Tareena Shakil (pictured) was the first British woman to be jailed for joining Islamic State and has now been released from prison
The family of an ISIS bride who is back on Britain’s streets after she was jailed for joining Islamic State say she feels she has been ‘victimised.’
Tareena Shakil, nicknamed the Towie jihadi, fled to Syria with her toddler son in 2014.
The only British woman to be jailed for joining Islamic State is now living in Birmingham after she was released from prison last summer, it has emerged.
But her mother Mandy, 52, told the Sun her daughter is ‘keeping her head down’ and said ‘You won’t be able to find her’ when asked to comment further.
A source claimed Shakil felt ‘victimised’ after attention was placed back on British jihadis due to Shamima Begum – an ISIS bride who begged to come back to the UK to give birth.
A family source said: ‘The family feel that they are victims of the fallout of the girl in Tower Hamlets and they want to be left alone. They think it’s all being dragged up.
‘Tareena has been out of prison for a considerable amount of time and has been signing on at the police station as required.’
Shakil (pictured) was shown posing with weaponry and wearing an Islamic State balaclava
A CCTV image of Tareena Shakil at East Midlands Airport with her toddler before the pair boarded a flight to Turkey en route to Syria
The former student, now 29, from Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, told her family she was going on a package holiday to Turkey in October 2014 when she fled to northern Syria with her infant son.
She was arrested by British police at Heathrow Airport in February last year after arriving back on a flight from Turkey.
When returning to the UK to face justice, she told jurors she escaped after tricking an IS minder into allowing her on a bus to visit a non-existent husband.
Shakil took her young son to Syria and was jailed for six years for becoming a member of the terrorist group
She said she then paid a taxi driver to take her close to the Turkish border. From there, she claims she ran across a field to safety with her son in her arms.
Shakil, whose mother, Mandy, is a white English Muslim convert, was convicted of joining IS and jailed for six years in February 2016.
Her conviction came a year after she was arrested after touching down at Heathrow. She was released on licence in July, relatives said yesterday.
One said: ‘I’ve seen her a few times since then, including at Christmas. She has put all that radicalisation behind her and just wants to live a normal life now. She no longer wears a headscarf.’
The relative said Shakil had some ‘supervised contact’ with her son, but he was not in her custody.
Shakil’s father, Mohammed, 47, and brother, Tareem, 25, were jailed last November for running a county lines drug racket.
Shamima Begum one of three schoolgirls at Gatwick Airport as she left the UK to marry a foreign fighter for ISIS
Kadiza Sultana, then 16, Amira Abase, then 15 and Shamima Begum, then 15, (left to right) in images released by police in 2015 after they ran off to Syria
Britain could be forced to take back dozens of other jihadi brides.
Ministers yesterday vowed not to risk UK lives to rescue pregnant teenager Shamima Begum, who is begging to come home despite having ‘no regrets’ about her four years in Syria.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid said last night he would use all available powers to prevent Begum from returning to the UK, while security sources told The Times she would be treated as a ‘national security threat’ if she returned to British soil.
But if Begum, 19, makes it across borders to a British consulate, officials will have little choice but to allow her home so the NHS can care for her baby.