SHAMIMA Begum is begging for her “day in court” as fears mount that the former ISIS bride may return to the UK as Syrian detention camps collapse.
It comes as Britain is allegedly repatriating dozens of Islamic State-linked women and children back to the UK from Syrian prisons.
A director of the al-Roj camp told The Times that six UK women and nine children had been repatriated in recent years.
Speculation is looming that infamous jihadi bride Begum, 25, could be brought to Britain as authorities from over 50 counties scramble to figure out how to deal with tens of thousands of families stuck in camps.
At least 29 other women and children who hold or previously held a British passport are still being housed at the al-Roj camp, reports said.
Some 6,000 Westerners are still held in Syria’s al-Hol and al-Roj camps in northern Syrian – including Begum, who is currently held at the latter.
Foreign Office policy currently rules that so-called ISIS brides should not be allowed to return to the UK.
Unaccompanied minors have been permitted to return to the UK and put under the care of social services while mothers with accompanying minors were forced to stay in Syria.
But now, it seems women have been permitted to return with their children on a case-by-case basis.
And most of these were under 18 before they travelled or were taken to Syria.
Additionally, some 400 people with links to ISIS are already believed to have come back to the UK over the past decade.
The Sun previously reported how rioting ISIS brides had escaped from the sprawling Al-Hol camp.
Detained women set fire to buildings on Tuesday as Kurdish guards and troops abandoned the site under attack by the Syrian army.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the US-backed coalition that controls the IS detention camps, is losing ground it has held for years to government forces.
The SDF warned government attempts to seize the prisons could have “serious security repercussions” that “threaten stability and pave the way for a return to chaos and terrorism“.
Fierce fighting has been reported outside IS facilities in north-eastern Syria including – al-Aqtan prison near Raqqa, a prison in Deir al-Zour and another in the town of al-Shadadi.
These detention centres house thousands of IS members, branded a “terror army in waiting” by Western officials.
And the nearby camp, al-Roj, holds infamous ISIS bride Begum, who may now find herself free.
Begum, 26, was stripped of her British citizenship in 2019 after she travelled to Syria to join the terrorist group as a teenager.
She is accused of serving in the feared IS “morality police” and helping to make suicide vests.
Begum’s bid to return to the UK was recently revived after the European Court of Human Rights formally challenged that decision.
Begum has always denied being an active member of ISIS and her defence team has said she is a victim of child trafficking.
She was originally in al-Hol, before being moved to al-Roj – the former once held more than 40,000 people, mostly women who were married to jailed or killed extremists.
And it’s said that there is a brainwashed generation being raised in the camps who have known nothing beyond the twisted rule and warped education of ISIS.
The bloody struggle comes after the expiration of a 2025 integration deadline and the failure of diplomatic talks over the control of strategic oilfields and military command structures.
But fears are growing after the SDF pulled back, raising the chilling prospect that the detainees could be set free if law and order collapses.
In spite of Begum’s potential early release, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she will “robustly defend” the decision to strip the jihadi bride of her British citizenship, government sources say.
She vowed to fight moves from the European Court of Human Rights over whether it acted unlawfully in stripping Begum of her British status.
The Strasbourg judges could now trigger a new legal battle with the government over blocking her return to the UK.
