A British filmmaker who has
met and interviewed ISIS bride Shamima Begum numerous times
said that he first felt sorry for her, but now believes she is ‘playing the
victim card in an attempt to get back to the UK’.
‘Adventure tourist’ Andrew
Drury, who used WhatsApp to speak to the 23-year-old before numerous visits,
said that he is convinced the ISIS bride is ‘bitter and twisted’.
He has traveled to Syria’s
Al-Roj camp to speak to Begum multiple times after she left the UK in 2015 with
two school friends.
Mr. Drury has now said that he
sees her as manipulative, after she criticized the war in Ukraine for
shifting the focus from her plight, said she no longer feels sad about the
death of her children, and repeatedly asked for Western clothes.
At 15 years old, Begum, who
was born in East London, left school in Bethnal Green for Syria in 2015. Ten
days after arriving, she was married to convicted terrorist Yago
Riedijk.
There she gave birth to
three children, all of whom died young. Her youngest child died in the prison
camp in Syria’s northeast in 2019.
In July, the British filmmaker
called for Britain to ‘bring home’ the families of ISIS fighters who
are being held in Syrian camps because they are ‘our problem’.
He said that he felt ‘sorry’
for Begum and had formed a close relationship with other foreign jihadi brides
at the Syrian camp.
Mr. Drury said at the time that
the UK has a responsibility to bring British jihadi brides like Begum and their
children ‘back home’ because it was not fair to leave them ‘to be a danger to
the Syrians and the Kurds’ who have ‘enough danger to deal with already’.
