26 Facts About Tareena Shakil

Tareena Shakil was born on 1989 and is a British former terrorist who is notable for being the first, and only, British woman convicted of having travelled to Syria to join the Islamic State.

Tareena Shakil was sentenced to six years' imprisonment in 2016 for willingly joining the terrorist group and for encouraging terrorist acts online.

Tareena Shakil had chosen to take her toddler son to Syria with her, and was later discovered to have made the one-year-old child pose with an AK-47 and wear Islamic State balaclavas for photographs.

Tareena Shakil messaged friends on the day she arrived in Syria saying that it was her 'responsibility' as a Muslim to kill 'murtadeen' apostates and that she wanted to die a martyr and carry out Jihad, yet would later claim that she had never agreed with killing anyone.

Tareena Shakil returned to the UK but was quickly arrested.

Tareena Shakil was released from prison in 2018 and was the subject of the 2021 ITV documentary Tareena: Return from ISIS, in which she gave interviews.

In October 2014, Tareena Shakil flew from East Midlands Airport to Turkey with her recently-born son, lying to friends by saying that she was going on a family beach holiday, before crossing into ISIS stronghold Syria.

Tareena Shakil posted photos of her posing with the Islamic State flag, made her child wear an ISIS-branded balaclava and posed him with an AK-47.

Tareena Shakil says that she put the IS flag on her profile to "support the caliphate", but now claims that she did "not know" at that time that the flag was related to the Islamic State.

Tareena Shakil changed her Facebook biography, encouraging people to "take to arms" if they were angered by events in Syria.

Tareena Shakil had followed people on Twitter who celebrated ISIS fighters.

Tareena Shakil had become interested in Syria after a series of pro-Palestinian marches in the UK in the summer of 2014, and engaged with "attractive" ISIS Portuguese fighter Fabio Pocas online, enticed by his profile pictures with weapons and his accounts of attempting to establish an Islamic "caliphate" in Syria.

Tareena Shakil accepts that she was fully aware of this "horrific" violence before she chose to travel there, but still willingly decided to go with her one-year-old son.

Tareena Shakil successfully escaped by bribing a taxi driver to drive her to the Turkish border where she surrendered to Turkish border guards.

Tareena Shakil was arrested as soon as she flew back to London Heathrow by British police.

Tareena Shakil initially told police that it had "never been her intention to enter Syria" and that she had been kidnapped there, something she now admits was a lie.

At trial Tareena Shakil claimed she had been 'forced' to pose with the machine guns and only went because she wanted to live under sharia law.

Tareena Shakil continued to claim that "I just wanted to live an Islamic life, not to kill anybody".

Tareena Shakil accepted that she was aware of the eminent news reports about ISIS before had gone, but said she hadn't heard they were committing atrocities, something her trial judge would later reject as manifestly false.

Tareena Shakil says that the picture of her son next to a gun was not taken by her.

Tareena Shakil's father declared that she had done "nothing wrong" and that she was "the perfect daughter".

Tareena Shakil later said she "couldn't believe" that she had been charged with being a member of ISIS, but accepted in 2021 that she had realised that going to live in the Islamic State "shows obviously support for ISIS, and that way could be deemed and seen as membership".

In 2021, Tareena Shakil claimed that she was now "ashamed" of her actions and said she "regrets everything".

Tareena Shakil gave several interviews for the documentary and revealed close relationships with terrorist fighters she had in Syria.

Tareena Shakil had previously refused to comment on this and other matters at all in 2018 interviews, as she was still on license from prison.

Tareena Shakil suggested in the 2021 documentary on her that Shamima Begum, another British woman who had travelled to join ISIS and who had become the subject of a large public debate over whether she should be allowed to return, should not be allowed to come back to the UK.