December 16, 2021
A British woman who went to Syria and joined the so-called Islamic State terrorist organization says she deeply regrets what she did.
Tarina Shakeel, originally from Birmingham, was jailed in 2016 after returning to the UK three months after living with Islamic State.
Now 32-year-old Tarina says she is "ashamed" of her actions and is "living with the consequences every day."
Tarina, who was recently released from prison, has completed a training program on counter-extremism and hopes her story will serve as a warning to others.
Tarina Shakeel was associated with the health department. In 2014, she secretly went to Syria with her one-year-old son and lived in a house with other women waiting to marry foreign fighters.
"Our conversations were often overheard and generally you were expected to be treated in a certain way," he told the BBC.
"We didn't want to make a fuss, but there were two girls who had slightly different attitudes. I can't give an example of that, they were just irrelevant. One day a car came, some men got out of the car and took the girls away and we never saw them again. '
During her trial, Tarina was found encouraging acts of terrorism through posts on social media.
"I am very sorry to hear about your decision to flee Syria with my child," he said. I suffer the consequences every day. "
Less than three months later, Tarina Shakeel escaped via Turkey and returned to Britain, where she was arrested.He was tried and sentenced to six years in prison.
He says abandoning extremist views was a "long journey" and now hopes his case will be seen as a warning about the dangers of extremism.
I remember I was really sad and I was really taken advantage of and I was cheated."
Tarina Shakeel was convicted in 2016. During her trial, she said that she had gone to Syria in October 2014 because she was unhappy with her domestic life, but she was not happy when she arrived in the civil war-torn country. Then they decided to go back because they had made a mistake.
He said he took a bus from the city of Raqqa and then bribed a taxi driver to take him to the Turkish border. In January 2015, she and her son arrived at a location about a kilometer from the Turkish border.
After a temporary asylum in Turkey, she returned to Britain, where she was arrested. About 60 British women are thought to have fled to Syria and joined the Islamic State. The government has stated this number many times but it has not been changed for a long time so it is possible that this number has increased now.
Tarina Shakeel is a reflection of the girls on this journey and her case has uncovered why and how these 'jihadi brides' go to Syria.
They were in a difficult relationship and the way someone is radicalized, this technique was very likely to have an effect on them. Then maybe there were the constant bombings or the queues of candidates for marriage, they did not like the 'most dangerous place in the world'.
His trial judge said his sentence might prevent people from doing so, but his story of living in Syria may be more effective.
