Fears are growing that Shamima Begum is on the brink of being released from detention in Syria after it was revealed Isis prisoners are already being bused out of camps.
Footage verified by the Daily Express shows a convoy of coaches carrying freed former Islamic State members being escorted by military vehicles along a desert road towards the Iraq border.
Around 10,000 ex-Islamic State fighters and their former brides and families are held in two facilities in northeast Syria, with Begum and 65 other IS-linked Britons currently detained.
Begum fled the UK for Syria as a 15-year-old schoolgirl to join Isis 10 years ago this week in February 2015.
After being captured by coalition forces when Islamic State was mostly defeated, she had British citizenship withdrawn in 2019. In August last year she lost her final appeal to overturn that decision at the Supreme Court.
But President Trump has left the international community reeling with a series of foreign policy bombshells, including suggesting 2,000 US troops stationed near the camps holding Isis prisoners should be withdrawn.
If American troops leave Syria, the ethnically Kurdish Syrian Defence Force (SDF) is likely to come under attack from the new Syrian Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) government, potentially leaving the Isis camps which the SDF guard, defenceless.
HTS, whose leadership has roots in Al-Qaeda and Isis, is backed by Turkey who are historically hostile towards the Kurds.
Images have also emerged of gun-toting HTS fighters in the region wearing badges used by Islamic State, seemingly showing a resurgence of the group’s vile ideology in a country that was once its stronghold.
Filmmaker Andrew Drury, who has met with Begum six times at her detention camp in northeast Syria, believes the UK’s most notorious Isis bride is on the cusp of freedom and Mr Trump might hold the key to her release.
Mr Drury, 58, has filmed extensively in the Middle East, including on the front line with SDF soldiers fighting Isis in 2019.
“In the 10 years since she went to Syria, I think this is the closest Shamima is to returning to Britain. Trump is her best chance of a ticket out of there”, he said.
“If Trump tells Britain to take her back, we might get forced down that direction anyway, despite what our courts have said.
“He could use trade, he could use political pressure, he’s shown he’s willing to do that and he doesn’t care about the repercussions in the UK.
“We seem to be doing whatever the Trump administration is telling us to do at the moment, Downing Street talking about putting British soldiers on the ground in Ukraine for example.
“And Sir Keir might be forced politically to have Shamima back, that’s the biggest fear I have.”
Number 10 is already second-guessing decisions coming out of the White House over a slew of foreign policy declarations, including the idea of removing Palestinians from Gaza and holding peace talks with Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine, without the Ukrainians or Europe at the negotiating table.
In Syria, the ethnically Kurdish SDF control the northeast of the country where they guard the Isis camps after helping British, US and coalition forces in the war against the death cult which ended in 2019.
The Kurds have some autonomy in the region, but the new Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) government in Damascus, which took power after President Assad was deposed in December, has demanded the SDF lay down their arms.
And Turkey, which supports HTS but is hostile towards the Kurds, wants President Trump to allow them to take over running the detention camps.
Sporadic fighting has already erupted between the SDF and Turkish and HTS forces and the presence of American troops, under US Central Command (CENTCOM), is thought to be the only thing stopping all-out war.
In the past few weeks, CENTCOM, which oversees US forces in the Middle East, has reported a number of strikes against Isis and al-Qaeda terrorists in both Iraq and Syria.
On CENTCOM’s X account on February 12, it posted: “Isis remains a threat to the region and beyond, and CENTCOM, along with partners and allies, will continue to aggressively pursue these terrorists.”