Shamima Begum, pictured, is accused of assisting ISIS by stitching would-be suicide bombers into their explosive vests
Jihadi bride Shamima Begum stitched suicide bombers into explosive vests, spy chiefs have told Theresa May and Sajid Javid.
The Mail on Sunday has learned that the Prime Minister and Home Secretary have been briefed by the intelligence services about claims that British-born Ms Begum was witnessed preparing suicide vests for would-be martyrs – sewing them on to the bombers so that the devices could not be removed without detonation.
Intelligence sources told this newspaper they have been informed of her chilling role in Syria actively preparing jihadis to take their own lives as Islamic State collapsed.
If the allegations prove to be correct, they will shatter the claim by the teenager from East London that she was nothing more than an IS fighter’s wife after she enlisted with the death cult while still a schoolgirl in 2015.
It is understood the information was gleaned by allied spy agencies – believed to be the CIA and Dutch Military Intelligence – from interrogation of other Western IS converts. It is not known whether Ms Begum was a willing participant in the acts.
After being found by journalists in a camp in northern Syria in February following the collapse of IS’s grip on the region, Ms Begum, now 19, insisted she had never ‘done anything dangerous’ during her time with the terror group and begged to be allowed back into Britain. But Mr Javid branded her a danger to the UK and revoked her citizenship.
She said: ‘When I went to Syria, I was just a housewife. I just stayed at home and looked after my kids. I didn’t do anything dangerous. I never made propaganda, I never encouraged people to come to Syria. They don’t have proof that I did anything dangerous.’
The 19-year-old jihadi bride from Bethnal Green, east London has been stripped of her British citizenship by Home Secretary Sajid Javid. Javid and PM Theresa May have received top secret briefings from the security services about Begum's role with the terror organisation
Begum, pictured at Gatwick Airport in February 2015, flew to Turkey before sneaking into Syria to join the terror organisation
However, a senior intelligence source said: ‘She was involved and her former comrades have grassed her. She was literally stitching the vests, stitching them into the vests.’
After running away from Bethnal Green, Ms Begum lived in the Syrian city of Raqqa under the control of IS with her husband, a Dutch extremist named Yago Riedijk.
Syrian troops and Western special forces spent 2017 clearing the city house by house. Their efforts were severely hampered by suicide bombers.
Ms Begum claimed: ‘When we lost Raqqa, we had to keep moving and moving and moving. The situation got difficult.’
But a Government source said: ‘Those who stayed to the end were the hardcore, there is no disputing that. Lots of them went [to the IS stronghold] for a couple of weeks, hated it and came back. Many more left
