Shamima Begum was a London schoolgirl until Scotland Yard raised concerns she and two of her fellow pupils had travelled to Syria in February 2015.

The now 23-year-old was just 15 when she travelled to Istanbul in Turkey from Gatwick Airport to join the so-called Islamic State (IS) with her close friends at Bethnal Green Academy – Kadiza Sultana, 16, and Amira Abase, 15.

Despite her family’s warnings that Syria was a “dangerous place”, the then teenager, described as a “straight A student”, crossed the border just days later with the help of a Canadian spy named Mohammed Al Rasheed, according to reports.

In the Shamima Begum Story BBC podcast series, she said she was told to “pack nice clothes so you can dress nicely for your husband”.

Just 10 days after arriving in the city of Raqqa, Ms Begum, who is of Bangladeshi heritage, was married to a Dutchman named Yago Riedijk, who had converted to Islam.

They had three children together, who all later died from malnourishment or disease. They were a one-year-old girl, a three-month-old boy and newborn son.

Ms Begum left Raqqa with her husband in January 2017, but they were eventually split up, as she claimed he was arrested for spying and tortured.

She was eventually found nine months pregnant in a refugee camp in al-Roj in February 2019 by a Times journalist.

Ms Begum told the reporter it “didn’t faze me at all” when she saw her first “severed head”, but would “do anything required just to be able to come home”.

But the runaway schoolgirl said she did not regret travelling to IS-controlled Syria, saying she had a “good time”.

The then-Metropolitan Police commissioner Dame Cressida Dick said Ms Begum could expect to be “spoken to” if she returned to the UK.

In the same month, she was stripped of her British citizenship after announcing her desire to return to the UK with her then unborn third child.

The move was deemed only permissible under international law if it did not leave her stateless.

Since then, the former IS bride has been embroiled in a battle with the British legal system – she lost her latest legal challenge over the decision to deprive her of her British citizenship on Wednesday.

Ms Begum described the initial move to revoke her citizenship as “unjust on me and my son”.

The then-home secretary Sajid Javid said although he would never leave an individual stateless, his priority was the “safety and security” of the UK.

Mr Javid was criticised by Labour after Ms Begum’s son later died – with the then-shadow home secretary Diane Abbott describing the situation as “callous and inhumane”.

She lost her first appeal to return to the UK but successfully challenged the decision at the Court of Appeal.

But the Government submitted a fresh appeal, meaning her return was put on hold pending a Supreme Court battle.

She was dealt a fresh blow when the Supreme Court ruled she could not come back to the UK – leading to her begging the British public for forgiveness.

When she appeared on TV screens in September 2021, she had drastically changed her appearance – wearing a Nike baseball cap, a grey vest, Casio watch and with her fingernails painted pink.

Ms Begum said there was “no evidence” she was a key player in preparing terrorist acts and was prepared to prove her innocence in court.

She denied her Western physical appearance on Good Morning Britain – in stark contrast to the traditional Islamic dress she previously adorned – was a publicity stunt.

In the BBC podcast series released last month, she said she understood public anger towards her, but insisted she is not a “bad person”.

She told the podcast she accepted she is viewed “as a danger, as a risk”, but blamed her portrayal in the media.

The Foreign Secretary has said giving Shamima Begum access to legal aid to challenge the decision to deprive her of UK citizenship would make him “very uncomfortable”.

Jeremy Hunt said Ms Begum, who left the UK at the age of 15 to marry an Islamic State fighter, “knew the choices she was making”, but acknowledged that the UK is a country which believes people should have access to legal representation.

The Daily Mail reports that Ms Begum is now hoping to get legal aid to challenge a decision to strip her of UK citizenship.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Hunt said: “On a personal level, it makes me very uncomfortable because she made a series of choices and she knew the choices she was making, so I think we made decisions about her future based on those choices.

“However, we are a country that believes that people with limited means should have access to the resources of the state if they want to challenge the decisions the state has made about them and, for obvious reasons, those decisions are made independent from politicians.”

Mr Hunt added: “The decision to deprive her of her citizenship was taken by a politician. Obviously the decision about whether she accesses legal aid or not has to be done independently.”

Dal Babu, a former chief superintendent in the Metropolitan Police, is a friend of the family.

He told Today that Ms Begum should have legal aid to make sure the correct process is followed.

Mr Babu said: “Isis is a murderous organisation. They are a horrendous organisation and I don’t think anyone in their right mind would be joining that organisation.

“She was a young woman. She was 15 when she was groomed. The police were aware of this, the counter-terrorism police were aware of this, the school she was at was aware of this, and the social workers at Tower Hamlets Council were aware of this.

“There has been no serious case review. Normally, when a young person dies as a result of failures in safeguarding, there is a serious case review.”

Mr Babu said that, in order for a proper review to take place, Ms Begum needed to get legal aid.

“I think legal aid is a principle of the British legal justice system.

There will be people who can afford to have swanky lawyers, there will be people who have no money who are in desperate situations.”

A Legal Aid Agency spokesman said: “We are unable to comment on individual cases.

“Anybody applying for legal aid in a Special Immigration Appeal Commission case is subject to strict eligibility tests.”

Mark Tipper, whose brother Trooper Simon Tipper was killed in the 1982 Hyde Park bombing, is among critics who have condemned the move as “absolutely disgusting”, according to the Daily Mail.

He was refused funding to pursue a case in the civil courts, although the decision was later reversed following public outrage.

Corey Stoughton, advocacy director at Liberty human rights group, described the granting of legal aid in this case as “not just appropriate but absolutely necessary to ensure that the Government’s decisions are properly scrutinised”.

She said: “Stripping someone of their citizenship is among the most severe punishments a government can exercise, and the evidence that this decision will render Shamima Begum effectively stateless presents a powerful argument for subjecting this case to rigorous scrutiny in court.

“This case could have widespread repercussions for thousands of people, and more broadly for how the Government uses dramatic powers to take away fundamental rights.”

Shamima Begum’s decision to go to the Islamic State was made when she was 15. No doubt, she was a young person who was influenced by what she consumed through slick Islamic State propaganda online. She was vulnerable to being drawn into the propaganda and those working on extremism realise that those personal vulnerabilities involve a range of possible factors.

What is troubling is that Begum did not try and leave the Islamic State as Sabra Kesinovic did. It is alleged that Kesinovic was murdered for trying to leave the Islamic State and it is possibly understandable that Begum did not leave because of fear. Yet, in her interviews to media sources after her residence in the Al-Hawl refugee camp in Syria, she stated that life in the Islamic State was fine until attacks on Raqqa. There was no sense of regret, until after her interviews with British media sources that seemed to open up some sense of reflection within herself.

Many in the U.K. simply have little compassion for Begum. No-one can blame them when hundreds of our citizens have been murdered by terrorists overflowing with rage which has been inflamed by the propaganda of Islamic State. Furthermore, the Home Secretary has said on many occasions that he has further information that has been made available to him that allows him to withdraw her citizenship.

However, in all of the discussions about Begum in the last few weeks, what has been missed and what few have considered, was that there was a young new born in the equation who was highly vulnerable to infection, dehydration and malnutrition. It seems that the obsession with Begum simply missed out this tiny British life that has now passed from this earth. That child simply did not have a chance for a future.

This whole scenario demonstrates one key fact. That we must do what is possible through third party countries in places like Syria to try and ensure the lives of innocents have a chance to survive. Whilst the U.K. has no consulate in Syria, we could have tried to protect that life through third party countries or at the very least, get medical support for that child through these countries. However, politics must have played a role in this as politicians would have been concerned about how public funds being used to save the life of a young child born to an IS bride, would be seen.

Moving forward, we must take into account the lives of the children born to IS sympathisers and supporters. We simply have a moral, practical and political responsibility to the children. We ask Her Majesty’s Government to open up channels of support through third party countries to provide some basic medical assistance to the children of these parents. This support does not have to be provided to their parents, but the innocents, their children must be supported. They are the innocents in this whole moral mess.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and their Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners have agreed a plan to strip some Germans who fight for the Islamic State militant group of their citizenship, a German newspaper reported on Sunday.

More than 1,000 Germans have left their country for war zones in the Middle East since 2013 and the government has been debating how to deal with them as U.S.-backed forces are poised to take the last patch of territory from Islamic State in Syria.

About a third have returned to Germany, another third are believed to have died, and the rest are believed to be still in Iraq and Syria, including some detained by Iraqi forces and U.S.-backed fighters in Syria.

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, citing unnamed government sources, said three criteria must be met to allow the government to denaturalize Germans who take up arms for the Islamist group.

Such individuals must have a second citizenship, be adults and they would be stripped of their citizenship should they fight for Islamic State after the new rules go into effect.

The compromise ends a dispute over the issue between conservative Interior Minister Horst Seehofer and SPD Justice Minister Katarina Barley.

Spokesmen for both ministers were not available to comment on the report.

U.S. President Donald Trump last month urged Britain, France and Germany to take back more than 800 captured Islamic State fighters and put them on trial.

Germany said it would take back fighters only if the suspects have consular access.

Last month Britain revoked the citizenship of a teenager who had left London when she was aged 15 to join Islamic State in Syria.

The case of Shamima Begum highlighted the security, legal and ethical dilemmas facing European governments dealing with citizens who had sworn allegiance to a group determined to destroy the West.

Floodgates could be opened for Islamic State supporters coming back to the UK if Shamima Begum succeeds in getting back into the country, a former counter-terrorism police chief has warned.

Scott Wilson, who helped lead the response to the 2017 London Bridge attack, said monitoring the teenager would cost millions of pounds and the security services and police would “never be able to take their eye off her” if she did return.

Begum, who left her east London home to join IS in Syria in 2015, wants to return to the UK for the sake of her newborn third child, but has been stripped of her British citizenship.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid made the move on advice that she qualified for Bangladeshi citizenship through her mother, although authorities there have said they will not let her enter the country.

Mr Wilson, who was UK National Counter Terrorism Co-ordinator for Protect and Prepare until last summer, said: “When you look at all the background to her going out there, I know they are trying to say she was a groomed child, but there was a lot of planning that went in with her and her group to get herself out there.

“It’s not just the bringing her back, the deradicalisation programme; the security services will end up spending years monitoring her.

“They will never be able to take their eye off her for the simple reason that they don’t know what could happen. If she did do something in the UK, the Government and the security services would get the blame for it.

“It’s the millions of pounds of monitoring that it’s going to cause, not just the bringing her back and putting her through a deradicalisation programme.”

Last week, Oxford-born terror suspect Jack Letts, known as Jihadi Jack, said he wants to return to the UK, and misses his mother, pasties and Doctor Who.

It was also reported that Abu Hamza’s son, Sufyan Mustafa, 23, is fighting the decision to revoke his British passport.

Mr Wilson believes a slew of suspected IS supporters will want to return to the UK if Begum succeeds in doing so.

“I don’t think the British Government should give her the way to get her out of Syria and get her back here, that’s the point,” he said. “If she gets back here then it’s on their plate to deal with it.

“If you start making a free way for them to get back then where do you stop?

“I can see floodgates opening. I don’t think we should make it easy. If you make it easy then you’re just opening the floodgates for it and suddenly you’re monitoring people forever.

“I don’t sound very sympathetic because I just see the consequences. I dealt with London Bridge on the streets.

“When you see the consequences of this, I just think this country can be too sympathetic at times. She made the decision so she will have to stick to the decision she made.”

Begum’s father, Ahmed Ali, said his 19-year-old daughter should face justice in Britain despite previously appearing to back the removal of her citizenship.

The teenager, who married Dutch IS fighter Yago Riedijk, had two older children who both died.

Mr Ali told ITV News: “I don’t think he’s (Sajid Javid) done the right thing because she is a British citizen, and if it turns out she has committed any crimes, then she should face justice in the UK.

“She belongs to this country, she belongs to England.

“My daughter was a little child, she made a mistake, she didn’t properly understand.”

Islamic State bride Shamima Begum said she regrets speaking to the media and wishes she had found a different way to contact her family.

The teenager, who fled London aged 15 to join Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria, has said she wants to return to the UK with her newborn son.

Ms Begum, who has had her British citizenship revoked, was one of three schoolgirls to leave Bethnal Green to join the terror cult in 2015 and resurfaced heavily pregnant at a Syrian refugee camp last week.

Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph from the al-Hol camp in Syria, Ms Begum said: “They are making an example of me. I regret speaking to the media. I wish I had stayed low and found a different way to contact my family. That’s why I spoke to the newspaper.”

The Home Secretary revoked Ms Begum’s British citizenship in a move only permissible under international law if it does not leave the individual stateless.

It was speculated that Ms Begum, who is of Bangladeshi heritage, may have citizenship there but Bangladesh’s minister of state for foreign affairs Shahriar Alam denied this.

Her family have written to the Home Secretary asking for his help to bring her newborn son to Britain.

The letter to Sajid Javid said the baby boy was a “true innocent” who should not “lose the privilege of being raised in the safety of this country”.

Her sister Remu Begum, writing on behalf of the family, asked how they could help the Home Secretary “in bringing my nephew home to us”.

The family said they have had no contact with Ms Begum and had only learned she had given birth to a boy through media reports.

They made clear that they were “shocked and appalled” at the “vile comments” Ms Begum had recently made to the media.

Mr Javid’s removal of her citizenship came amid heated debate over whether the teenager should be able to return to the UK after she was found in a Syrian refugee camp with the terror group’s reign nearly over.

While many do not want to see Ms Begum return to the UK, others have argued she should face prosecution for her actions, and attempts at deradicalisation.

The Begum family’s lawyer Tasnime Akunjee said she was born in the UK, has never had a Bangladeshi passport and is not a dual citizen, which was confirmed by the Bangladeshi minister.

The family of Islamic State bride Shamima Begum have written to the Home Secretary asking for his help to bring her newborn son to Britain.

The letter to Sajid Javid said the baby boy was a “true innocent” who should not “lose the privilege of being raised in the safety of this country”.

The teenager, who fled London aged 15 to join Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria, said she wanted to return to the UK with her son.

Her sister Remu Begum, writing on behalf of the family, asked how they could help the Home Secretary “in bringing my nephew home to us”.

The family said they have had no contact with Ms Begum and had only learned she had given birth to a boy through media reports.

They made clear that they were “shocked and appalled” at the “vile comments” Ms Begum had recently made to the media.

Ms Begum was one of three schoolgirls to leave Bethnal Green to join the terror cult in 2015 and resurfaced heavily pregnant at a Syrian refugee camp last week.

Her family’s letter said they had made “every fathomable effort” to block her from entering IS territory.

“That year we lost Shamima to a murderous and misogynistic cult,” her sister wrote.

“My sister has been in their thrall now for four years, and it is clear to me that her exploitation at their hands has fundamentally damaged her.”

The Home Secretary revoked Ms Begum’s British citizenship in a move only permissible under international law if it does not leave the individual stateless.

It was speculated that Ms Begum, who is of Bangladeshi heritage, may have citizenship there but Bangladesh’s minister of state for foreign affairs Shahriar Alam denied this.

Appealing to the Home Secretary, the family said: “We are sickened by the comments she has made, but, as a family man yourself, we hope you will understand that we, as her family cannot simply abandon her.

“We have a duty to her, and a duty to hope that as she was groomed into what she has become, she can equally be helped back into the sister I knew, and daughter my parents bore.

“We hope you understand our position in this respect and why we must, therefore, assist Shamima in challenging your decision to take away the one thing that is her only hope at rehabilitation, her British citizenship.

“Shamima’s status will now be a matter for our British courts to decide in due course.”

Ms Begum earlier told Sky News she had no desire to go to Bangladesh: “I don’t have anything there, another language, I have never even seen the place.”

Mr Javid’s removal of her citizenship came amid heated debate over whether the teenager should be able to return to the UK after she was found in a Syrian refugee camp with the terror group’s reign nearly over.

The Begum family’s lawyer Tasnime Akunjee said she was born in the UK, has never had a Bangladeshi passport and is not a dual citizen, which was confirmed by the Bangladeshi minister.

Mr Alam added: “So, there is no question of her being allowed to enter into Bangladesh.”

Asked about the situation on ITV’s Peston, Mr Javid said: “I’m not going to talk about an individual, but I can be clear on the point that I would not take a decision and I believe none of my predecessors ever have taken a decision that at the point the decision is taken would leave that individual stateless.”

He also suggested to the Commons that action to bar her from returning will not impact her son’s rights.

“If a parent does lose their British citizenship, it does not affect the rights of their child,” he said.

The British Nationality Act 1981 provides the Home Secretary with the power to strip people of citizenship if it is “conducive to the public good”.

Meanwhile, the Government’s chief adviser on countering extremism warned radical Islamists could exploit the unease caused by Mr Javid’s move.

Independent adviser Sara Khan said: “The Government has to recognise the unease felt by a wide range of people about decisions of this kind, not least those from minority communities with dual nationality.

“It has to build trust in its approach, because Islamist extremists will exploit alienation and grievance to turn people against their country.”

Islamic State bride Shamima Begum, who fled to Syria aged 15, is not a Bangladeshi citizen and will be barred from entering the country, its foreign ministry has said.

The 19-year-old from London said she wanted to return to the UK with her newborn baby, with the end of the so-called caliphate in Syria within sight.

But Home Secretary Sajid Javid revoked her British citizenship in a move only permissible under international law if it does not leave the individual stateless.

There had been speculation that Ms Begum, who is of Bangladeshi heritage, may have citizenship there but its minister of state for foreign affairs Shahriar Alam denied this on Wednesday.

A statement tweeted by the minister said: “The Government of Bangladesh is deeply concerned that she has been erroneously identified as a holder of dual citizenship shared with Bangladesh alongside her birthplace, the United Kingdom.

“Bangladesh asserts that Ms Shamima Begum is not a Bangladeshi citizen.

She is a British citizen by birth and has never applied for dual nationality with Bangladesh.

“It may also be mentioned that she never visited Bangladesh in the past despite her parental lineage.

“So, there is no question of her being allowed to enter into Bangladesh.”

The statement added that Dhaka had only been made aware of the situation by the media.

Asked whether she had been left stateless by Britain, the Begum family’s lawyer Tasnime Akunjee said: “It’s certainly something we will be adding to the mix in terms of our appeal.”

He has said Ms Begum was born in the UK, has never had a Bangladeshi passport and is not a dual citizen.

Asked about the situation on ITV’s Peston, Mr Javid said: “I’m not aware of any Home Secretary in any party in any previous government that has taken a decision that would leave anyone stateless.

“I’m not going to talk about an individual, but I can be clear on the point that I would not take a decision and I believe none of my predecessors ever have taken a decision that at the point the decision is taken would leave that individual stateless.”

A Home Office spokesman said: “In recent days the Home Secretary has clearly stated that his priority is the safety and security of Britain and the people who live here.

“In order to protect this country, he has the power to deprive someone of their British citizenship where it would not render them stateless.

“We do not comment on individual cases, but any decisions to deprive individuals of their citizenship are based on all available evidence and not taken lightly.”

She was one of three schoolgirls to leave Bethnal Green to join the terror cult in 2015 and resurfaced heavily pregnant at a Syrian refugee camp last week.

On Wednesday, she was shown a copy of the Home Office letter that announced her British citizenship would be stripped.

She told ITV News: “I don’t know what to say. I am not that shocked but I am a bit shocked.

“It’s a bit upsetting and frustrating. I feel like it’s a bit unjust on me and my son.”

She went on to say she may try for citizenship in the Netherlands, where her husband is from.

Meanwhile, Mr Javid suggested the action to prevent Ms Begum returning will have no impact on her baby son’s nationality.

While insisting he could not discuss individual cases, he told the

Commons: “Children should not suffer.

“So, if a parent does lose their British citizenship, it does not affect the rights of their child.”

He also delivered a staunch defence of the Government’s ability to use the citizenship powers to prevent the return of “dangerous individuals”.

He told MPs that the step was never taken lightly, adding: “But when someone turns their back on the fundamental values and supports terror, they don’t have an automatic right to return to the UK.

“We must put the safety and security of our country first and I will not hesitate to act to protect it.”

Ms Begum’s comments sparked intense debate about the UK’s responsibilities to those seeking to return from Syria.

The case took a dramatic turn on Tuesday when it emerged Mr Javid had opted to strip Ms Begum of her British citizenship.

The British Nationality Act 1981 provides the Home Secretary with the power to take such action if it is “conducive to the public good”.

A protracted legal battle over the move is now looming with international law forbidding nations from making people stateless.

Lord Carlile, former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said Ms Begum could challenge the decision, and described it as a “complex issue” that could take a while to resolve.

He told BBC Breakfast: “I suspect that the result is going to be that she will stay where she is for maybe two years at least.”

Figures for 2017 show that 104 people were deprived of their British citizenship, up from 14 in the previous year.

A teenage girl who fled Britain to join Islamic State has compared the Manchester Arena bombing to military assaults on Syria.

In an interview with the BBC, Shamima Begum, now 19, said the deaths of 22 innocent people in the terrorist attack on an Ariana Grande concert in 2017 were akin to the “women and children” being bombed in IS territory in Baghuz.

She told the broadcaster: “I do feel that it’s wrong that innocent people did get killed. It’s one thing to kill a soldier that is fighting you, it’s self-defence, but to kill the people like women and children…

“Just people like the women and children in Baghuz that are being killed right now unjustly, the bombings. It’s a two-way thing really.

“Because women and children are being killed back in the Islamic State right now and it’s kind of retaliation. Like, their justification was that it was retaliation so I thought ‘OK, that is a fair justification’.”

The mother-of-three, who gave birth to her third child at the weekend, left east London with two friends in 2015 to join the terrorist group.

She was partly inspired by videos of fighters beheading hostages and partly by other propaganda films showing the “good life” IS could offer.

Since she has been there, her two older children have died.

The teenager insisted she did not ask to be the subject of international media attention.

She said: “I didn’t want to be on the news at first. I know a lot of people, after they saw that me and my friends came, it actually encouraged them.

“I did hear, yeah, a lot of people were encouraged to come after I left but I wasn’t the one that put myself on the news. We didn’t want to be on the news.”

UK authorities now face the difficult question of what to do if Ms Begum manages to return to Britain.

Her family’s lawyer, Tasnime Akunjee, said he anticipated that she would face criminal proceedings upon any return to the UK, but said it was the family’s hope that she would be given professional help following her experience in Syria.

He told BBC Breakfast: “The family have gone out of their way from day one to try to get her away from the IS narrative and the context which she finds herself in.

“She’s been there for four years and we would be surprised if she hadn’t been further damaged beyond the degree she had already been groomed into.

“The family are concerned, as they have been for the last four years, not just to get her away, but, as of yesterday, to make sure that their grandchild – her child – is not influenced by that sort of thinking.”

An east London schoolgirl who left Britain as a 15-year-old to join the Islamic State group is now heavily pregnant and wants to come home.

Shamima Begum was tracked down by The Times to a refugee camp in northern Syria where she is now 19-years-old, the bride of an Islamic State fighter, nine months pregnant and has had two infant children who are dead. Her husband is in captivity.

Stating that “I don’t regret coming here,” she told The Times: “I’m not the same silly little 15-year-old schoolgirl who ran away from Bethnal Green four years ago.”

She also told the paper: “The caliphate is over.

“There was so much oppression and corruption that I don’t think they deserved victory. I know what everyone at home thinks of me as I have read all that was written about me online. But I just want to come home to have my child. That’s all I want right now. I’ll do anything required just to be able to come home and live quietly with my child.”

She was one of three schoolgirls – along with Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase – from Bethnal Green Academy who left their homes and families in February 2015 to join a fourth Bethnal Green schoolgirl in Syria who had left London they year before. They each married an Isis foreign fighter, according to The Times.

Ms Sultana was reported to have been killed in an airstrike on Raqqa in May 2016, while Ms Begum has recently heard second-hand from other people that Miss Abase, and the other schoolgirl who left Britain in 2014, may still be alive.

When she arrived, Miss Begum was put in a house where jihadist brides-to-be waited to be married, she said.

Ms Begum was married 10 days after arriving in Raqqa in 2015 to a Dutchman who had converted to Islam. She claims her husband was later arrested, charged with spying and tortured.

She left Raqqa in January 2017 with her husband but her children, a girl aged a year and nine months old and a three-month-old boy, both died in the recent months. Her son had an unknown illness worsened  by malnutrition, The Times said.

She said she had a “mostly” a “normal life in Raqqa, every now and then bombing and stuff”.

She told the paper: “But when I saw my first severed head in a bin it 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.”

The family went to Baghuz and she left there two weeks ago along a three-mile long corridor east of the town. Her husband surrendered to a group of Syrian fighters allied to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and she has not seen him since, according to The Times.

The Home Office said it does not comment on individual cases, although anyone who returns to the UK after travelling to IS territory faces criminal investigation and stricter laws are now in place.

Security Minister Ben Wallace said: “The UK advises against all travel to Syria and parts of Iraq. Anyone who does travel to these areas, for whatever reason, is putting themselves in considerable danger.

“Everyone who returns from taking part in the conflict in Syria or Iraq must expect to be investigated by the police to determine if they have committed criminal offences, and to ensure that they do not pose a threat to our national security.

“There are a range of terrorism offences where individuals can be convicted for crimes committed overseas and we can also use Temporary Exclusion Orders to control an individuals’ return to the UK.”