Families of Dutch jihadists in Syria are desperately trying to verify reports that eight fighters from the Netherlands have been executed by the Islamic State terrorist group and dozens more have been imprisoned – because one of the militants wanted to return home.
The national terrorism co-ordinator in the Netherlands, Dick Schoof, said that although he did not have reliable intelligence that could confirm or deny the conflicting accounts emerging from Syria, the confrontation as described did "fit with [Islamic State] methods".
If the executions and detentions did, in fact, take place, they represent perhaps the most significant rift between Islamic State, also known as Isis, and European fighters since Western jihadists began to join the war against Syrian president Bashar-al-Assad in 2011.
Interrogation
Tensions between Islamic State intelligence agents from
Iraq
and the Dutch “brigade”, based in a compound at al-Furusiya, near Raqqa, are reported to have been worsening for some time – coming to a head last week when three of the Dutch were arrested for interrogation and one was beaten to death.
According to the usually reliable citizen group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS), Islamic State then sent a “negotiator” to talk to the Dutch, and he was killed in revenge, prompting the decision to round up the entire group and detain them in two locations, Maadan and Tabaqa.
Eight of the Dutch fighters are reported to have been “executed” in Maadan last Friday, after being accused of “attempted desertion and mutiny”. The remainder, variously put at between 60 and 75, were imprisoned.
The father of one Dutch jihadist from the city of Delft said he had been trying without success to contact his son since the reports emerged – though he said contact could often be difficult because all communications were monitored by Islamic State.
Reports challenged
Reports of the executions have been challenged by the UK-based activist organisation the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which said “reliable sources” within Islamic State had described them as “false rumours”.
However, the terrorist group is known to be particularly sensitive to international publicity about “desertions” because they run counter to its narrative of rolling victories and the recreation of the Sunni “caliphate” by its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
In December 2014, there were reports that Islamic State had killed 100 foreign fighters who were accused of trying to escape from its de facto capital, Raqqa.
Twelve European militants are believed to have been imprisoned the previous October.
In both cases, it was believed the fighters tried to desert because they were unhappy about being asked to fight other jihadists groups, such as the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, instead of Syrian government troops.
