LONDON // A British woman who fled ISIL with her five children after travelling to Syria described the experience as “not my cup of tea” in an interview on Wednesday.
Shukee Begum, 33, travelled to Syria with her children to find her husband Jamal Al Harith, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee who left Britain 18 months ago to join the group, Channel 4 news reported.
A law graduate from northern England, Ms Begum insists she only travelled to convince her husband to return and never supported ISIL.
“I was seeing on the news at this point that ISIL was going from bad to worse ... So I decided that I was going to try and speak some sense into him,” she told Channel 4 news.
At first, Ms Begum lived in a overcrowded safe house in Raqqa with dozens of other women and children, many “crying” and “sick”.
“There was a gangster kind of mentality among single women there. Violent talk, talking about war, killing,” Ms Begum said.
“They would sit together and huddle around their laptops and watch ISIL videos together and discuss them and everything. It was just not my cup of tea.”
After she was reunited with her husband, who refused to help her leave, ISIL authorities would not allow her to go, she added.
“This is what I want to make clear as well to other women thinking of coming into ISIL territory -- that you can’t just expect to come into ISIL territory and then expect that you can just leave again easily,” she said.
“There is no personal autonomy there at all.”
She was smuggled out of the territory before being held captive in Aleppo, and is now living close to the border with Turkey and hopes to move back to Britain, Channel 4 reported.
Hundreds of Britons are thought to have travelled to join the group.
A report released last month indicated that dozens of fighters have defected from ISIL, often due to disillusionment over killing fellow Muslims and civilians.
* Agence France-Presse
Saturday's schedule at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
GP3 race, 12:30pm
Formula 1 final practice, 2pm
Formula 1 qualifying, 5pm
Formula 2 race, 6:40pm
Performance: Sam Smith
ABU DHABI ORDER OF PLAY
Starting at 10am:
Daria Kasatkina v Qiang Wang
Veronika Kudermetova v Annet Kontaveit (10)
Maria Sakkari (9) v Anastasia Potapova
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova v Ons Jabeur (15)
Donna Vekic (16) v Bernarda Pera
Ekaterina Alexandrova v Zarina Diyas
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Dr Amal Khalid Alias revealed a recent case of a woman with daughters, who specifically wanted a boy.
A semen analysis of the father showed abnormal sperm so the couple required IVF.
Out of 21 eggs collected, six were unused leaving 15 suitable for IVF.
A specific procedure was used, called intracytoplasmic sperm injection where a single sperm cell is inserted into the egg.
On day three of the process, 14 embryos were biopsied for gender selection.
The next day, a pre-implantation genetic report revealed four normal male embryos, three female and seven abnormal samples.
Day five of the treatment saw two male embryos transferred to the patient.
The woman recorded a positive pregnancy test two weeks later.
'Laal Kaptaan'
Director: Navdeep Singh
Stars: Saif Ali Khan, Manav Vij, Deepak Dobriyal, Zoya Hussain
Rating: 2/5
Origin
Dan Brown
Doubleday
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially