Why I took kids to Syria terror camp

CROWDED and uncomfortable: Shukee Begum

AN Oldham mum who took her five children to Syria claims she went only to try to “speak some sense” into her husband who had joined so-called “Islamic State” extremists.

Stranded Shukee Begum (33) told Channel 4 News the camp’s crowded and uncomfortable conditions for her and her young children were “not my cup of tea”.

Shukee, from Werneth, described conditions in the Isis stronghold of Raqqa as “worse than I expected” and has warned others not to make the journey.

“You’ve got hundreds of families living in one hall, sharing perhaps one or two bathrooms between them, one or two kitchens between them. Children are crying, children were sick. There was a gangster kind of mentality among single women there. Violent talk — talking about war, killing.

“They would sit together and huddle around their laptops and watch Isis videos together and discuss them and everything. It was just not my cup of tea.”

Ms Begum says she travelled to Syria in August 2015 to search for her husband, former Guantanamo Bay detainee Jamal al-Harith.

She said she the Muslim convert - born Ronald Fiddler - to be with their children, including a baby only four weeks old whom he hadn’t seen. He was suspected of terrorism by the Americans but freed from the US detention centre in 2004 after lobbying by the British government.

She told Channel 4 News: “I was seeing on the news that Isis was going from bad to worse so I decided I was going to try and speak some sense into him.

“At the same time I wanted to see him. I wanted the children to see their father. I wanted the baby to meet his father.”

Ms Begum insisted her husband of 11 years was a “family man” despite joining the extremist organisation.: “I’ve always known him to be a good man with good characteristics,” she said.

Ms Begum, who fears she could face terrorism charges, has not returned to Britain and insists she is not an IS supporter.

She said home in Britain had felt strange without her husband and she was thinking about the children’s futures and whether he would be part of it when she left for Syria.

Ms Begum claimed she only planned to keep the children in Syria for a month, but found herself trapped there after a bag containing her phones, travel money and passports was stolen. It is believed she and her children are now living near the Turkish border in Syria.

Her husband didn’t help her to get out, she says. “This is what I want to make clear as well to other women thinking of coming into Isis territory. You can’t just expect to come into Isis territory and then expect that you can just leave again easily. There is no personal autonomy there at all.”