Journey of a Teen-Age Jihadi

On the pretext of going to Amsterdam with friends, Jejoen borrowed his father’s suitcase and packed it with a sleeping bag, warm clothes, a flashlight, and—on Azeddine’s request—night-vision goggles. Another Sharia4Belgium member, already in Syria, told Jejoen how to get to the border between Turkey and Syria. Jejoen left home on February 21, 2013, without knowing the name of the group that he would join. He expected that he “would fall martyr within a short time and would go to paradise,” he said. He believed, as he had been told, that “good deeds erase bad deeds, and jihad is the best deed” of all.

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