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The British jihadi bride who recruited Shamima Begum into ISIS has been arrested in Syria after being linked to a terror attack in Germany, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
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Mail → see → Sunday
Sharmeena Begum, now 27, who left her east London home for Syria as a schoolgirl in December 2014, was traced after German police investigating July's Berlin Pride attack found she had exchanged messages with terrorist Abdul Ballout.
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she → leave → Ballout
He is understood to have sent Sharmeena - no relation to her former schoolmate Shamima - a video of himself swearing his oath of allegiance to ISIS, which she was allegedly meant to pass to the group's propaganda chief for release online after the attack.
uncertain
she → understand → attack
Ballout went on to drive a van into the crowd and attack revellers with a machete, killing one woman and injuring 29 others, before he was shot dead by police marksmen following a 24-hour manhunt.
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he → go → manhunt
The BKA - Germany's version of the FBI - are believed to have passed her number to a Western intelligence service, which tracked her to a hideout in Syria.
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which → believe → Syria
Last night her father, Mohammed Nizam Uddin, told this newspaper: 'I thought she had been killed in Syria.
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she → tell → Syria
I did not know she had been arrested.
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she → know → ?
No one from the police or the Government has told me anything about her for years.'
Sharmeena, radicalised in the wake of her mother's death from cancer in 2013, is said to have persuaded fellow Bethnal Green Academy pupils Shamima Begum, Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana to join her in Syria in February 2015.
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Sharmeena → tell → February
Sharmeena Begum (pictured) was the first girl from Bethnal Green Acedemy to join Isis in Sryia
Stills taken from CCTV issued by the Metropolitan Police of (left to right) Kadiza Sultana,16, Shamima Begum,15 and an un-named 15-year-old at Gatwick airport, they are feared to have travelled to Syria via Turkey, in 2015
Sharmeena is said to have persuaded fellow Bethnal Green Academy pupils Shamima Begum (pictured) Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana to join her in Syria in February 2015
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Sharmeena → picture → February
But while Shamima later disavowed the caliphate after its fall in early 2019, Sharmeena - who took an active operational role within the group and was regarded as extreme even by its own standards - remained unrepentant.
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who → disavow → standards
When contacted by an undercover journalist posing as an ISIS sympathiser in 2023, she branded her former friend a 'failure and non-believer' who had 'ruined the image' of the women who had joined the terror group, before mocking her for wanting to 'live off benefits' back in Britain.
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who → contact → Britain
The defeat of ISIS left tens of thousands of its wives and children held across a sprawling network of internment sites run by Kurdish forces in northern Syria.
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defeat → leave → Syria
Sharmeena is said to have escaped from Al-Hol - the largest of these sites, originally built as a refugee camp for Iraqis fleeing the first Gulf War - before its closure earlier this year.
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Sharmeena → say → closure
She went on to raise money for ISIS online via bitcoin donations, reportedly collecting close to £2,400, which she claimed would help fund the escape of other women and children still held in the camps.
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she → go → camps
She is expected to face trial for terrorism offences in Syria, where President Ahmed al-Sharaa - a former militant leader whose own group was a bitter rival of ISIS - has dealt harshly with its members.
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group → expect → members
If convicted, she would likely be put to death, and in the meantime faces incarceration in the country's notoriously brutal prison system.
But officials confirmed last night that she was stripped of her British citizenship several years ago, just as Shamima was - meaning the Government is under no obligation to help her.
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Government → convict → her
Sharmeena Begum has been arrested in Syria after being linked to a terror attack in Germany
Sharmeena was traced after German police investigating July's Berlin Pride attack found she had exchanged messages with gunman Abdul Ballout.
Mohammad Uddin, with pictures of his daughter Sharmeena Begum
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she → arrest → daughter
Fighting back tears, Mr Uddin added: 'What can I do?
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I → fight → What
I won't be able to do anything, even if I want to.
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I → do → anything
I won't be able to see her, and she will not be able to come back here, so it's the same for me her being alive or dead.
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her → see → her
Whatever decision comes from God, will happen.
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decision → come → God
Extradition to Germany may offer Sharmeena her only realistic hope of escaping the death penalty, should investigators there decide to pursue her over Ballout's attack before Syria can put her on trial.
But despite exchanging messages with Ballout in the days beforehand, investigators have so far found no evidence that she helped plan the attack itself.
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she → offer → attack
Her capture means all four of the Bethnal Green Academy schoolgirls who joined ISIS are now accounted for, with Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase both believed to have been killed in Syria.
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Sultana → mean → Syria
Shamima remains stranded and stateless in the Al-Roj camp, near Syria's border with Iraq.
She recently mounted a fresh legal challenge to return to Britain, with lawyers arguing she was trafficked to Syria for sexual exploitation as a 15-year-old and married off to an adult ISIS fighter within days of arriving.
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she → remain → days
News of Sharmeena's whereabouts comes after the Daily Mail revealed earlier this year that another woman who fled Britain to join ISIS with her son had reinvented herself as a jet-setting influencer.
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who → come → influencer
Tareena Shakil notoriously posted sinister images on Facebook of her son wearing an Islamic State-branded balaclava, along with others of her brandishing an AK-47 assault rifle and a handgun beside the terror group's flag.
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her → post → flag
Tareena Shakil fled Britain with her toddler son and travelled to war-ravaged Syria to join ISIS - in the hope that the youngster would one day commit murderous atrocities
Shakil pictured applying lipstick in central London.
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Shakil → flee → London
has also travelled to Paris, Rome and the Cotswolds
The former hijab-wearing radical - who was jailed for six years in 2016 for joining ISIS and encouraging acts of terror on social media - now poses in an array of glamorous Western outfits and appears to aspire to a lifestyle far closer to the catwalk than the caliphate.
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who → travel → caliphate
One Instagram post showed her travelling to Paris after previously heading to the bright lights of London for a shopping trip - posing for pictures as she tried on outfits at a swanky Chanel store.
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she → show → store
Last year, she enjoyed a balloon ride over a desert landscape and a get-away-from-it-all escape to a paradise island in Thailand, where she went on boat rides and paddled with elephants on a private beach.
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she → enjoy → beach
On a TikTok account which has nearly 50,000 followers and has had more than five million likes, Shakil, who calls herself 'thatgirl.tamtam' posts dozens of videos largely featuring dating advice under the banner: 'You're safe here girls'.
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You → have → banner
Despite being single herself, she explains what women need to do to find their 'soulmate' in short videos she shoots from the inside of a sporty white Audi TT.
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she → explain → TT
Meanwhile, on YouTube, Shakil posts longer videos focusing on positivity and sharing her 'mindset for success'.
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Shakil → post → success
In one video, Shakil told followers how she had developed her strength of character and resilience after overcoming 'horrific moments in her life'.
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she → tell → life
Without referring to her previous life as a jihadi, she said: 'You need the bad times, guys - the crying yourself to sleep at night.
'
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You → refer → night
When you go through these things, you are built up to be a fantastic version of yourself.
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you → go → yourself
There is not a situation that life can throw at me that overwhelms me - absolutely not.
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that → be → me
There is not a person that I could meet that makes me feel I have to do as they say.
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they → be → that
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