Shamima Begum, 2 other schoolgirls smuggled to Syria by Canadian intelligence agent? Startling claims in a new book

An alarming accusation made in a new book claims that Shamima Begum and two of her other pals were transported into Syria from the UK by a spy working for Canadian intelligence.

In 2015, Kadiza Sultana, 16, and Amira Abase, 15, went to Syria with Ms. Begum, then 15, to serve the IS organization. At Istanbul's main bus station, the girls met Mohammed Al Rasheed, who would eventually help them get to Syria under IS control. According to a senior intelligence official with an organization that is a member of the global coalition fighting IS, Rasheed was giving Canadian intelligence information while shipping people to IS.

The BBC recently found a report on Rasheed that includes data collected by law enforcement and intelligence agencies and documents retrieved from his hard drives, revealing incredibly specific information about his methods. He claimed to have done so to provide information to Jordan's Canadian embassy on the individuals he assisted in entering Syria.


Rasheed admitted to sharing a picture of the British schoolgirl's passport with police after being apprehended in Turkey just days after bringing her to IS. According to the report, Shamima Begum was smuggled into Syria by a sizable IS network that was run out of Raqqa, the organization's apparent capital. Although Shamima had already been in Syria when Canada acquired her passport information, the Metropolitan Police were still looking for her.

Before he assisted Shamima and her two friends, Rasheed oversaw the Turkish portion of this network and helped British men, women, and children join IS for at least eight months. In an interview for the upcoming BBC podcast, I'm Not a Monster, Shamima stated that Rasheed organized the trip from Turkey to Syria. She believed that without the aid of smugglers, no one could have reached Syria. He had aided numerous individuals in entering. Rasheed affirmed that they were simply following his instructions since he knew everything and they knew nothing.

Rasheed documented the people he assisted, frequently taking pictures of their identification cards or covertly recording them with his phone. In one footage, Ms. Begum and her companions exit a taxi and get into a waiting car close to the Syrian border. Rasheed also obtained data on IS by mapping the residences of Western IS fighters in Syria, locating IP addresses and internet cafes in IS-controlled areas, and screenshotting his chats with IS fighters.

Rasheed had had a conversation with Raphael Hostey, a notorious British IS a recruiter, who urged Rasheed to work for him on a project to "bring" some people in. In a subsequent text, Rasheed queries Hostey for details. Hostey replies the same as before, just also bringing equipment and brothers and sisters. Thus, Rasheed agreed.



Soon after helping the girl travel to Syria, Rasheed was detained in the Turkish city of Sanliurfa. In a statement to the law enforcement department, he admitted to gathering details on whoever he assisted, including Shamima, claiming that he delivered all these details to Jordan's Canadian Embassy. Rasheed claimed that he attempted to submit an asylum application at the Canadian Embassy in Jordan in 2013. They had promised him they would give him Canadian citizenship if he gathered intelligence on ISIS activities.

From 2013 until his arrest in 2015, Rasheed travelled to and from Jordan numerous times. The loss of Ms. Begum's citizenship will be contested in court in November, according to the Begum family's attorney, Tasnime Akunjee, and one of the primary arguments would be that Ms. Sajid Javid, the home secretary then, did not believe that she was a victim of trafficking. According to him, the UK seems to have international obligations about how it views trafficked individuals and what level of responsibility it assigns to them for their acts.

A Canadian intelligence asset's pivotal role in the smuggling operation shocked Mr. Akunjee because someone who is an ally should be defending people, not smuggling children into a conflict zone. He claimed that intelligence gathering seemed to have been a priority over children and their lives.

After emerging from the ruins of the so-called IS caliphate in 2019, Shamima Begum was stripped of her citizenship and is currently held in a prison facility in northeast Syria. A Canadian Security Intelligence Service spokesperson said he could not publicly comment, confirm or deny the details of CSIS investigations, methodology, operational interests, or operations. Britain's long-standing policy is that they would not comment on security matters or operational intelligence, as a British government spokesperson claimed.