In
April 2013, the Swedish Security Service estimates that 30 people
have already joined the Syrian insurgents1.
The author of the article's reference on the matter personally
identified 18 Swedes, who have certainly left to Syria. Almost all of
these people come from the south-western Sweden, and more than half
of the suburbs of Gothenburg, the second city of the country. 11 are
from the suburbs of Angered and Bergjsön. The bonds of friendship
undoubtedly play : three candidates belonged to the same martial arts
circle. Other attending a well-known radical mosque in Gothenburg,
Bellevue Masjid. Only one of these men had a direct link with Syria,
which he joined in June 2013. A third of this Swedes are born in
Sweden from immigrant parents. The rest comes from different
countries : Iraq, Jordan, Kosovo, Morocco and even Philippines. Yet
at least 10 are of Lebanese origin (2 of which were perhaps
Palestinians). One has Swedish origins. These are all men : the
average age is 23.5. Most come from families with many children and
low-income ; 8 were unemployed or without income of any kind. 8 were
also known for crime, including 4 for drug cases and 3 for violence.
One of the volunteers, Abo Isa (a Palestinian born in Homs in 1984,
emigrated at the age of 8 and who became a Swedish citizen in July
19922),
was a hardened criminal : he was jailed three times and was sentenced
to a total of 15 times. Haitham Rahma is born in 1960 in a native
Syrian family (from Homs), he is an imam of a mosque in Stockhholm.
He went to Syria to establish a military structure under the guise of
another called Civil Protection Authority ; it is affiliated with the
Muslim Brotherhood but also cooperates with jihadist groups. Rahma
was delivering weapons to Syria and raising funds to finance
insurgents3.
Of
the 18 Swedish identified, 8 were killed in Syria. Abu Kamal suffered
a shrapnel tank in Aleppo in January 2013 mid-March, a video presents
him as a member of al-Kataib Muhajirin ; a British has also perished
during the same operation. Abu Omar was killed in April 2013 by a
RPG's rocket ; again, he would have served with a radical group. Abu
Dharr, who had conducted the first propaganda video in Swedish, was
killed in April 2013. Abu Abdurahmann was killed in June 2013 in the
province of Idlib ; he was also part of al- Kataib Muhajirin. Two
brothers, Abu Maaz and Abu Osman, also died in Syria. They were
killed in an attack on a checkpoint near Abu Zeid regime, close to
the Krak des Chevaliers in the province of Homs. Abu Maaz died in
driving the car-bomb and his elder in the shootout that followed the
explosion ; they served in Jund al -Sham. Another brother was killed
18 months earlier, in 2012, during sectarian clashes in Tripoli,
Lebanon. Abu Omar Kurdi was killed in August 2013 during the assault
on the Minnagh airbase. In addition to the 8 dead identified, two
others might have been Swedish : Adam Sully Wali, killed by a grenade
March 29, 2013 (the only Swede who had joined the Free Syrian Army
and not a radical group) and Abu Mohammad al-Baghdadi, who was killed
in late August 2013. All the Swedes joined, except Wali, radical
groups : al-Nosra (as Muhammad Ali Abu Hamour killed April 15, 2013,
Mark Abu Osama, a convert of Stockholm after the September 11
attacks, leaving his two wives and his son in Sweden4),
Kataib Jund al-Muhajirin and al- Sham. Some even joined ISIS. Many
are strongly suspected of war crimes.
 |
| A gauche, Abou Maaz.-Source : http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yR6wDnWNflc/Uf00rZs1PJI/AAAAAAAAB_E/V_sUNykazR0/s1600/AbuBrittas.jpg |
9
out of 18 Swedes who were identified were also previously linked to
terrorism or jihadism. Isa al-Suedi is the younger brother of a man
condemned for the preparation of a Mumbai-type attack against a
Danish newspaper, with three other men from Sweden. He was arrested
at the border with Somalia in 2007 and in Waziristan in 2009. Abu
Omar was the son of an Albanian jihadist from Kosovo. One of the
uncles of the siblings was imprisoned for participating in the
preparation of an attack against trains in Germany in May 2006 ;
another was the fourth supervisor of Lebanese group Fatah al -Islam
and was killed by the Lebanese army in May 2007. Abu Dharer Filippino
announces from Syria in late October 2012 he was trained in Pakistan
in 2001 by LeT. He returned to Sweden in spring 2013 and has since
made intense propaganda for jihad. The typical profile of Swedish
volunteers is quite targeted : a young man, from southwestern
Sweden, probably the suburbs of Gothenburg, from a Syrian immigrant
family, without employment, already convicted of crime. Friends or
relatives can connect to terrorism or jihadism.
 |
| Abou Dahrer Filippino.-Source : http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5mrwv7kBRvc/UIxbSM-c5oI/AAAAAAAABRA/NZDBucrbF9k/s1600/Filippino.jpg |
According
to Per Gudmundson, specialist of the Swedes wo have left to do jihad
in Syria, five of them have died in the fall of 2013 on the
battlefield. Kassem Hamade, a 22 year old student, was a Swede from
Palestinian origin : he was killed in Aleppo in November 2013. Abu
Ahmad al Falastini, which is actually called Omar Shahade, also from
Palestinian roots, was born in 1987 in Gothenburg. He was the brother
of Khaled Shahade (alias Khaled SigSauer) and three of his cousins
have also left to Syria, which tends to prove that in the Swedish
case, family ties hold a special place in recruitment. Abu Ismail,
alias Bilal Sellman, born in December 1994 in the suburbs of
Stockholm, left Syria in autumn 2013. He was killed in November 2013.
Othman El Khamlichi, alias Abu Tesnim, had already been searched in
December 2006 after a police operation in the middle of the Moroccan
community : a Swede of Moroccan origin, Ahmed Sofri, was sentenced to
prison for having organized the departure of jihadists in Iraq.
Othman El Khamlichi was born in 1979 in Tetouan, Morocco. He
emigrated to Sweden in November 2003, without taking Swedish
nationality, and married a daughter of Sofri. He runs a cleaning
business in the suburbs of Stockholm with Makram Ben Salem Mejri, the
widow of a dead Swedish jihadist in Iraq. Then he gone to Syria where
he was killed just before Christmas 2013. Yassin Ben Salah was one of
the founders of the Panthers ( inspired by the Black Panthers ) in
the suburbs of Gothenburg. It is linked via Internet with Syrian
jihadists since the month of June 2013. Left in Syria in October, he
died in December. ; he probably made a first trip after being injured
against the regime's troops and be returned to Sweden for treatment.
With at least 5 killed, 2013 has been the deadliest year for the
Swedish jihadists in Syria - not to mention at least some uncertain
cases, such as the Bosnian Alisici Hamza, who said he lived six
months in Sweden, Gothenburg without that we can verify its presence
on the list of census population5.
 | ||
| Bilal Sellman, jeune Suédois mort en Syrie, quasiment un enfant-soldat.-Source : http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-o1B3LUM5T-I/UvECYZjiH7I/AAAAAAAACHE/n8MWsAtKRzU/s1600/BilalSellmanAbuIsmael.jpg |
 |
| Abou Tesnim.-Source : http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ztx6Ob2jP5U/UvEPRQ57EYI/AAAAAAAACHo/GSu2GIgLqV4/s1600/AboTesnimOthmanJamlichi.jpg |
On
13 February 2014, two Swedes were killed in Syria, one from
Gothenburg and another from Stockholm6.
The first, Alaa Yasin, was born in August 1990 parents of Lebanese
origin. Yasin was sentenced for a drug case there five years ago.
Apparently with no income, he had gone to fight in Syria since the
start of 2013 and perhaps as early as August 2012. The second Swedes
apparently called Ebu Zubajr and was of Ethiopian origin. Both are
killed and bring to 17 the number of dead Swedes in Syria. At this
time, an estimated 75 Swedes have traveled for jihad, which indicates
a very high mortality among these fighters. For Colonel Johan
Wiktorin, from the Swedish army, the number can reach 210, maybe 300
Swedes who have gone in Syria, which denies Gudmundson, which
recognizes, however, that its evaluation may be less than the true
number7.
 |
| Alaa Yasin, le 1er janvier 2013.-Source : http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZSF6PUKati4/Uv3ga4f9uvI/AAAAAAAACJM/XXbarrqO9CI/s1600/AlaaLowLow11jan.jpg |
In
the beginning of April 2014, a Swedish national, who calls himself
Magnus Ranstorp, traveled with Anjem Choudary to Lebanon to protest
against the treatment of Sheikh Omar Bakri, who is linked to al-
Qaeda. Few Swedish have been linked to Choudary radicals and
associated movements, such as Mehdi Ghezali, Guantanamo detainee and
student of Omar Bakri. Choudary 's website states that this would be
the Swedish nephew of Bakri. This person, in any case, is manifested
in opinion pieces and radical Islamist websites, preaching violence,
in a form of Sharia4Sweden that suggests that closer links
between Choudary and Sweden now exist. Choudary has never been to
Sweden, but at the meeting held in Norway, there was a Swede in the
room, Abu Dujanah, a young man who comes from Boras (the city from
which also comes the Swedish who accompanied Choudary in Lebanon),
which is close to the family el Hassan in the same locality, which
already has three "martyrs" in Syria8.
1Per
Gudmundson, « The Swedish Foreign Fighter Contingent in
Syria », CTC Sentinel, Volume 6 Issue 9, septembre
2013, p.5-9.
2Foreign
fighters from Western countries in the ranks of the rebel
organizations affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the global jihad in
Syria, The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information
Center, 3 février 2014.
3Foreign
fighters from Western countries in the ranks of the rebel
organizations affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the global jihad in
Syria, The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information
Center, 3 février 2014.
4Foreign
fighters from Western countries in the ranks of the rebel
organizations affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the global jihad in
Syria, The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information
Center, 3 février 2014.