Women from Germany also traveled to Syria to join the so-called Islamic State. They are now coming back and bringing their children with them. Is there cause for concern, for fear?
The boy has a loaded gun in his hand. Maybe he’s eight, maybe twelve years old. He wears a green camouflage uniform and a black cap, his face looks serious. There are more children in the dark room, standing a little in the background. A man kneels in front of the boy. His head is lowered slightly, his eyes are blindfolded. He’s wearing an orange sweater. And although death is seconds away, it remains completely immobile. He doesn’t beg for his life, he doesn’t try to escape, he doesn’t cry in despair. He seems lost in himself, entranced.
The blindfold is removed from the man, who is between thirty and forty years old, the boy reloads his gun, points it from above at the man’s head and pulls the trigger. His body sags quickly, blood flows, everything in close-up. The boy then leaves the room with the others, their departure is accompanied by a nashid, a religious a cappella chant.
This almost unbearable execution scene is a sequence from a propaganda video of the so-called Islamic State. It was probably staged for the wedding of the IS, sometime between 2014 and 2017. Whether it was actually a real execution can no longer be clarified. The pictures, however, leave little room for doubt.
Radical Islamists from Germany also traveled to Syria to join IS. They are now coming back: at the end of last year, the largest group of returnees to date landed, eight women and 23 children. They were all with IS, the mothers voluntarily, the offspring inevitably. But how dangerous are the children of IS? Is there cause for concern, for fear? What is happening to them now? These are questions that, among others, the return coordinator of the Berlin Senate, Samira Benz, is concerned. In advance, she collected the often sparse information and gathered around a table authorities and institutions that play a role in the topic: youth and health authorities, security authorities, the Foreign Office, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees as well as daycare centers and schools.
Some children fear men with dark hair and beards
“First of all, we take a look at the children’s health status,” Benz said in an interview with ntv. “We have children who have bomb fragments in their heads or who need quick medical attention. And some of that already at the airport. But sometimes we know almost nothing about the children and then have to act quickly on site.”
Mothers can diagnose health problems more quickly. On the other hand, ideologically, it becomes more difficult. There are those who are disaffected with IS who want to get back into society as quickly as possible. But there are also others who are still, sometimes openly, sometimes secretly, addicted to IS. And then there are the undecided who arrive in Germany with no drive or perspective.
“With women we often experience total insecurity and helplessness. They have no idea what is going to happen now. If they come into custody, they will be arrested, in which state they will be, what are the next steps, will they even be able to reconnect with them Find society? “, Says Thomas Mücke from the Violent Prevention Network (VPN), a man with years of expertise in the rehabilitation of extremists.
The children are the lost souls. They come to a country that their parents hated, a country that they barely or not at all know. Their fathers either died or were in custody, and what happens to their mothers is unclear. In addition, many are slowed down in their development. They are victims of their parents’ war. “What we observe in the children who come back are, for example, depression, insomnia, many have nightmares or bed-wetting. Other children have compulsions. One child always turns the tap on and off,” says Samira Benz. And something else worries you. “It is noticeable that some children are afraid of males, men with dark hair and beards.”
“If we’re open to these children, I won’t worry about them”
The children of the IS, who do not have to be medically cared for as an inpatient, can stay with their mother. But if she has to be in custody, return coordinators like Samira Benz look for a place to stay in the children’s environment. There it is first checked whether grandma, grandpa, uncle or aunt are willing and able to cope with the new situation. “The youth welfare office checks the domestic conditions – whether the apartment has enough rooms, whether it is child-friendly, whether the grandfather or grandmother is a certain age where they can still take children in,” says Benz, outlining the requirements.
Thomas Mücke has accompanied many radicalized people on their way back to normal. And he knows that the children usually do not need extensive deradicalization programs. “It plays a very important role that children are then in an environment where their basic needs are met again. After security that a basic trust is possible again, that you can perceive them, that they can freely develop their personality again. If we are open to these children, then I don’t worry about them, “said Mücke.
However, the process of reintegrating the children is not entirely smooth, because daycare centers and schools are also concerned about who is now entering their ideal world. “We also know that the IS children bully other children in day care or school. They then say, for example, ‘I was with IS, but you weren’t, Ätsch’. Of course, the children don’t know what the bad thing was about it “says Samira Benz. Overall, the way back to everyday school life is rather inconspicuous.
A residual risk remains
Arrest warrants were pending against six women who last landed in Frankfurt. Whether they are in custody or at large, when they return to a normal life they can access a network of deradicalization programs like the VPN. “In the process with the mother, we then have to look at what led her to slip into the radical scene. Those were seldom ideological reasons. As a rule, something went wrong in life,” explains Mücke. “People must now recognize all of this for themselves.”
Another problem: the positions or project funds of the return coordinators are often limited. Given such framework conditions, it is not surprising that experienced female employees prefer to accept open-ended offers in the long term. Then new colleagues have to be looked for and trained again.
A lot is already known about radicalized adolescents from research with child soldiers in Africa. In this way, children can also commit the most serious crimes, for example in order to be accepted in their militant group. And there are actually those who are not plagued by remorse afterwards. Others, however, break down because of their actions or need a lot of help to find their way back to life. But if both characters are part of a tried and tested rehabilitation program, then the chances that they will find and walk their way away from violence are very good.
In Belgium, the number of former jihadists who have relapsed is impressively low. 95 percent of the de-radicalization measures were successful, according to the Belgian interior ministry. The number gives hope. But it also shows that there is still a residual risk.