The first of four teenage schoolfriends who left London to join Islamic State was 15-year-old Sharmeena Begum, who fled at the end of last year – weeks after her father remarried, the Guardian has learned.
Begum, who has not previously been named, was lured by Isis propaganda to go to Syria in December 2014 to after enduring 18 months of tumult in her private life, during which her mother died from cancer.
Her father’s second marriage was attended by at least one of her school friends, who subsequently followed in her footsteps in February, and traveled to Isis controlled an area of Syria.
Begum was the first of four 15- and 16-year-old girls, who attended Bethnal Green academy in east London, who disappeared from their homes and is believed to have traveled to parts of Syria controlled by Islamic State. The other three disappeared together two months later
It is understood that in early December 2014 Begum flew out of the UK via Gatwick airport to Istanbul, and then to have travelled by road across Turkey to its border with Syria.
It was a similar route that was followed two months later by three of her schoolfriends, Kadiza Sultana, 16, and 15-year-olds Shamima Begum (no relation) and Amira Abase on 17 February.
Begum’s mother died from cancer around 18 months before her daughter fled. She was living with her grandmother in east London, and when her father remarried, the ceremony was attended by Kadiza Sultana, her sister told The Guardian.
Halima Khanon, elder sister of Kadiza, said: “Khadiza went to the wedding, about a month before she disappeared.”
Renu Begum, sister of Shamima Begum – who left London in February, said: “Her mum passed away one-and-a-half years ago, the dad remarried. She was living with her nan.”
Begum left for Turkey on the same day that another teenager from east London was pulled from a British Airways plane on the tarmac at Heathrow by police, as it was minutes from taking off for Turkey. Police believe the two attempts to join Isis on the same day were unrelated.
The disappearance of the 15-year-old in December led to an investigation by Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism command, during which Begum’s schoolfriends were interviewed as witnesses. Among seven teenage girls spoken to, were the three pupils from Bethnal Green academy who left in February.
Police accept that they wrote letters to the parents in February, saying their children had been friends with Begum who had gone abroad and asking for permission to take a formal statement.
But instead of delivering the letters directly to the parents, police handed them on 5 February to the girls themselves, who hid them in their school textbooks in their bedrooms.
The families only found the letters after the girls left on 17 February. They had not been told that the girl who disappeared in December had gone to Syria to live with Isis.
The disappearance of the girls has led to ructions both in Britain and Turkey. On Friday new video footage also emerged of the three British girls who left in Feburary, showing them being told by a middleman to use Syrian passports while changing transport in Turkey.
The mobile phone video, broadcast by Turkish broadcaster HBR, is believed to have been shot by a Syrian who helped them enter the country. He is alleged by Turkey to be an intelligence agent from one of the countries within the US-led coalition against the militant group.
In the video, the three east London teenagers can be seen in part of what is believed to be Turkey, taking their bags out of a vehicle, as a male voice translates for them from Arabic to English. “This car,” he tells them at one point, adding: “Take the Syrian passport – the red one.”
Earlier on Friday, Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said a man arrested for allegedly helping the teenagers had been identified as a Syrian national working as an agent for a coalition country. He did not specify which one, but Turkish reports have said it is Canada, denied by Ottawa.
Turkey’s Dogan news agency said the man had previously applied for asylum in Canada, and that he had helped several other Britons cross the border for a fee between $800 and $1,500 (£550 to £1,000), some of whom were travelling with the British girls.
