The remarks made by the 19-year-old British Islamic State recruit Shamima Begum to a journalist in a refugee camp in eastern Syria are horrifying. She described being unmoved by the sight of a severed head, showed no sympathy for executed hostages, and said she had no regrets about her decision to leave the UK. We do not yet know whether she played any role during her four years with Islamic State other than that of a wife and mother. Other western recruits have acted as propagandists and recruiters. Ms Begum, who is heavily pregnant, wants to return to the UK and is entitled to do so, as security minister Ben Wallace has acknowledged. Bernard Hogan-Howe, who was Metropolitan police commissioner when the teenager and two friends left their homes in Bethnal Green, east London, in 2015, said then that the girls had “no reason to fear” returning, provided they had not committed terrorist offences. The official tone has now changed, with Mr Wallace saying on Thursday that he would not risk British lives to rescue UK citizens from Syria.

Ms Begum, who married a Dutch Islamic State fighter 10 days after arriving in Raqqa, told the Times she had lost two young children to illness, lived through six months during which her husband was imprisoned and tortured, and witnessed unimaginable brutality. Whatever her degree of culpability, she and her friends, Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana, were children when they left the UK and are thought to have been groomed. Ms Sultana is reported to have wanted to return, but been too afraid following the murder of another jihadi bride who tried to escape. Mr Sultana is thought to have been killed in an airstrike three years ago.

There are practical and political difficulties associated with repatriating people from the refugee camps where many are trapped. Experts estimate that the 850 Britons affiliated with Isis could include 145 women and 50 children. Some have already returned via smuggling routes through Turkey or Iraq. Mr Wallace has described minors brought up in the warzone as bordering “between victim and brainwashed”. Some are being supported via a specialist NHS service.

The UK government has a particular responsibility to assist British children. That means any children taken by British parents to Islamic State, or born there – as Ms Begum’s baby soon will be. Last month’s rescue by the lawyer Clive Stafford Smith of unaccompanied brothers Mahmud and Ayyub Ferreira, after a Guardian reporter tracked down their mother, shows that such things are possible. The continuing chaos in the Middle East is partly the unintended consequence of a disastrous western intervention, and Kurdish forces cannot be expected to deal with the aftermath of Islamic State’s defeat on their own. If and when Ms Begum is returned to the UK, her activities must be thoroughly investigated – and every possible lesson learned in order that the risks of radicalisation are minimised in future.