I met ISIS bride Shamima Begum to get inside her mind – a chilling text message changed my whole mind about her

FEW people have a hotline to Britain’s most notorious IS bride.

But as a journalist and filmmaker traveling to some of the most dangerous countries in the world, I’ve been closer to Shamima Begum than anyone for a year.

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During our time together, the 23-year-old, who was born and raised in East London, thought she could manipulate me into thinking she was a victim of human trafficking.

But after extensive face-to-face meetings and a slew of bizarre text messages, I’m convinced she’s a bitter, twisted figure with deep psychological issues.

Amazingly, she told me the death of her three children “no longer saddens me.”

And she ruthlessly blamed the bloodshed in Ukraine for diverting the media spotlight away from her.

She told me via WhatsApp: “I think the eyes of the world are all on Ukraine. Even if I release something new, it will quickly perish.”

I have visited Al-Roj camp in northeastern Syria four times to see Shamima and her fellow detainees. I wanted to find out why they decided in 2015 to turn their backs on western society and join a murderous death cult.

It’s a trip that has been thrust back into the spotlight with new claims that it was ‘smuggled’ into Canada by an Intelligence agent.

At times, Shamima looked like any young woman her age. She’s a Will Smith fan, told me she liked watching Louis Theroux documentaries and asked me to bring her sports bras from the UK.

But over time I discovered a manipulative personality who played the victim card to get back to the UK.

I first met the ISIS bride in June 2021 after going to Syria to shoot for a documentary, Danger Zone.

“Heads in Garbage Cans”

I think the only reason she agreed to talk to me was because I showed her footage from a Netflix show I had been on called Dark Tourist.

I felt sorry for her at the time and really thought she was a victim. I am a father of daughters and I felt protected towards her.

On a tour of the camp, she told me she regrets giving her first media interviews, in which she blithely and shamefully spoke of being “unfazed” by seeing “decapitated heads” in trash cans.

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She said, “People have to understand that at the time I was doing all these interviews, I had just come out of a war zone, had lost two children and was pregnant.”

We must have talked for over an hour and there was a real connection between us, so much so that she asked for a hug before I left. I still feel guilty about hugging her.

I next saw Shamima in September 2021 when I was traveling with an ITV crew to film a live interview for Good Morning Britain.

When I met her in June, she was wearing Western clothing, but she was very aware that her bra strap was showing and revealing too much skin.

Fast forward three months and she seemed a lot more confident. She even asked me what color nail polish she should wear on camera.

When I saw her on TV that day, she seemed to enjoy the attention. And she learned that in order to gain sympathy, she had to tell people that she had been a victim of human trafficking and radicalization.

But something else happened before filming this visit, which made me feel sorry for her again.

Away from the cameras, she showed me photos of her deceased children, which she had with convicted terrorist Yago Riedijk – whom she married ten days after landing in Syria. Their youngest child, Jarrah, died shortly after arriving in Al-Roj.

As a parent, this made me very emotional. Before we left the camp, Shamima took my phone number.

The answer blew my mind. I thought, ‘Wait a minute, something’s wrong here.’ You can’t get over the death of three children in such a short time – it would absolutely traumatize anyone.

On October 7, 2021, I was at a work meeting in Surrey, feet up on my desk, when my phone pinged with a WhatsApp message: “Hey Andy, it’s Shamima.”

I wrote back saying how emotional I felt after seeing the photos of her children.

She replied, “If you [sic] make you feel better, i left that part of my life behind. It doesn’t make me sad anymore.”

The answer blew my mind. I thought: “Wait a minute, something is wrong here.” You can’t get over the death of three children in such a short time – it would absolutely traumatize anyone.

My brother died when I was 11 and I’ve been holding on to that trauma for 45 years.

That answer – and seeing how she was doing during filming – started to change my mind. Any sympathy I might have had for her was gone now.

But I still wanted to find out why she joined IS – and if someone forced her to do so.

I went to Syria in November last year for the third time in six months, this time with a crew from Sky News. During preparations for leaving the country again, Shamima had texted me asking about things.

“It’s taking away the spotlight from her on the news”

She wrote, “I don’t have a lot of winter clothes so maybe you could get me a pair of black skinny jeans and a plain black hoodie.”

I knew she thought she was manipulating me, but I needed a way to continue my journalism journey.

She asked for size 6 jeans and a size 8 hoodie. I bought them from Primark.

In June 2021 there were about eight or nine western IS brides hanging out with Shamima. They wore western clothes and seemed to protect her, although some of them told me she was crazy when she wasn’t around.

Now that group has shrunk to about three or four core people because the other women have been allowed to return to their countries.

Shamima had become more reclusive and appeared to mainly be dating Hoda Muthana, an American IS bride who has also had her citizenship revoked. Before my last trip to Shamima in June this year, she and Hoda asked me to get more clothes.

Shamima wrote: “Could we ask you to get us some bras and underwear? Hoda’s size is 38 C and my size is 34 B. Hoda’s underwear size is medium.

“Can you get us both some tank tops and leggings? Everything for Hoda is a medium. Any store is fine. Can you add sports bras too? . . And pajama shorts.”

Every time something like the Ukraine crisis happens in the world, we feel like all of our cases are being pushed aside and that we’re never going to get out of here.

Shamima Begum

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Shamima and I discussed preparations for my last visit.

Join the death cult

Leading up to this final trip, we chatted about everyday events to keep in touch.

She wrote: “Every time something like the Ukraine crisis happens in the world, we feel like all our cases are being pushed aside and that we’re never going to get out of here.”

Shamima had lowered my opinion of her again. She didn’t care about the suffering of the people of Ukraine. What bothered her more was that it robbed her of the news spotlight.

I hoped that if I take clothes to the camp it would encourage her to tell me more about why and how she went to Syria.

As strong as our relationship was, the only name she ever gave me for how she dealt with ISIS was Sharmeena Begum.

Sharmeena was the original British IS bride who left the UK in December 2014 at the age of 19 to join Daesh.

Two months later, Shamima – then 15 – and her friends Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana also left the country.

I think she wanted to be someone and thought she could achieve that by joining ISIS. Even if she was low level, she liked the attention.

Shamima knew Sharmeena and told me she influenced her to join the death cult. I asked her who the ringleader was and she blamed it on Sharmeena but I think from her own group of friends it was Shamima.

I think she wanted to be someone and thought she could achieve that by joining ISIS. Even if she was low level, she liked the attention.

When I first visited, I thought she was a simple, trafficked girl with little intelligence. But I’ve noticed that she’s sharp and smart, and often uses that to her advantage.

Shamima tried everything to get out of this prison camp. At first she seemed to think the caliphate was coming back, and she was defiant.

But since the fall of ISIS in 2019, she’s been playing the victim and even dragging me into her distorted narrative.

I don’t think I was a terrorist, I think I was just a stupid kid who made a mistake.

Shamima Begum

During our first conversations together, Shamima told me, “I don’t think I was a terrorist, I think I was just a stupid kid who made a mistake.”

These days she promises she will be a “voice against radicalisation” if she is allowed to return to the UK.

Shamima hasn’t texted me since June. She claimed she was unhappy with stories in the news about her.

To me, the new revelations about ‘spies’ and the trafficking of young Britons feel unbelievable, like something out of a James Bond film.

Life in the camp for Shamima is not what I would call harsh. It’s like living in a village.

They have a shop, there is a school for the children and most of the tents in Shamima’s section have a TV, shower and air conditioning.

In the summer there is a concrete spot where the women told me they meet and play music and dance into the night.

I have visited families in Syria and Iraq who are starving and still live in houses that ISIS blew up, with plastic sheeting over the windows and doors.

These people are the victims, not Shamima.

Andrew’s encounters with Shamima and his journeys to extreme places as one of the world’s most prolific adventurers are chronicled in his new book Trip Hazard, out this autumn and available to pre-order from Candy Jar Books for £9.99.