Shamima Begum Smuggled Into Syria On Behalf Of Islamic State By Canadian Spy Shamima Begum

Ottawa is accused of withholding information about their whereabouts while the Metropolitan Police intervened in an international search to find them. However, it is reported that Canadian intelligence did not learn that Begum had been recruited until four days after she left Britain, when she had already crossed the border into Syria. Begum was a 15-year-old pupil when she and two classmates at Bethnal Green Academy traveled from east London to Syria in 2015. She, along with her school friends Kadiza Sultana, 16, and Amira Abase, 15, were met at Istanbul’s bus station for their next journey in life with Islamic State in Syria by a man called Mohammed Al Rashed. The claim is made in Richard Kerbaj’s The Secret History of the Five Eyes, which is published on Thursday. Five Eyes is the intelligence sharing network between Britain, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Rashed is said to have been a double agent who shared Begum’s Canadian passport details and smuggled dozens of others out of Britain to fight for IS. The Begum family’s lawyer, Tasnime Akunjee, maintains that the teenager was trafficked out of the country. The suggestion that a Western intelligence outlet may have been involved, including arranging bus tickets for the schoolgirl, will reignite the debate over stripping her of her British citizenship. The Met police are said to have been tipped off about the role of a Canadian double agent in smuggling the girls out of Britain. In the book, Kerbaj writes that Canada’s intelligence agency “remained silent on the explosive allegations, resorting to the one thing that protects all intelligence agencies, including those within the Five Eyes, from potential embarrassment: secrecy.” “For seven years now this has been covered up by the Canadians,” Kerbaj told the Guardian. He said he interviewed several Canadian intelligence officials about the book, who confirmed the timeline of events. “I think the cover-up is worse than the offense in many ways here, because you would expect human intelligence agencies to recruit members of criminal groups and terrorist groups.” Kerbaj said British authorities also failed to be forthcoming once they learned of Rashed’s role for Canada in recruiting the girls. “I think they felt on balance that it was better not to discuss this because there were still British and other Western hostages in ISIS territory,” Kerbaj said. “There was a concern that at the same time that they were trying to access ISIS and they were trying to infiltrate ISIS, if a story like this came out that one of their own had been turned over there, was working for the Canadian services, then that would potentially make them even more paranoid and would start beheading people.” Last year, the high court upheld a 2019 decision to ban the now 23-year-old from returning to the UK. Begum lives in a detention camp in northern Syria, having given birth to three children, all of whom died young. There was no indication in the high court ruling that the British authorities were aware of the circumstances of her illegal entry into Syria. Begum is due to make a new case at the special immigration appeals panel in November. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Akunjee said a key argument in the case would be that Sajid Javid, who was the UK home secretary at the time, did not believe she was a victim of trafficking. “The UK has international obligations in terms of how we view a person who has been trafficked and what culpability we attribute to them for their actions,” he told the BBC. Akunji said to Western intelligence that Rashed was “someone who is supposed to be an ally, protecting our people, rather than trafficking British children into a war zone”. He added: “Collecting information appears to have been prioritized over children’s lives.” In 2013, two years before the girls were taken to Syria, Rashed went to the Canadian embassy in Jordan to apply for asylum, the book claims. He is also said to have claimed Canada told him he could get citizenship if he collected information about IS activities. He is said to have taken photos of the passports of those he smuggled into IS under the pretense of needing ID to buy transport tickets. He then forwarded them to his handler at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service at the embassy in Jordan. He was arrested in Sanliurfa, Turkey, days after facilitating the girls’ trip. He appears to have told law enforcement that the reason he had gathered information on everyone he had helped was because he was sharing the information with the Canadian embassy in Jordan. Speaking about Rashed, Begum said in a BBC podcast to be broadcast soon: “He organized the whole trip from Turkey to Syria… I don’t think anyone could get to Syria without the help of smugglers. “He had helped a lot of people get in. … We just did whatever he told us to do because he knew everything, we didn’t know anything.” A Canadian government spokesman did not comment on the allegations. A UK government spokesman said: “It is our long-standing policy not to comment on operational intelligence or security matters.”

title: “Shamima Begum Smuggled Into Syria On Behalf Of Islamic State By Canadian Spy Shamima Begum Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-29” author: “Carolyn Cameron”

title: “Shamima Begum Smuggled Into Syria On Behalf Of Islamic State By Canadian Spy Shamima Begum Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-12” author: “Janice Phillips”

title: “Shamima Begum Smuggled Into Syria On Behalf Of Islamic State By Canadian Spy Shamima Begum Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-18” author: “Gail Clifton”