Nieuwsuur: Yilmaz – The Story of a Dutch Soldier in Syria

Currently about 120 Dutch Muslims have joined the armed struggle in Syria as foreign fighters. One of them is a former soldier in the Dutch army, the Turkish-Dutch Yilmaz. Roozbeh Kaboly, foreign editor of the Dutch National TV program Nieuwsuur (NewsHour) found Yilmaz on his social media page (Instagram) 8 months ago. It took Yilmaz a long time to trust Kaboly and accept to give an interview. In the beginning he even denied that he was from the Netherlands. As it’s not safe for reporters in Syria and extremist fighters target them, Nieuwsuur asked an intermediary to do the interview.

Yilmaz was active on Instagram (and I think Dutch journalist Harald Doornbos was one of the first to notice him) but since that account is closed you can find him on Tumblr where he posts pictures of fighting, Syrian children, weapons and several modalities of propaganda. On Ask.fm one can ask him questions to which he responds.[EDIT: It is not correct that Doornbos was the first. Doornbos discovered one of Yilmaz’ last instagram accounts. Roozbeh Kaboly was already in contact with him at that time.]

Syria 2014. Jihad in style. Alhamdulillah.

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The report is interesting for several reasons. First of all it is the first interview with a Dutch fighter who is actually present in Syria. There have been a few interviews with returnees and there was a full page interview in a national newspaper with a spokesperson of a few fighters, but this is the first one on national TV. Also Yilmaz appears not to belong to the networks of Muslims that are usually associated with fighting in Syria. Interestingly, Yilmaz wears his Dutch army uniform while training other foreign fighters. Also Yilmaz states that the fact that he fights in Syria not by definition means he belongs to the Al Qaeda affiliated networks (ISIS and Nusra) although in his posts he does have words of praise for ISIS rebels.

Yilmaz makes clear that he fights ‘fissabillaah’ for the sake of God as his ultimate motive. He does not plan to return to the Netherlands to die as a martyr; as a response to the often expressed fear that returnees will turn into local violent militants in Europe.

“No, no, I came to Syria for Syria only. I didn’t come to Syria to learn how to make bombs, or this or that and to go back. That’s not the mentality many of these fighters here have. We came here — basically, and I know it sounds harsh, but many of the brothers here, including myself, we came here to die…. So, us going back is not part of our perspective here. I mean it’s a big sacrifice and there’s a lot of work to do, so why should I even think about Holland or Europe? It’s a closed chapter for me.”

He even states that if the Dutch army had sent a unit to help the ‘Syrian people’ he would have been the first to enlist. Also interestingly while in many of the debates radicalization and the fighting in Syria is seen as a lack of integration and as some kind of pathology, Yilmaz stresses political goals: the suffering of the Syrian people under the hands of Assad (‘you can not sit at home…’) and the creation of an Islamic state. He also displays some sense of humor and ‘Dutchness’ when he refers to sushi, Dr. Pepper and ‘kapsalon’ (a Dutch fast food invented by a Turkish Dutch snackbar owner).

The interview also yielded a lot of criticism from different sides (among them the Dutch Coordinator for Counter-terrorism and security) who stated that Nieuwsuur made propaganda for Syrian fighters and/or Al Qaeda. I think therefore it was good the program also showed how they came into contact with Yilmaz and had Erwin Bakker providing the critical note at the end. Of course Yilmaz’ story is partly a media operation. As he states himself on social media: ‘Half of Jihad is media’. What I did miss however was the hardship of foreign fighters themselves. It is not an easy thing to do, to fight there. The sometimes difficult conditions under which they operate, their position as foreign fighters amidst Syrian fighters, the atrocities of war are all left out. Nevertheless I do think the interview provides us with some idea about foreign fighters (of course this is only one of them) that has been completely absent in the discussion (as outlined above).

You can watch the interview here:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWua3exa6rw]

See also NYT The Lede Blog