Shamima Begum was smuggled into Syria by a spy working for Canada before UK authorities helped cover up the scandal, according to claims made in a new book.
Begum travelled to Syria via Turkey in 2015 along with schoolfriends Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana in order to join ISIS.
Begum was later tracked down to a refugee camp in 2019 and stripped of her British citizenship after speaking of her desire to return to the UK.
There are now fresh claims that the 23-year-old was initially trafficked into the Middle East by a double agent who was working for Canada as well as being on IS's payroll.
The Daily Mail reports that officials in Ottawa kept quiet as British authorities launched an international search for the three schoolgirls, according to The Secret History of the Five Eyes.
Five Eyes was established by the UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand as an intelligence sharing alliance, initially during World War II before being formalised during the Cold War.
Journalist Richard Kerbaj, the book's author, claims that Canada eventually admitted to the involvement of one of their agents because they feared the plot being exposed.
However, officials then successfully convinced their British counterparts to go along with the cover-up.
Tasnime Akunjee, the lawyer for the Begum family, told the Times : “Britain has lauded its efforts to stop Isis and the grooming of our children by spending millions of pounds on the Prevent programme and online monitoring.
“However, at the very same time we have been co-operating with a western ally, trading sensitive intelligence with them whilst they have effectively been nabbing British children and trafficking them across the Syrian border for delivery to Isis all in the name of intelligence-gathering.
“The calculation here is that the lives of British children, and the risk of their death, is part of the algorithm of acceptable risk our western allies have taken.”
According to claims made in the book, Canada recruited an IS human trafficker after he applied for asylum at its embassy in Jordan.
The book adds that Canada kept the information secret, despite the three British then-children being smuggled into Syria and introduced to jihadists.
A British Government spokesman told The Times that there would be no comment on operational intelligence or security matters.
Canadian officials also refused to confirm or deny the book's allegations.
Begum married an ISIS fighter after arriving in Syria and gave birth to three children, all of whom died.
The youngest child died while she was in a Syrian camp in 2019 attempting to have her British citizenship restored.
A Supreme Court ruling denied Begum the chance to return to the UK to argue her case on national security grounds.
She told iNews earlier this year that she expects to spend the rest of her life in Syria, where she awaits a trial by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces.
