British mum who took five kids to live with ISIS in Syria: ‘It just was not my cup of tea

A BRITISH mother who travelled to Syria with her five young children to live among ISIS fighters described the experience as “not my cup of tea.”

Shukee Begum, 33, said she went to the war-torn country to find her husband Jamal al-Harith, a ­former Guantánamo Bay ­detainee who left Britain 18 months ago to join the group.

Harith, a Muslim convert born Ronald Fiddler, was released from Guantánamo Bay and repatriated to Britain in 2004 after lobbying by the British government.

A law graduate from northern England, Ms Begum insists she only travelled to persuade her husband to return and never ­supported the ISIS militants, who have carved out regions of control in Iraq and Syria.

“I was seeing on the news at this point that Isis was going from bad to worse ... So I decided that I was going to try and speak some sense into him,” she told Channel 4in an exclusive interview.

“My husband is a family man. I’ve always known him. I’ve been married to him for 11 years. I’ve always known him to be a good man with good characteristics.

At first, Ms Begum lived in an overcrowded safe house in the ISIS-controlled city of Raqqa with “hundreds of families living in one hall”, many “crying” and “sick”, who were sharing one or two bathrooms.

“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 ISIS 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, ISIS authorities would not allow her to go, Ms Begum added.

“This is what I want to make clear as well to other women thinking of coming into ISIS territory — that you can’t just expect to come into ISIS 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 the city of Aleppo, and is now living close to the border with Turkey and hopes to move back to Britain.

“I’d love to go back to the UK. The UK is my home. I grew up there. My friends are there. My family are there. That’s where I consider to be home,” she said.

“But I’m just not sure at the moment, with the track record of the current government, if the UK is somewhere I can achieve justice. I hope I’m wrong.

Hundreds of Britons have travelled to join Islamic State.

A report released last month indicated dozens of fighters have defected from the group, notorious for beheadings and blowing up ­ancient monuments, due to disillusionment over killing ­fellow Sunni Muslims and ­civilians.