How has ISIS bride Shamima Begum changed her appearance?

2023-02-10

EXCLUSIVE: Behind Shamima’s ‘Western glow up’: ‘Vain’ Primark-loving Begum uses fellow jihadi bride as hairdresser and stylist, has make-up smuggled in by guards and browses fake Nike at camp shop(with opening hours for ‘extremists and non-extremists’)

Andrew Drury knew Begum for 18 months and visited her in Syria several times
He said the ‘vain’ 23-year-old had gone to great lengths to change appearance

Shamima Begum’s startling fashion reinvention has been facilitated by £3.99 Primark tops, styling advice from a fellow jihadi bride and knock-off Nike from a camp shop with separate opening hours for ‘extremists and non-extremists’.

The former East London schoolgirl wore a black niqab and headscarves in her earlier media appearances but is now almost unrecognisable in chunky sunglasses, styled hair and casual clothes.

Her transformation has been seen as an attempt to ingratiate herself with a Western audience as she continues her bid to be allowed to return to Britain after being stripped of her citizenship for fleeing Bethnal Green in 2015 as a 15-year-old schoolgirl.

Filmmaker Andrew Drury, who knew Begum for 18 months, today gave his first-hand account of how the ‘vain and narcissistic’ 23-year-old had transformed her appearance amid the harsh conditions of her current home, the Al-Hawl camp in northern Syria.

Shamima Begum has undergone a startling transformation as she continues her fight to be allowed back into Britain

The former East London schoolgirl wore a black niqab and headscarves in her earlier media appearances

Mr Drury, whose book Trip Hazard is out on February 15, said Begum was able to get her hands on clothes and make-up from broadcasters courting her for interviews as well as through a camp shop that sells fake designer goods from local markets.

‘There’s a shopping area in the camp with six or seven shops selling things like clothes, food and toys,’ he told MailOnline.

‘The clothes shop is opened up to the extreme and non-extremist girls at different times.

READ MORE: Shamima Begum’s lies v the reality

‘They get fake Nikes and other western brands that probably come from local markets.’

Mr Drury said inmates funded their shopping with money sent by their families or earned from cash-in-hand tasks around the camp.

‘Like teenagers they love hanging around the shop and chatting even though they’re not allowed to,’ he said.

‘I didn’t spend too long in the shop myself because I was trying to get her out of there so she could do interviews.’

He said Begum’s other clothes were mainly given to her by broadcasters wanting to interview her.

‘Every time you want to do an interview you ask her what she wants,’ he said.

‘Other clothes have probably been donated by their friends or smuggled in by the guards.’

For fashion advice she relies on Hoda Muthana, a 28-year-old American who fled Alabama to join ISIS in 2014.

A clothes shop at the Al-Hawl camp in northern Syria which jihadi brides ‘hang around chatting like teenagers’

‘Her friend Hoda helps with her appearance and when I was with her she’d spend 20 or 30 minutes doing herself up before interviews,’ explained Mr Drury.

‘She’s got air conditioning in her tent but it doesn’t have any running water so she has to use a shower block.

‘She gets her hair cut by other girls in the camp, possibly including Hoda.’

Mr Drury previously backed calls for Begum to be allowed to return to Britain, saying the UK has a responsibility to bring jihadi brides and their children ‘back home’ because it was not fair to leave them ‘to be a danger to the Syrians and the Kurds’.

But he has since changed his view, describing Begum as a ‘manipulative personality playing the victim card in an attempt to get back to the UK’.

‘She sees herself as a victim now but she told me quite clearly it was her choice to go [to Syria] and she went of her own free will,’ he told The Times last month.

‘She is a narcissist. She wants to be a somebody.

For fashion advice she relies on Hoda Muthana, a 28-year-old American who fled Alabama to join ISIS in 2014

‘Now she sees herself as a celebrity. Being part of Isis meant she was a somebody and now she’s a somebody again.’

Despite this, he believes her change in appearance isn’t solely a PR exercise and that she genuinely feels more comfortable in western-style clothing.

‘It’s a bit of both, a bit to Westernise herself, but also because she feels comfortable in them,’ he told MailOnline.

Mr Drury has previously told how he was ‘floored’ when Begum told him that the death of her three children no longer makes her sad, and that she had ‘moved on’.

Begum’s lawyers are challenging the decision to strip her of her citizenship by claiming she was a child trafficking victim who was ‘groomed’ to have sex with male ISIS terrorists.

But Mr Drury said she made no mention of being ‘trafficked or groomed’ when he first met her and insists she is trying to ‘create a character’ that she can use to get back to the UK.

Al-Hawl, which houses displaced persons alongside former ISIS members, is known for its poor living conditions

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