Former London ISIS recruiter Sharmeena Begum arrested in Syria after Berlin attack link

Sharmeena Begum, 27, left her Bethnal London home for Syria in December 2014 and later persuaded three classmates, including Shamima Begum, to join ISIS. After the July Berlin Pride assault, German police identified her through message exchanges with the attacker, Abdul Ballout, who drove a van into the crowd, killing one woman and injuring 29 before being shot dead. Intelligence agencies passed her contact to a Western service, which tracked her to a Syrian hideout where she was arrested.

Her father, Mohammed Nizam Uddin, said he had thought she was dead and was grateful she was alive, though he received no prior notice from authorities. Stripped of British citizenship years earlier, Begum now faces terrorism charges in Syria, where a conviction could carry the death penalty, though extradition to Germany remains a possibility. She had escaped the Al-Hol internment camp, raised roughly £2,400 in bitcoin for ISIS, and is the last of the four Bethnal Green girls whose fates were previously unknown.