European Observatory to Combat Radicalization
Daesh Jihadi Urges His Wife Shamima Begum to ‘Stay Strong’ as She Tries to Return to UK
Sputniknews – In 2015, three British girls – Amira Abase, Shamima Begum, and Kadiza Sultana – left the UK to Join Daesh. The so-called ‘Daesh Bride’ phenomenon emerged in 2012, when women and girls started traveling to Iraq and Syria and married ISIS fighters.
Dutchman Yago Riedijk, who fought for Daesh* and is now held in a detention centre in north-east Syria, controlled by the US-backed Kurdish forces, told his wife Shamima Begum to do and learn whatever she could to build a future for both of them, he confessed to The Sun in a documentary posted on Friday.
When Riedijk was asked what he would say to his bride, he said she had to stay strong, even though it was difficult with all the things that they had been through.“I would tell her, make use of your time, do whatever you can, learn whatever you can in order to become… to build a future for yourself, for us, in terms of taking care of future children, in terms of being a future housewife”, he told The Sun.
Shamima Begum was one of three schoolgirls who left London to join Daesh in 2015. Once in Syria she married Dutch-born Riedijk, who had converted to Islam and arrived in Syria in 2014.For a long time Begum was thought to be missing.
After she was found in a Syrian refugee camp in 2019, her British citizenship was revoked on security grounds. In July 2020, the Court of Appeal ruled that Begum was entitled to return to the UK and to challenge a decision to withdraw her UK citizenship irrevocably. Her intention to return to the UK has prompted a public debate on how the Government should treat returning jihadists.
