Is Shamima Begum’s transformation a ploy to get back into Britain? Hadiya Masieh, a former Islamist turned intervention provider for the Home Office’s counter-extremism programme, gives her view 15 March 2021 • 6:21pm Shamima Begum, now 21, at Al Roj Camp in North Eastern Syria Credit: Sam Tarling for The Telegraph In the intervening years, the Bethnal Green schoolgirl – who left for Syria in 2015, aged 15, with two friends – has lost a baby to pneumonia and unsuccessfully challenged the removal of her citizenship. To some, the new pictures are a sign that her world view has changed, and that she has left the Islamic State behind. Others say it is part of a ploy to win sympathy following her defeat in the Supreme Court.