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Husband of 'ISIS Bride Shamima' Wants to Take Her to Netherlands

Shamima Begum and her two schoolfriends flew to Istanbul in 2015 to cross the border into Syria [Laura Lean/Getty Image]
Shamima Begum and her two schoolfriends flew to Istanbul in 2015 to cross the border into Syria [Laura Lean/Getty Image]
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Husband of 'ISIS Bride Shamima' Wants to Take Her to Netherlands

Shamima Begum and her two schoolfriends flew to Istanbul in 2015 to cross the border into Syria [Laura Lean/Getty Image]
Shamima Begum and her two schoolfriends flew to Istanbul in 2015 to cross the border into Syria [Laura Lean/Getty Image]

The Dutch husband Shamima Begum who joined ISIS wants to return to the Netherlands with her and their child, the BBC reported on Sunday.

Begum, 19, left London with two school friends to join ISIS when she was 15 but now wants to return to the UK with her newborn son.

Citing an interview with her husband Yago Riedijk, the BBC reported he had fought for ISIS but had surrendered later on and was being held in a Kurdish detention centre in north-eastern Syria.

The BBC said Riedijk now wants to return to the Netherlands with his wife and son, Reuters reported.

Riedijk faces a six-year prison sentence for "joining a terror organisation" if he returns to the Netherlands.

"She seemed in a good state of mind," he said of when he first met her. "It was her own choice. She asked to look for a partner for her, and I was invited. She was very young ... she
chose to get married and I chose to marry her."

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Erdogan Says Won't Let Terror 'Drag Syria Back to Instability'

Syria's newly appointed president for a transitional phase Ahmed al-Sharaa meets with Türkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Türkiye, February 4, 2025. (Murat Cetinmuhurdar/PPO/Handout via Reuters)
Syria's newly appointed president for a transitional phase Ahmed al-Sharaa meets with Türkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Türkiye, February 4, 2025. (Murat Cetinmuhurdar/PPO/Handout via Reuters)
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Erdogan Says Won't Let Terror 'Drag Syria Back to Instability'

Syria's newly appointed president for a transitional phase Ahmed al-Sharaa meets with Türkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Türkiye, February 4, 2025. (Murat Cetinmuhurdar/PPO/Handout via Reuters)
Syria's newly appointed president for a transitional phase Ahmed al-Sharaa meets with Türkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Türkiye, February 4, 2025. (Murat Cetinmuhurdar/PPO/Handout via Reuters)

Türkiye will not allow extremists to drag Syria back into chaos and instability, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday after a suicide attack killed 22 at a Damascus church.

"We will never allow our neighbor and brother Syria... be dragged into a new environment of instability through proxy terrorist organizations," he said, vowing to support the new government's fight against such groups.

He did not explain what he meant by "proxy" groups but vowed that Türkiye would "continue to support the Syrian government’s fight against terrorism", AFP reported.

The Damascus government blamed Sunday night's shooting and suicide attack -- the first of its kind in the Syrian capital since the fall of strongman Bashar al-Assad six months ago -- on ISIS militants.

It cast the attack as a bid to "undermine national coexistence and to destabilize the country", which only began emerging from the post-civil war chaos after Assad's ouster six months ago.

Türkiye was a key backer of the HTS who ousted Assad under the leadership of Ahmed al-Sharaa, now the interim president, and has repeatedly offered its operational and military to fight ISIS and other militant threats.