21-year-old Shamina Begum, a former East London schoolgirl, spoke out during an interview at al-Roj prison camp in Syria about her experience and regret in joining Isis in 2015, when she was just 15.
Shamina has since been stripped of her UK citizenship.
With skinny jeans, a baseball cap and fingernails painted red, the former jihadi bride now looks very different, having abandoned her previous image and endorsed a western look.
During her latest interview, she told journalist Andrew Drury:
"I don't think I was a terrorist. I think I was just a dumb kid who made one mistake. I personally don't think that I need to be rehabilitated, but I would want to help other people be rehabilitated. I would love to help."
She said, explaining while she gave up wearing her traditional Islamic dress:
"I wear these clothes, and I don't wear a hijab, because it makes me happy. And anything in this camp that makes me happy is like a lifesaver."
She also said that she enjoys listening to rap music and watching re-runs of Friends in the camp.
Shamina had married a Ditch jihadi after she ran away from her home in Benthal Green with two other schoolgirls and fled to Syria.
Before she arrived at al-Roj, she had three children, all of which died due to disease and malnutrition.
The al-Roj camp, which is located close to the borders with Turkey and Iran, hosts about 800 families.
In 2019, Benthal refused to condemn the bombing that took place at the Manchester arena, where 22 people died.
After interviewing her for the film 'Danger Zone', Drury said that he had changed his mind about her and that she should be allowed to return to the UK.
But the Supreme court had ruled on national security grounds that she cannot return to the UK to appeal against her citizenship removal.
Following the interview, Drury embraced Shamina after she asked him for a hug.
He said:
"We were about to say goodbye and I didn't know the protocol because bear in mind she is there as a terrorist. I went to shake her hand and she started to cry and said to me, 'Can I have a hug?'"
He added:
"This girl is a vulnerable 21-year-old who did something unbelievably stupid. It was a childish mistake from a 15-year-old."
When asked what she would say to those in the UK who do not want her to return, Begum said:
"Can I come home please, pretty please?"
Shamina explained that the reason she left the UK to join ISIS in Syria was that she 'didn't want to be left behind' while her friends decided to go.
She also stated that she followed her classmates, Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana, in leaving the UK in an attempt to help those in war-torn Syria and that she was 'young and naive' when deciding to do so.
Her classmates were later killed in the city of Baghuz.
Shamina said:
"Now I feel like I have no friends anymore, they were everything I had."
She also said that her friends were recruited by ISIS members and were convinced that they were going to be 'part of something' while inflicting a sense of guilt for watching other Muslims suffer in Syria.
Speaking of the loss of one of her children on the documentary The Return: Life After Isis, Shamina cried, saying:
"When she died it was so hard because I just felt so alone and I felt like my entire world was falling apart in front of me and I couldn't do anything. When she died at that moment I just wanted to kill myself. I felt like I couldn't even get up to run any more when there were bombings."
She added:
"The only thing keeping me alive was my baby I was pregnant with. I felt like I had to do him right by getting him out and giving him a normal life."
She said she also spoke of the guilt she felt for her children's death:
"I felt like it was my fault for not getting them out sooner even though I didn't know why they died."
Her third child, a boy, passed away from pneumonia in March 2019, ony a month after he was born.
Shamina claims that when her citizenship was removed, the Government had fabricated stories about her committing to radical Islam.
She hopes that British people will have an 'open mind about why I left and who I am now as a person'.
She said:
"They just think I knew about these crimes and I supported these crimes but that's not true. I would never support something like this, like the things they did."
Shamina is one of many British women held at the camp following the removal of their citizenship.
[h/t: Daily Mail]
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