Jihadi bride Shamima Begum ‘was smuggled into Syria by western spy’ & UK ‘helped cover it up’, book claims
JIHADI bride Shamima Begum was smuggled into Syria by an intelligence agent for Canada, a book has claimed.
Shamima was 15 when she and two other East London schoolgirls fled to Syria to join the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) in 2015.
Now, it appears that a spy for Canada, Mohammed Al Rasheed, had shared Shamima's passport details with Canada, while helping to smuggle her to ISIS territory, according to a book titled The Secret History of the Five Eyes.
Five Eyes is the name of an intelligence sharing alliance between the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
The revealed double agent Al Rasheed was providing information to Canadian intelligence while smuggling people - including Britons - for ISIS.
In the book, journalist Richard Kerbaj alleges that Canada previously admitted to having Al Rasheed on its payroll while he was an agent for ISIS, before reportedly asking the UK to help cover up its role.
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A file obtained by the included information gathered by law enforcement and intelligence, as well as material recovered from Al Rasheed's hard drives.
In an incredible twist, Al Rasheed told authorities that he had been collecting information of the people he had helped smuggle into Syria because he was handing it over to the Canadian embassy in neighbouring Jordan.
In 2015, Al Rasheed met Shamima, Kadiza Sultana, 16, and 15-year-old Amira Abase when they arrived at the main bus station in the Turkish capital, Istanbul, before taking them to IS-controlled Syria.
The smuggler was arrested two days after Shamima and her friends arrived in Syria.
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At the time, the BBC revealed that Al Rasheed had told Turkish authorities he had shared a copy of Shamima's passport with Canada.
By the time Canada had received Shamima's passport details from the Metropolitan Police who had launched its search, the teenager was already in the war-torn country.
Shamima was moved around Syria through ISIS' network, run by the organisation's de-facto capital, Raqqa.
It appears that Al Rasheed was part of the Turkish side of the network, and had been facilitating the smuggling of British men, women and children for eight months before he was caught.
"He organised the entire trip from Turkey to Syria… I don't think anyone would have been able to make it to Syria without the help of smugglers," Shamima will tell the BBC in an .
"He had helped a lot of people come in… We were just doing everything he was telling us to do because he knew everything, we didn't know anything."
The BBC discovered Al Rasheed had taken photos of the passports and ID documents of people he was smuggling.
The man also secretly filmed them on his mobile phone, the BBC said. This information was allegedly shared with Canada.
Meanwhile, the smuggler also collected information about the Islamic State, including Western IS fighters' houses, IP addresses and took screenshots of the discussions he was having with fighters, the BBC revealed.
When interrogated about his actions, Al Rasheed explained that he was recruited as an agent by Canada when he applied for asylum at its embassy in Jordan in 2013.
"They told me they were going to grant me my Canadian citizenship if I collect information about the activities of ISIS," Al Rasheed is quoted as saying.
Canada and the UK have both declined to comment and have denied conspiring to cover up their role in the alleged scandal.
A Canadian Secret Intelligence Service spokesperson told the BBC he could not "publicly comment on or confirm or deny the specifics of CSIS investigations, operational interests, methodologies or activities".
A British Government spokesman said: "It is our long-standing policy that we do not comment on operational intelligence or security matters."
Shamima — whose British citizenship was stripped from her in 2019 — now lives at a Syrian refugee camp in Rojava.
The region is self-governed and not under the control of the Syrian regime.
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Friends said the former extremist has little faith in the justice system there — and remains desperate to return to Britain.
Begum tried to restore her British citizenship last year.
