After leaving Britain to join ISIS, teenager wants to come back to raise her child

Four years after she left London to join the Islamic State, Shamima Begum, now 19, wants to come back — but authorities warn she could face prosecution.

Begum was 15 when she flew to Istanbul with two other teenage friends, Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana. They made their way to Syria, where within days they were married to ISIS fighters; Begum wed a 27-year-old from the Netherlands. The girls were considered by many to be victims of ISIS, brainwashed by online predators. This month, The Times of London war correspondent Anthony Loyd was in a Syrian refugee camp, when he heard a distinctive accent, and soon he was standing in front of Begum.

She is nine months pregnant, and told Loyd she had two children die from illness and malnutrition. Begum said that there was "oppression and corruption" under ISIS, but she does not regret joining. At the same time, she wants to return to Britain and raise her baby there, telling Loyd she'll do "anything required just to be able to come home and live quietly with my child."

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While some feel she should be able to come back and undergo rehabilitation, many Brits want her to stay away. In the years since Begum and her friends left, there have been ISIS attacks inside Britain, and Security Minister Ben Wallace told the BBC that he's "not putting at risk British people's lives to go and look for terrorists, or former terrorists in a failed state." Loyd said he believes Begum is in "shock," and considers her an "indoctrinated jihadi bride."