Shamima Begum was ‘smuggled into Syria by Canadian spy’

A Canadian intelligence agent smuggled Shamima Begum and her two friends into Syria, according to reports.

Ms Begum fled her east London home for Syria as a 15-year-old schoolgirl with Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase to join the so-called Islamic State group (IS) more than seven years ago.

She has denied any involvement in terror activities and is challenging a Government decision to remove her citizenship, while Ms Sultana was reportedly killed in a Russian air raid and Ms Abase is missing.

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According to the BBC and The Times, Mohammed Al Rasheed, who is alleged to have been a double agent working for the Canadians, met the girls in Turkey before taking them to Syria in February 2015.

Both news organisations reported that Rasheed was providing information to Canadian intelligence while smuggling people to IS, with The Times quoting the upcoming book The Secret History Of The Five Eyes. A spokesman for the UK Government said: “It is our longstanding policy that we do not comment on operational intelligence or security matters.”

In a forthcoming podcast for the BBC, called I’m Not A Monster, Ms Begum is quoted as saying: “He (Rasheed) organised the entire trip from Turkey to Syria… I don’t think anyone would have been able to make it to Syria without the help of smugglers.

“He had helped a lot of people come in… We were just doing everything he was telling us to do because he knew everything, we didn’t know anything.”

In February 2019, Ms Begum was found, nine months pregnant, in a Syrian refugee camp. Her British citizenship was revoked on national security grounds shortly afterwards. She decided to challenge the Home Office’s