- Wednesday, June 07, 2023
By: Sattwik Biswal
A woman who returned from Syria after spending three months with Daesh, now says she “regrets everything about it”.
Tareena Shakil, from Birmingham was jailed in 2016 when she returned to the UK from Syria.
The 32-year-old says she is now “ashamed” of her actions and “lives with the consequences every day”. Now released and has completed a de-radicalisation programme and hopes her story serves as a warning to others.
A former healthcare worker, she travelled to Syria with her one-year-old son in 2014 and lived in a house with other women waiting to be married to foreign fighters.
“Conversations were often listened to and you were generally expected to behave in a certain way,” she told the BBC. “You know, you don’t cause any trouble.
“There were two girls who didn’t act that way, who would just act up.
“I can’t even really give an example, they were just unruly and a van came, men came off the van and took the girls away, and we never saw them again.”
During her trial, she was found to have encouraged acts of terrorism with posts on social media. After spending three months, Shakil fled to Turkey and then returned to the UK, she was arrested and jailed for six years.
“I regret every last thing in terms of my decision to run away to Syria with my child,” she said. “I live with them consequences every day.”
“I remember feeling really sad, really bitter, really taken advantage of and duped,” she said.
“I remember feeling really ashamed of myself to some degree that I allowed it to happen.”
