THE teenager who left the UK to become an ISIS bride said the Manchester Arena attack could be justified because of military attacks on Syria.

Shamima Begum, aged 19, one of the Bethnal Green schoolgirls who joined ISIS in 2015 has spoken about bombings being "a two-way thing".

She compared the arena attack with military bombs killing women and children in Syria.

In an interview with the BBC she said she was "shocked" by the bombing which killed Olivia Campbell-Hardy and John Atkinson from Bury, but said: "It's kind of retaliation. [ISIS's] justification was that it was retaliation so I thought, okay, that is a fair justification."

She told the BBC she was sorry for the families who had lost people because of the attacks in the UK saying it "wasn't fair" because they were not involved in the fighting, she said neither was she.

The teenager left the UK in 2015 with two schoolfriends to join ISIS in Syria.

As ISIS control in Syria waned she fled the region and is currently living in a refugee camp near the Syrian border with her newborn son. She has also given birth to a son and daughter but both have died due to sickness and malnutrition.

She was tracked down by The Times and has been subject the subject of national debate about whether she should be allowed back to the UK.