Swedish jihadi in Syria: ”I’ll be in a better place if I die”
Mohammad was born in Malmö. He has never been to the Middle East and his Arabic poor to say the least. Yet the 18-year old boy from the Rosengaard ghetto came when he was called to holy war in Syria.– I believe in Allah and I believe that I’ll go to heaven if I die in a holy war, Mohammed explains through a bad phone connection from the area around Damascus.
Back home in Rosengaard, mother Isra keeps track of the news from the war in Syria and stays close to her cell phone, which is her only link to her son.
The war in Syria isn’t black or white. The regime isn’t fighting a united front but rather hundreds of groups – all of them with different agendas. Mohammad is fighting for a clan leader who is a distant relative of his family.
– Usually Muslim boys and men are being recruited by imams with contacts to mosques around Europe, says mother Isra. In our case it was family relations that made Mohammad decide to go to Syria.
Mohammad is in no way extreme. He is no fundamentalist when it comes to faith or religion. He would rather go to a soccer match with Malmö FF than to mosque. In spite of this he has taken the big step of traveling to a foreign country to fight in a foreign war.
Asked why he is fighting in a country he has never visited and knew little about, he answers that it is a way of becoming a man and growing physically as well as mentally.
– I was tired of school and wanted to do something else, he says.
Mohammad is not the only boy from Rosengaard and Malmö who is now fighting against the Syrian regime.
– I went together with a friend from school, he explains. But Reza fights for another clan and the last time I heard him, he was somewhere around Aleppo.
Asked why she didn’t try to prevent her son from going to Syria, Isra answers:
– My son is a grown-up and can make his own decisions. But of course I was worried when he decided to go.
A couple of stone’s throws from Isra’s apartment, Adona Seminovic is in a similar situation. For a couple of months, both her son Maksi and husband Ahmet have been fighting with rebels associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. They are fighting to introduce sharia law in Syria. Ahmet and Maksi are firm believers and spend at least as much time in the Rosengaard mosque as they do at home in the apartment.
Despite her ten years in Sweden, mother Adona’s Swedish is very poor.
– I’m nor happy that my son went to war. He’s only 17. But my husband decides and he said: ”Go my son.”
Ahmet and his son are somewhere in the neighborhood of Aleppo. Forces loyal to the Assad regime control most of the city but there are several rebel groups around the town center. The last time Adona heard from her husband, he and his son were close to the airport.
According to Adona there is total confusion in and around Aleppo. That’s what her husband has told her.
– Everybody is fighting everybody. There is no longer any united opposition against Assad, says Adona Seminovic.
I ask Mohammad if he is not afraid of being killed or wounded. Several Swedish citizens have already died in Syria.
– Yes I am, he answers. But I know that I will end up in a better place if I die.
Mohammad won’t tell how he was recruited to become a warrior, but asked if he has been in battle, he answers:
– On the first day I practiced with my weapon and familiarized myself with the area. Since then I have been in gunfights almost every day.
The situation in Syria is very confused and Mohammad admits that he is not always sure who is on the opposite side and who he is shooting on.
– I want to take part in the overthrow of Assad. He has done much evil against the Syrian people, he explains.
The war will soon be entering its third year and has claimed at least 120,000 lives of which 20,000 are children. More than four million Syrians have fled from the war, which is best described as one big chaos. Government forces as well as rebel groups have been accused to violating international rules of war and there is reason to believe that the regime used the illegal sarin gas to subjugate Aleppo at the early stage of the war.
As was the case in Afghanistan and Bosnia, lots of foreign volunteers take part in the fighting and can be found on both sides. Exactly as in Afghanistan and Bosnia there are no winners – only losers.
And in Malmö anxious mothers hope that their sons will return.
Footnote: All names are fictitious in order to protect the families.
Facts
Warring parties:The Syrian government led by President Bashar al-Assad.
The Syrian armed forces
Jaysh al-Shabi (pro-government militia)
Shabiba (pro-government militia)
Al-Abbas Brigade (Lebanon)
The national defense force
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard
Basij (militia, Iran)
Hezbollah (Lebanon, Palestine)
PFLP-GC
Iraqi militia
Opposition:
Syrian National Coalition
Free Syrian Army
Syrian Islamic Liberation Front
Al-Tawhid Brigade (Egypt)
The opposition is supported by:
Turkey
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
Mujaheddin (Afghanistan)
Syrian Islamic Front
Al-Nusra Front (Saudi Arabia)
Islamic Iranian State (Iran)
Kurdish Democratic Union (Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan, Syria