The ISIS bride who allegedly recruited British schoolgirl Shamima Begum has been found alive and arrested in Syria after she was allegedly linked to a Germany terror plot.
Sharmeena Begum, 27, has reportedly been detained in the Middle Eastern nation as part of an investigation into the deadly van attack at Berlin Pride on July 25 this year. German investigators are said to have uncovered communications between Begum, who is unrelated to Shamima, also 27, the schoolgirl who left the UK to join ISIS aged 15 in February 2015, and suspected attacker Abdul Ballout.
Alleged links to Berlin Pride attacker
Ballout, who drove a van into a crowd of revellers and attacked them with a machete, killing a woman and injuring 29 others before he was shot dead, then sent a video of him pledging allegiance to ISIS to Begum.
She was tracked down to a Syrian hideout after Germany's FKA agency shared her number with western intelligence.
Father's reaction
The Daily Mail reports that Ballout sent Begum a video of himself swearing an oath to ISIS, which she was allegedly meant to pass to the group's propaganda chief to be released online in the wake of the attack. The number allegedly used in that exchange was then passed onto western investigators in Syria.
Mohammed Nizam Uddin, Begum's father, told the Mail he had previously believed she was killed in Syria. He said: "I thought she had been killed in Syria. I am relieved that she is at least alive."
He added however that he was not aware she had been arrested, saying: "I did not know she had been arrested. No one from the police or the Government has told me anything about her for years." The Mail reports that she is expected to face trial for terror offences in Syria.
Possible trial and background
She could be executed if she is convicted for her alleged crimes, and is set to spend the time leading to her trial in Syria's notorious prison system.
Begum, who attended Bethnal Green Academy in Tower Hamlets, was among the first British schoolgirls to travel to ISIS-controlled territory in the Middle East. Shamima Begum and her pals Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana, with whom she travelled to Syria in February 2015, also attended the school.
Sharmeena is said to have remained supportive of ISIS ideology, while Shamima, who was made stateless by the Conservative government in 2019 over her initial support, has distanced herself from the terror group.
Ballout, who was killed by a police sniper following his attack, had ties to the British jihadi scene, German investigators have concluded. German outlets reported that the attacker, who has a German-Lebanese background, was a nephew of hate preacher Omar Bakri Muhammad.
He founded Al-Muhajiroun, a banned extremist group which counted Anjem Choudary and Lee Rigby killer Michael Adebolajo among its members.
