A British mother who travelled to Syria with her five children to join Islamic State has said she would like to return to the UK after discovering that supporters of the extremist group are ?not my cup of tea.?
Shukee Begum, a 33-year-old from Manchester, said she left Britain in an attempt to persuade her husband, Jamal al-Harith, to come home. A former Guantanamo Bay detainee, al-Harith joined Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Syria 18 months ago.
Speaking to Channel 4 News from the Syrian border with Turkey, Begum said she was denied permission to leave Syria and was forced to use people smugglers to secure her return. She said she wants to return to the UK, but is worried about reaction from authorities.
?I would love to go back to the UK,? she said. ?The UK is my home. I grew up there, my friends are there, my family are there.?
?That is where I consider to be home but I am just not sure at the moment of the track record of the current government, if the UK is somewhere I can come back to and achieve justice.?
She explained that she took her children to Syria in an attempt to show al-Harith what he was missing in the UK.
?I was seeing on the news at this point that ISIS was going from bad to worse...so I decided that I was going to try and speak some sense into him,? she said.
?He?s my husband, and all of a sudden he?s not there. It didn?t feel like home anymore. I was trying to manage school runs, things like that.?
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https://www.rt.com/uk/318749-returni...sis-interview/