Engaging with jihadists The Danish city of Aarhus pioneers a new

‘Here are the holy warriors from Denmark’, proclaimed the Danish daily newspaper Berlingske in September 2014,
publishing photographs of 11 Danish Islamists it claimed had travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight jihad. S O U R C E : W W W. B . D K /
Engaging with jihadists
The Danish city of Aarhus pioneers a new program to counter
the rise of home-grown terrorists by getting to potential fighters
before they leave Denmark—and supporting those who return.
Today Denmark is well into a pioneering—and
courageous—experiment in which police, educational
and state welfare services have joined forces to build
a holistic “exit” program for radicalized youth.
A vast intelligence network of police, families, social
workers, religious leaders, community and parents has
been created and what is known as “InfoHouse” has
become the state’s first port of call to guide and target
welfare resources and specialist attention to potential
fighters before they leave Denmark—as well as those
who return.
To date, no prospective or returning fighter has
ended up in jail.
GLOBALLY, SECURITY AGENCIES ESTIMATE that a
quarter of the 12,000 foreign fighters who have entered
Syria since the civil war began in 2011 travelled from
the west. Of these, 1000 came from France, 500 from
the UK and Germany respectively, 250 from Belgium
and an estimated 100 from Denmark. A further 70
travelled from Australia.
After the shock of the 2005 London bombings,
and the realization that terrorists were being grown
at home, Aarhus, Denmark’s second largest city,
intervened and actively countered radicalization to
prevent home-grown terrorism occurring there. Efforts
were ramped up when the Syrian crisis erupted.
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from a different angle, to have a more … nuanced
understanding. A broader horizon.”
Steffen Nielsen, a crime prevention advisor in
Aarhus, told Al Jazeera that the support had to be
more than cursory to be effective, and include help to
return to education or finding a job.
“A lot of guys who come home have experienced
a loss of innocence and some sort of loss of moral
belief. They thought they were going down there for
a good cause. And what they found was thugs who
are decapitating women and children and raping and
killing people.”
The program has its critics, but senior police
officers have backed its success, and the Danish
government has just committed US$9 million to extend
the program for three years, mostly to prevent Muslim
youth being radicalized, with US$1 million to be spent
on returning fighters.
The Danish approach is in contrast to that taken
by other countries, including Australia. In the UK and
Germany in particular, there is a schism between those
who support more benign, preventative approaches to
counter youth radicalization and those who advocate a
hardline law-and-order–driven response.
UK law already empowers authorities to revoke the
citizenship of a dual national, and British suspects can
be held for up to fourteen days without charge. Terror
training at home and abroad carries a ten-year jail
sentence, and a raft of new laws are in the pipeline.
The exact nature of these laws will depend on the
results of the 7 May UK general election.
Similarly, Germany has criminalized support for
Islamic State and around 300 people are already facing
prosecution.
Measured by proportion of population, Australia
is facing similar problems to Denmark. ASIO says 70
Australians are known to have entered Iraq or Syria
to fight, and 20 have died in conflict. Another 100 are
suspected of providing material support by making
donations or recruiting fighters.
Australia has also adopted a hard line, boosting the
powers of security agencies, strengthening border
security and, under legislation passed last November,
cancelling benefits, including welfare payments for
returnees or other terrorists.
Of the 31 young men who went to Syria from Aarhus,
five have died, ten remain overseas and sixteen have
returned. Unlike some British families who have spoken
out about the treatment of their sons, the identities of
the Danish fighters remain a secret but authorities say
the vast majority are Somalian; the others are Turks,
Palestinians and an Iraqi.
All who returned are known and their movements
are tracked. Six have insisted they don’t need help
and simply made a bad decision. Their files have been
handed to intelligence services, who keep an eye on
their activities while they try to reclaim their lives.
The remaining ten have accepted assistance and
cooperate with the program, which involves one-onone mentoring. Their experiences vary: some were
horrified by what they saw in Syria but others are
considering returning.
Although an excitable right-wing press has
simplistically dubbed the program “jihadi rehab”,
the Aarhus “exit” program is in fact driven by the
message to disaffected and alienated youth that their
community wants to re-embrace rather than shun
them, to prevent rather than punish.
AT THE GRASSROOTS LEVEL, social workers, local
mosques and families work together to identify
vulnerable youth and offer counter messages to
religious extremism. Treatment—both psychological
for mental trauma and medical for physical injuries—
on return is provided, along with long-term mentors,
and all efforts are made to help reinsert youth into the
community, to help them find paid jobs or a return to
school and education.
One mentor who spoke to the Guardian revealed
the depth of radicalization on impressionable young
minds. His latest young charge is obsessed with
travelling and fighting to the exclusion of everything
else. “Michael” meets the boy at least twice and week
and involves himself with his life and schoolwork for
several hours, often confronting the issue by engaging
the youth in religious and moral debate.
“The goal is not to persuade them to give up their
religious conviction,” he said, “but to help them
balance that religious perspective with school, work,
family—with life, in fact. To be able to see questions
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The CIA and studies by ISCR and the Soufan Group put the number of foreign fighters helping overthrow
President Bashar al-Assad’s regime at a much higher 15,000 from at least 80 nations. S O U R C E : WA S H I N G T O N P O S T
who head off idealistically as relief workers, only to
encounter horror and brutality on the ground. Services
include advice and guidance on stays in Syria,
networking groups for relatives and help within the
hospital system.
“With our effort, we wish to offer these people a
chance of rehabilitation and return to an ordinary
Danish everyday life characterized by security for
themselves and the people who surround them,” he
It’s different in Denmark.
It may not be a politically palatable message to
some, but the Danes recognize that young fighters
often return plagued by the same horrors and trauma
suffered by military veterans. They believe that helping
to restore mental health is the greatest guarantee
against the potential for violence on home soil.
Aarhus Mayor Jacob Bundsgaard says that help
is offered to both combatants and young people
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it began before the growth of Islamic State and is still
experimental, shaped by trial and error.
However they also warn that while the brutality and
gross violence of ISIS has helped workers counter
extremist messages with youth in the west, it has
also fuelled domestic demand for more British-style
hardline legislation.
Toke Agerschou, Section Chief of the Aarhus
program, says the goal of the work is not just
to prevent radicalization but also to tackle
“discrimination and unequal treatment because it
is this too that can lead to criminal acts and risky
behaviour”.
“But we make a sharp distinction between attitudes
and actions,” he said. “All attitudes must be dissected
and debated. This is the lifeblood of a democracy.”
told ASR. Bundsgaard said the starting point for the
program lies with the Danish democratic tradition for
openness and dialogue.
“We wish to create a safe and good city for all
by working long-term and intensively with crime
prevention, while at the same time clamping down on
offences and tendencies toward harassment, racism
and discrimination.”
The focus of the city’s problems has been a mosque
in the rubble-strewn streets of a poor neighbourhood.
Some of the imams of the Grimhoj Mosque have
previously refused to denounce acts of terror and one
could soon be jailed, although mosque leaders are
now moderating their position.
Such has been the problem that a fifteen-year-old
boy was recently removed from his family because
of fears he was being radicalized by his father, who
attended the mosque.
Researchers and experts on radicalization in Europe
agree that the Danish approach is significant, even if
Paola Totaro
See Happiness is a sad Dane, page 81.
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