The UK’s most senior counter-terrorism officer has said that Shamima Begum, who left the UK to join Islamic State as a 15-year-old, had “potentially criminalised” herself as her family considers court action to stop the government blocking her return to Britain. Government and counter-terrorism officials are still considering what to do after Begum, now 19, was discovered in a Syrian refugee camp after fleeing Isis’s last stronghold and said she wanted to return to Britain.

Neil Basu, assistant commissioner for counter-terrorism at Scotland Yard, told the Guardian the case should drive home the need to report those youngsters being radicalised, rather than let them ruin their lives after falling for terrorist propaganda.In 2015, Begum left with two school friends from their home in Bethnal Green to join Isis in Syria. She said this week that she did not regret her decision to go to Syria, but that she was nine months pregnant and wanted to come home to “live quietly with [her] child”.(theguardian)…[+]