of her case “do not raise an arguable point of law.”
At the time, her solicitor Daniel Furner said: “We are not going to stop fighting until she does get justice and until she is safely back home”.
The question of whether Begum will be permitted back to London was debated once more in the aftermath of the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024.
However, amid these conversations, the now Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy has pledged that Begum would never be allowed to return home to the UK after President Donald Trump’s counter-terrorism chief declared that British members of ISIS currently residing in Syrian prison camps should be repatriated.
Sebastian Gorka, a key figure in the Trump administration, stated that any country wishing to be viewed as a “serious ally” of the US should commit to repatriating citizens in northeastern Syria.
However, Mr Lammy, then Foreign Secretary, firmly stated that the Government would “always put British security interests first and the safeguarding of our population.”
Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain at the time, Mr Lammy declared: “Shamima Begum will not be coming back to the UK. It’s gone right through the courts. She’s not a UK national. We will not be bringing her back to the UK. We’re really clear about that. We will act in our security interests. And many of those in those camps are dangerous, are radicals.”
Mr Lammy further added that if these individuals were to return to the UK, some of them “would have to be, frankly, jailed as soon as they arrived”.
Even though all of her legal avenues were exhausted when the Supreme Court denied a final appeal attempt in August 2024, Begum still holds out hope of returning to the UK, with her lawyers attempting to make a case to the European Court of Human Rights.
Justices found the decision would be up to the court in their ruling, adding it would have to decide whether the process to deprive her of her British citizenship should have considered that she may have been a trafficking victim. Her lawyers claimed the UK had failed to intervene and achieve the return “of their citizens and their children” who have been “arbitrarily imprisoned”.
They stated: “It is a matter of the gravest concern that British women and children have been arbitrarily imprisoned in a Syrian camp for five years, all detained indefinitely without any prospect of a trial. All other countries in the UK’s position have intervened and achieved the return of their citizens and their children.”
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