Yago Riedijk was born and raised in well-to-do Dutch suburbia but abandoned it all in his early twenties for so-called Islamic State (IS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Old pictures show a smiling teenager perched behind a child on a motorbike. A smattering of hairs on his chin suggests he is cultivating a beard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He left the Netherlands in 2014. If he returns, he faces a six-year jail term for joining a terrorist organisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You may be familiar with his jihadi bride, Shamima Begum from east London who is believed to have “married” him 10 days after she arrived inside IS territory aged 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They now face an uncertain fate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Riedijk was one of 300 Dutch men and women who travelled to Syria and Iraq. Some 135 Dutch nationals with “jihadist intentions” are still there, anti-terrorism officials say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is not known how many want to come back, and it is not clear if they can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Authorities across Europe are alive to the threat of returning jihadists:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As IS began to crumble, he and Shamima Begum escaped the town of Baghouz to protect their unborn child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Riedijk, now 27, is held in north-eastern Syria while she was in the sprawling al-Hawl refugee camp – temporary home to 39,000 people, mostly women and children – but has now reportedly gone elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the UK revoked her citizenship, she raised the prospect of applying for Dutch nationality through her “husband”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although Riedijk is on a terrorism watch list, his citizenship has not been revoked. If he made it to a Dutch embassy or consulate, in theory he would be allowed to return home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shamima Begum will struggle to get her underage union recognised in the Netherlands, but their newborn son, Jarrah, may be entitled to Dutch citizenship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are as many as 170 children in Syria who could lay claim to Dutch nationality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only this week the Dutch justice department warned of the threat posed by jihadist women<\/a> returning from abroad, as well as by boys older than nine years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even women and children who were not trained and did not take part in hostilities could pose a “long-term potential threat” because of exposure to IS ideology, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jimmy’s cafe nestles on a neat shopping precinct close to where Riedijk grew up, in the eastern city of Arnhem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jimmy, softly spoken, gestures to the table where Riedijk and his friends used to gather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two men in their twenties talk candidly of friends seduced and conscripted by a brutal death cult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Frustrated their city has been christened the Netherlands’ “jihadist capital”, they blame Dutch society for failing to stop “good kids” from being groomed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yago Riedijk was born and raised in well-to-do Dutch suburbia but abandoned it all in his early twenties for so-called Islamic State (IS). Old pictures show a smiling teenager perched behind a child on a motorbike. A smattering of hairs on his chin suggests he is cultivating a beard. He left the Netherlands in 2014. If he returns, he faces… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3194,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3193\/revisions\/3194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How a city’s teenagers were targeted for jihad<\/h2>\n\n\n\n