Former Islamic State (IS) jihadists who have returned to Sweden are now working with children, young people, and the vulnerable, according to an investigation led by Swedish newspaper Expressen. The article—quoted by Euractiv—states that of the 83 people identified as having returned to Sweden from Islamic State-controlled territory, 21 are working in leisure centres, preschools, and social services. In total, 24 of these ex-IS fighters have found work with public employers despite several warnings from the security services that returnees can contribute to radicalisation and recruitment in Sweden.
According to Säpo, the Swedish intelligence service, about 300 Swedes or Swedish residents, a quarter of whom are women, joined IS in Syria and Iraq, mostly in 2013 and 2014, when large swathes of the two countries were under the control of the terrorist group. Of the recruits from Sweden, 75% were Swedish citizens and 34% were born in Sweden. Speaking in 2021, Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at the Swedish Defence University, told AFP that around half of them had returned.
Sweden did not have existing legislation to prosecute people for membership in an armed organisation, so prosecutors instead sought other crimes with which to charge returnees. In 2022, a Stockholm court sentenced a 49-year-old Swedish woman, Lina Ishaq, to six years in prison because she failed to prevent her 12-year-old son from becoming a child soldier in Syria, where he was killed in the civil war. She was convicted of a “grave violation of international law and [a] grave war crime.” In 2021, a 31-year-old woman was sentenced to three years in prison for taking her two-year-old son to Syria in 2014, endangering his life.
Two Swedes were, however, sentenced to life in prison in December 2015 by a court in Gothenburg, their conviction resting largely on videos showing them participating in decapitations. Other returning IS fighters have been convicted of crimes and misdemeanours in Sweden, reports AFP.
Liberal Minister for Schools Lotta Edholm voiced her outrage at the new findings, saying employers in the school system, in particular, should do more to check the background of their employees. She also highlighted a glaring lack of communication between the security services and other public administrations.
Markus Wiechel, member of parliament for the Sweden Democrats, blamed the previous Social Democratic government for not enacting legislation to ban joining terrorist organisations. “That is the reason why IS executioners today can be paid to take care of our children,” he tweeted.
The new centre-right government tightened the country’s anti-terrorism laws this year; the revision includes a prison term of up to four years for individuals convicted of participating in an extremist organisation in a way that is intended to promote, strengthen, or support the group. The bill makes it illegal to travel abroad with the intention of joining a terrorist group.
As we previously reported, the leader of the Sweden Democrats, Jimmie Åkesson, made a new proposal on immigration, advocating for migrants to be stripped of Swedish citizenship if they refuse to integrate into Swedish society, along with migrant criminals. Sweden has seen one of the highest rates of immigration per capita in Europe, with the country’s population growth being almost entirely driven by mass migration in recent years.
