A government official from the Home Office has faced backlash for not definitively saying whether the former ISIS bride Shamima Begum would be allowed to come back to the United Kingdom after the Syrian regime led by Assad fell.
Currently, Begum is being held in a detention camp in the northeast region of Syria after her British citizenship was removed by the previous Conservative government. She left the UK to join ISIS at the age of 15.
Angela Eagle, a member of the Labour Party serving as a minister, hesitated to completely rule out the possibility of the 25-year-old returning to the UK as she grapples with an uncertain fate following the recent upheaval caused by Syrian rebels taking control.
The Border Security Minister on Sunday told Times Radio: ‘Her British citizenship has been stripped from her and that decision made by a previous government has been approved of at the highest levels in the courts, and that’s the current situation’.
‘I’m not going to get into individual cases, though. It’s not for me as a minister who might be involved to speculate about what the courts might do,’ Eagle added.
‘But I can say that we are keeping a very close eye on all of the people that we think may represent a danger to this country as the situation in Syria develops.’
Quizzed further on whether the government would allow Begum, or others in similar situations, asylum in Britain because of the risk to their lives in Syria, Eagle insisted: ‘I’m not going to talk about her particular case.
‘Every case would have to be looked on at on its merits. And we would also have to have risk assessment about any such cases.’Â
Labour minister Dame Angela Eagle on Sunday declined to rule out letting Shamima Begum return to the UK
Shamima Begum, 25, faces an uncertain future in Syria following the collapse of president Bashar al-Assad’s regimeÂ
People kick a poster depicting Syrian President al-Assad after Syria’s army command notified officers that his 24-year authoritarian rule has ended. Pictured: Syria, December 8, 2024
The Conservatives’ shadow Home Secretary slammed the refusal to rule any decision out, demanding Labour confirm ‘on whose side they really stand’.
Chris Phillip blasted: ‘Conservatives in Government stripped Begum of citizenship and made sure she could not come back here. The courts upheld this.
‘Those who supported the murderous Daesh regime have no place in the UK. It is weak and supine for the Labour Minister to fail to back this approach.
‘With Keir Starmer appointing Begum’s counsel as this country top lawyer, Labour urgently need to make clear they will not undo our decision, and confirm on whose side they really stand.’
Downing Street has previously said there are ‘no plans’ to allow Begum back into the UK.
But the Attorney General swiped back, claiming it was ‘extremely draconian’ to strip Begum of her citizenship.
Lord Herner KC, who was appointed to Sir Keir Starmer’s government in July, argued that taking away the ISIS bride’s citizenship could lead her to ‘rendition and targeted drone strikes, the consequences of which may be fatal’.
It follows a warning by the former chief of Britain’s MI6, who said thousands of jihadis being held in Syria pose a ‘chronic’ threat to the West’s security if they are released.
Sir Alex Younger said the toppling of the Assad regime risked a ‘serious spike’ in the threat of ‘a very large number’ of Islamic State (IS) detainees becoming free.
Begum was one of three schoolgirls who travelled to the Middle Eastern county to join ISIS in February 2015Â
The former jihadi bride now lives at the al-Roj camp in northern Syria, run by the Syrian Democratic Forces, which she has described as ‘worse than a prison’
Al Roj is a filthy, brutal temporary tent city teeming with dangerous ISIS loyalists who use threats and beatings to enforce their extremist ideology
There are fears a flood of extremists could head to Europe if security around their detention camps is relaxed, with experts warning conditions in lock-ups of Kurdish-controlled northeast Syria were a perfect breeding ground for radicalisation.
Begum, travelled to Syria from Bethnal Green, east London, in February 2015.
She was one of three schoolgirls who travelled to the Middle Eastern county to join ISIS – and was stripped of her British citizenship after she was found, nine months pregnant, in a Syrian refugee camp in February 2019.
The Londoner then lived under ISIS rule for more than three years where she married a Dutch jihadi.
She now lives at the al-Roj camp in northern Syria, run by the Syrian Democratic Forces, which she has described as ‘worse than a prison’ in her desperate bid to be re-accepted into Western life.Â
Begum is among 65 Isis-linked Britons who are detained in prisons and detention camps in north-east Syria, where Turkish-backed rebel groups continue an offensive against the Kurdish groups who guard them.
There are about 50,000 male former Isis fighters, women and children in prisons and camps controlled by the Kurds, mostly from Iraq and Syria.
But their numbers also include Begum along with 20 women, 10 men and 35 children who are British citizens or have held British citizenship.
