Shamima Begum pictured during her interview with the BBC on Monday
Shamima Begum – the schoolgirl who fled London to join the Islamic State group in Syria – has said she never wanted to be an IS “poster girl”.
Ms Begum told the BBC she wants the UK’s forgiveness, adding: “I actually do support some British values.”
She said it was “wrong” innocent people died in the Manchester attack, but added: “It’s a two-way thing… kind of retaliation” because IS was targeted.
Ms Begum, 19, left Bethnal Green four years ago with two school friends.
The actions of the women attracted a mass of publicity at the time and there has been more debate about Ms Begum’s plight since she was found in a Syrian refugee camp by the Times newspaper last week after reportedly leaving Baghuz, IS’s last stronghold in the country.
She has since given birth to a baby boy and says she now wants to return to the UK.
In an interview with the BBC’s Middle East correspondent Quentin Sommerville on Monday, Ms Begum said: “I don’t actually agree with everything they’ve done.
“I actually do support some British values and I am willing to go back to the UK and settle back again and rehabilitate and that stuff.”
She said: “The poster girl thing was not my choice.”
When it was suggested that her going to Syria might have been a “propaganda victory” for IS, Ms Begum said: “I did hear a lot of people were encouraged to come after, but I wasn’t the one who put myself on the news.”
She said she was “the one who made the choice” to come to Syria, adding: “Even though I was only 15 years old, I could make my own decisions…
“But I will admit, it’s my fault right now. I just want forgiveness really, from the UK. Everything I’ve been through, I didn’t expect I would go through that.
“Losing my children the way I lost them, I don’t want to lose this baby as well and this is really not a place to raise children, this camp.”
‘Fair justification’
Asked about the Manchester Arena attack in 2017 in which 22 people – some of them children – were killed in a bombing claimed by IS, she said: “I do feel that is wrong. Innocent people did get killed.”
She said: “It’s one thing to kill a soldier, it’s fine, it’s self-defence. But to kill people like women and children just like the women and children in Baghuz who are being killed right now unjustly by the bombings – it’s a two-way thing really…
“This is kind of retaliation. Their justification was that it was retaliation so I thought that is a fair justification.”
Image copyright
PA
Ms Begum was 15 and living in Bethnal Green, London, when she left the UK in 2015
Ms Begum said she is sorry to all the families who have lost people because of the attacks in the UK and other countries.
“That was unfair on them,” she said. “They weren’t fighting anyone. They weren’t causing any harm. But neither was I and neither other women who are being killed right now back in Baghuz.”
Earlier, the lawyer representing Ms Begum’s family said she is “damaged” and will need mental health support.
Tasnime Akunjee also said her family are prepared to raise her newborn baby away from “IS thinking”.
He said Ms Begum – who is legally British – had still not been in contact with her family and the family are trying to get the government to provide travel documents for Ms Begum and her newborn son, who he said has a right to citizenship.
Media playback is unsupported on your device
“The family fully expect her to be quite damaged and so they would want an assessment around Shamima, and also as much help around her mental health and recalibration effectively into normal thinking as possible,” said Mr Akunjee.
“In terms of any criminal proceedings, that’s something she invariably will face depending on what evidence is against her.”
Ms Begum left the UK February 2015 with two other schoolgirls, Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase. Kadiza is thought to have died when a house was blown up, and the fate of Amira is unknown.
Mr Akunjee also called for an “urgent inquiry” into how Ms Begum and the other schoolgirls were able to travel to Syria.
Image copyright
Met Police
Kadiza Sultana, Amira Abase and Shamima Begum (l-r) in photos issued by police
Previously, Ms Begum said she escaped from Baghuz, Islamic State’s last stronghold in eastern Syria, two weeks ago.
Her husband, a Dutch convert to Islam, is thought to have surrendered to a group of Syrian fighters.
Under international law, the UK is obliged to let a Briton without the claim to another nationality return home.
But the government does not have consular staff in Syria, and says it will not risk any lives to help Britons who have joined a banned terrorist group.
If Ms Begum is able to reach a British consulate in a recognised country, it is thought security chiefs could “manage” her return.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid wrote a comment piece in the Sunday Times and said he would “not hesitate” to prevent the return of Britons who travelled to join IS.
Meanwhile, Met Police commissioner Cressida Dick has said it is “incredibly complicated” to stop IS brides.
She said police try to stop people travelling when officers know they are “travelling with ill-intent”.
Ms Dick was on ITV’s Good Morning Britain where she responded to a report in the Times newspaper claiming that, in a separate case, a schoolgirl who was stopped as she was about to catch a flight to join Islamic State in December 2014 was never prosecuted.
