Shamima Begum’s Daesh husband denounces terror attacks but still wants caliphate

Yago Riedijk, then around 22, married Begum when she was just 15, within days of her arrival in Syria in 2015. (Screenshots/Sky TV/ITV)
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Updated 09 November 2021
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Shamima Begum’s Daesh husband denounces terror attacks but still wants caliphate

  • Yago Riedijk married UK’s best-known Daesh member when she went to Syria aged 15
  • He refused to comment on group’s beheadings, abuses against Iraq’s Yazidis

LONDON: A Dutch man who married British Daesh bride Shamima Begum has said he does not condone terror attacks on European soil but still hopes that a caliphate will be established.

Yago Riedijk, 29, is imprisoned in a Kurdish-administered camp in Syria and has admitted to being a Daesh fighter.

Begum, one of Britain’s most well-known Daesh members, is campaigning to be allowed to return to the UK after her citizenship was revoked.

Riedijk, then around 22, married Begum when she was just 15, within days of her arrival in Syria in 2015. The pair had three children together, all of whom have died.

He said he had “beautiful memories” of their life together before Kurdish forces — with the assistance of NATO and regional states — destroyed Daesh’s so-called caliphate and imprisoned its surviving members.

Speaking to Alan Duncan, a Scottish soldier making a documentary about Daesh, Riedijk said despite his active role in the terror group, he disagreed with the many Daesh-inspired terror attacks that have taken place on European soil in recent years for “a number of reasons,” including “the prohibition on killing innocent people in Islam, on killing women and children. I see these attacks as not being Islamically responsible.”

However, Riedijk refused to comment on the group’s beheadings and its treatment of the Yazidi minority in Iraq, which experienced attempted genocide, slavery, mass sexual abuse, torture and other abuses at the hands of Daesh.

Begum has not been directly linked to any of these abuses, and she has been pushing the British government and general public to allow her to return to the UK.

In September, she appeared live on TV to say she would be “an asset” in the UK’s fight against terror.

The Home Office has consistently refused to allow her and other Daesh members back into the UK, choosing instead to strip them of their British citizenship where possible.

It has said the security of British citizens trumps the needs of those Deash recruits detained by Kurdish authorities.


EU to suspend 93 billion euro retaliatory trade package against US for 6 months

Updated 23 January 2026
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EU to suspend 93 billion euro retaliatory trade package against US for 6 months

  • “With the removal of the tariff threat by the US we can now return to the important business,” Gill said
  • The ⁠Commission will soon make a proposal “to roll over our suspended countermeasures”

BRUSSELS: The European Commission said on Friday it would propose suspending for another six months an EU package of retaliatory trade measures against the US worth 93 billion euros ($109.19 billion) that would otherwise kick in on February 7.
The package, prepared in the first half of last year when the European Union was negotiating a trade deal with the United States, was ⁠put on hold for six months when Brussels and Washington agreed on a joint statement on trade in August 2025.
US President Donald Trump’s threat last week to impose new tariffs on eight European countries ⁠over Washington’s push to acquire Greenland had made the retaliatory package a handy tool for the EU to use had Trump followed through on his threat.
“With the removal of the tariff threat by the US we can now return to the important business of implementing the joint EU-US statement,” Commission spokesman Olof Gill said.
The ⁠Commission will soon make a proposal “to roll over our suspended countermeasures, which are set to expire on February 7,” Gill said, adding the measures would be suspended for a further six months.
“Just to make absolutely clear — the measures would remain suspended, but if we need them at any point in the future, they can be unsuspended,” Gill said.