Shamima Begum and the ‘Canadian spy’ who smuggled her into Syria

Shamima Begum, the British schoolgirl who left the UK to join the Islamic State group, was smuggled into Syria by a spy working for Canadian intelligence, and Britain later conspired to cover up Canada’s role in the operation, a book has claimed.

Scotland Yard was allegedly told that Begum, then 15, and her two school friends, 16-year-old Kadiza Sultana and 15-year-old Amira Abase, were trafficked into Syria by a smuggler who was working as a double agent for Islamic State and Canadian intelligence. 

As the Metropolitan Police launched a huge international search for the schoolgirls, Canada failed to inform the UK of its role in the affair. Canadian intelligence admitted its involvement only after it feared being exposed, and then asked the British to cover up its role.

The alleged cover-up is detailed in a new book, The Secret History of the Five Eyes (a reference to the intelligence alliance comprised of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US), by Richard Kerbaj, a former security correspondent at The Sunday Times.

What are the allegations?

The book claims that Canada, worried about its own young people being urged to join IS, recruited IS human trafficker Mohammed al-Rashed as an intelligence agent when he applied for asylum at the Canadian embassy in Jordan. 

Al-Rashed is said to have helped organise the travel of dozens of jihadists and their brides into Syria from the UK. The double agent then “photographed their passports on the pretext that he needed proof of identity to buy domestic transport tickets and then forwarded the images to his handler with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) at the Jordan embassy”, said The Times.

Kerbaj’s book claims that the Canadians were silent as the Metropolitan Police launched an urgent hunt for the girls. But when al-Rashed was arrested in Turkey in 2015 and found to have travel documents as well as bus tickets belonging to the British schoolgirls, the CSIS realised its cover could be blown.

According to the book, one Five Eyes source said: “The CSIS officers knew that Scotland Yard had a live investigation into the three schoolgirls and also knew that sooner or later the finger would point at them.”

Article source: https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/world-news/957800/shamima-begum-canadian-spy-smuggled-into-syria