Twelve hours before she fell into the eye of a social, legal and political storm, almost nothing that Shamima Begum told me was of particular surprise. Sitting together for 90 minutes, one-to-one, in the yard of the al-Hawl refugee camp that afternoon a week ago, she spoke very much like every other member of a radical Islamic militant group I had ever met.
Her lack of remorse? Her lack of regret? The failure to apologise? Her acceptance of the beheadings of journalists and aid workers?
I was not surprised by any of it, and nor should anyone else be. After four years living in the so-called caliphate, with no access to the outside world beyond that given to her by her Dutch Isis husband,
