Tuesday, March 19th | 9 Adar II 5784

Subscribe
September 20, 2018 9:41 am
0

Investigation Finds That Dutch Program Aided Terror-Tied Groups

× [contact-form-7 404 "Not Found"]

avatar by Abigail R. Esman

Opinion

An ISIS terrorist. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

When “Driss M” left his home in the Netherlands to join the fight in Syria, he was, he said later, heading there to fight against ISIS with the Free Syrian Army. He returned in 2017, expecting a hero’s welcome. Instead, he was arrested, charged with supporting the Jabhat al-Shamiya terrorist group, and sentenced to three years in Holland’s high-security prison exclusively for terrorists.

Now it seems that the government that convicted him may be guilty of the same crimes.

Extensive investigative reporting by Dutch newspaper Trouw and news program Nieuwsuur revealed that the government sent support to 22 armed groups in Syria — including Jabhat al-Shamiya — to the tune of €25 million (almost $30 million).

The goal of the Dutch program, which began in 2015, was to provide “non-lethal support” to the Free Syrian Army — of which Jabhat al-Shamiya is a part. That support has included sending pickup trucks, cameras, satellite telephones, food, uniforms, medical supplies, and even laptop computers to rebel groups. The shipments, indeed much of the program, has been conducted “in the deepest secret,” Trouw reports.

But Jabhat al-Shamiya, or the Levant Front, is not just part of the Free Syrian Army: it is a partner of Ahrar al-Sham, an Islamist militant group founded by a former Al Qaeda member; and the group has committed attacks with Al Qaeda in Aleppo and elsewhere. More significantly, even as the Dutch government was sending the group millions of euros in aid, the country’s federal prosecutor had already declared the group a terror organization.

More worrisome is the fact that alarms were sounded previously. In 2017, online news site Novini reported warnings by Foreign Affairs Minister Bert Koenders that such aid could land in the hands of ISIS and related terror groups. Other warnings had come from aid groups like Human Rights Watch, as well as the United States, where Hawaiian Congressman Tulsi Gabbard proposed the “Stop Arming Terrorists Act,” fearing that US aid could also land in the wrong hands.

In subsequent reporting, Nieuwsuur revealed that “from 2016 to early 2018, Holland supported the Sultan Murad Brigade with pickup trucks and uniforms, all while during the same time period, this brigade, according to human rights organizations, was guilty of war crimes. The brigade used child soldiers for its battles, and was involved in the attack on a Kurdish neighborhood, Sheik Maqsoud, where 83 civilians, including 30 children, were killed.”

Notably, the journalists behind the Trouw and Nieuwsuur reports found it nearly impossible to learn exactly which “moderate” rebel groups the government was supporting, or what the criteria were for determining “moderate” as opposed to “radical” ones. In many cases, an official said that such decisions were based on assurances by group leaders that they would stand by democratic principles.

But Justice Ferry van Veghel, who handles Syrian jihadist returnees, had a different view: “I think it’s always good to judge organizations by their deeds, and not so much on their words,” he told Trouw.

Van Veghel is, in fact, far more cautious than the Dutch cabinet in making these distinctions. “A good part of the fighting groups that work with the Free Syrian Army can be called terrorist,” he said.

That fact points to an ongoing challenge for Western governments that have tried supporting anti-Assad forces, because some were forced to turn to terrorist groups for support. Knowing who stands in which camp has continued to confound foreign governments throughout the Syrian war.

Government leaders in the Netherlands responded quickly to the report, immediately stopping further payments and shipments to Jabhat al-Shamiya. Meanwhile, several parliament members are demanding answers and calling for a further investigation. They want to know the exact criteria for providing support, and the names of those groups who received it. Others are pointing to another, equally disturbing outcome of the revelations: If the Dutch government (and potentially other Western governments) has been lending support to terror groups, efforts to try to convict jihadists returning home from Syria could arguably be called illegitimate, and so prove futile. It is a dilemma that endangers not just the Dutch state, but the security of the world.

Abigail R. Esman, the author of Radical State: How Jihad Is Winning Over Democracy in the West, is a freelance writer based in New York and the Netherlands. Follow her at @radicalstates. This article was originally commissioned by the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

The opinions presented by Algemeiner bloggers are solely theirs and do not represent those of The Algemeiner, its publishers or editors. If you would like to share your views with a blog post on The Algemeiner, please be in touch through our Contact page.

Share this Story: Share On Facebook Share On Twitter

Let your voice be heard!

Join the Algemeiner

Algemeiner.com

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.