You may have seen the BBC proudly announcing a new Podcast series that people can tune into. The star of this new Podcast may surprise some people as it is none other than “ISIL bride” Shamima Begum! Now we will get to the reason why the BBC may be doing this but first let’s do a quick reprisal of Begum.
Readers will remember that she left the UK in 2015 as a 15-year-old girl to travel with two friends via Turkey to join the notorious Islamic State jihad group in Syria. Islamic State in Levant (ISIL) has questionable origins, but I think it can be reasonably asserted that it was barbaric and showed no mercy towards its designated enemies. Quite WHY a 15-year-old girl living in Tower Hamlets was so enthusiastic to join this terrorist group can only be speculated upon but the fact of the matter is that she went to join them with an awareness of what she getting herself into. She has subsequently said she was inspired to join ISIL by videos of fighters beheading hostages and of “the good life” promised by the group. Was she simply gullible or murderous, readers can decide!
2015 was the highwater mark for ISIL in Syria and it was in February that ISIL famously videoed and posted the burning to death of Jordanian military pilot Moaz al Kasasbeh, one of the most savage things I have ever seen. During this time ISIL held about 40% of the territory in Syria so it may have seemed a balanced bet to Begum to be part of this. She quickly married a Dutch born Jihadi within ten days of arriving and had three children with him, all of whom died.
Begum was an “enforcer” in ISIL’s “morality police” and tried to recruit other young women to join the jihadist group. She was allowed to carry her own Kalashnikov rifle and earned a reputation as a strict enforcer of ISIL’s laws, such as dress codes for women. It is further alleged that she stitched suicide bombers into explosive vests so they could not be removed without detonating. Discussing what it was like to have been there at that time given the barbarism all around her, she said “ It was like a normal life. The life that they show on the propaganda videos – it’s a normal life. Every now and then there are bombs and stuff. But other than that…” She said that seeing her first “severed head” in a bin “didn’t faze me at all”. It was from a captured fighter seized on the battlefield, an enemy of Islam. “I thought only of what he would have done to a Muslim woman if he had the chance.. “I’m not the same silly little 15-year-old schoolgirl who ran away from Bethnal Green four years ago. I don’t regret coming here.”
These sound to me like the words of a battle-hardened Jihadist who has been brutalised but who seemed to relish it. However, as ISIL fell into retreat, her options narrowed. She wanted out and she wanted home to the UK. But the UK Government had revoked her citizenship and despite repeated legal efforts she has still not yet arrived back.
Things could change. The high probability of a new Labour Government in 2024 could signal a major change in attitude at official level and the BBC can see this. So, what better than to run a national podcast supercharged by the BBC all about Begum to garner more sympathy for her? Is the BBC giving her a makeover ahead of all of this? Might the BBC be seeking to assist a battle hardened Jihadi? If so, what does that make the BBC?
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