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Shamima Begum's IS husband: We made a mistake

The husband of Shamima Begum has told Sky News they both made a mistake when they joined Islamic State.

Yago Riedijk, from the Netherlands, married the British teenager just weeks after she arrived in IS territory as a 15-year-old in 2015.

When asked by Sky News Middle East correspondent Alex Rossi if the pair had made a mistake by joining the terrorist group, he replied: "Definitely."

Riedijk, 27, is being held in a Kurdish detention centre in northeastern Syria while Shamima Begum, now 19, and their newborn son, Jarrah, ended up at the al Hawl refugee camp in northern Syria.

He said he had little involvement in the terrorist group's activities in Syria and had fought only for "a short period of time".

He added: "Technically I was part of (the group).

"Luckily, I did not have direct involvement in...hurting or harming people."

The British government is one of many grappling with the issue of returning Islamic State fighters and their wives, as the terror group faces defeat in Syria.

It has announced it intends to revoke Shamima Begum's citizenship but Riedijk described this move as one that "saddens me".

He said: "I understand any government's fear of foreign fighters or their wives but to let a young girl in her position who has lost her children, who has been through horrors in Islamic State be left here to rot in a camp - I don't think that's a very humanitarian decision, no."

He added: "I know (Shamima) is not a danger to anyone whatsoever... but she made a mistake and will have to live with the consequences.

"She never really did anything besides being a wife."

Riedijk, who described his profession as a welder, said: "She was a good Islamic wife, she stayed in the house, took care of me, of my child.

"I very much regret what I did, that I lived a very miserable life in Islamic State and want to better myself and hopefully one day return to life as it was once, create a family."

When asked what this meant for Shamima Begum, whom he last saw around six weeks ago, he replied: "Wherever she goes, I'm going to go. If my country wants me, I either take my wife or I stay with her."

Riedijk said he had also suffered under the group's rule and had been jailed four months after his arrival on suspicion of spying for the Dutch government.

When asked by Alex Rossi why he had joined Islamic State, he said he had wanted to "help the Syrian people".

However, when he was challenged about the many violent acts committed by the group against the Syrian people and those of other nationalities, he said: "Either I was not aware of that or it happened after I came (to Syria)."

Last month, Shamima Begum told Sky News that she wanted to return to the UK with her son , whom she had given birth to just hours before.

She also said "a lot of people should have sympathy for me" and she was "just a housewife".

Days before, she had told The Times she did not regret joining IS , despite being forced to flee its final enclave of Baghuz.

Fawaz Gerges, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, told Sky News that he was not convinced by Riedijk's "reach out campaign".

"Surely it was more than a mistake," he said, regarding Riedijk's choice to join IS.

"He was part of IS's industrial killing machine, he's very delusional.

"Let's keep in mind he married Shamima when she was 15 years old. He was 23, she was 15 - it tells me a great deal about his character."

However, Mr Gerges said countries had "an ethical and legal" responsibility to take back those who had joined Islamic State, adding: "You do not really want to leave thousands of foreign fighters in either Syria or Iraq - this would come to haunt us in the next few months and years."