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WORK TITLE: Rescued from ISIS
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.dimitribontinck.com/
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://us.macmillan.com/author/dimitribontinck/ * https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2017/0815/Rescued-from-ISIS-recounts-a-father-s-harrowing-journey-to-save-his-son
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in Belgium; married; wife’s name Helen; children: Jejoen (son), one daughter.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, soldier, security officer, court officer, and consultant. Consultant and expert on resistance to Islamic radicalism. Served as a U.N. peacekeeper and as a security officer.
MIILITARY:Served in the Belgian army.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Dimitri Bontinck is a Belgian writer who served in the Belgian army, as a UN peacekeeper working in Slovenia, and as a security officer. He is a consultant on resistance to Islamic radicalism and is an expert on how young men are recruited into terrorist organizations such as ISIS and what is required to recover them once they have committed to working in a radical organization.
Bontinck’s knowledge of Islamic radicalism and its effects were earned through difficult personal experience. His son, Jejoen, also known as Jay, embraced radical Islam and became a member of ISIS. Bontinck tells the story of how this happened, and how he finally retrieved Jay from the deadly grip of the Islamic State, in his book Rescued from ISIS: The Gripping True Story of How a Father Saved His Son.
“Bontinck and his Nigerian wife, Helen, raised their son and daughter in Antwerp. As a biracial child in a country of blond, blue-eyed kids, Jay was an outsider,” commented Sherryl Connelly, writing in the New York Daily News. Jay converted to Islam after he started dating a Moroccan girl, but over time, Bontinck noticed that the young man was becoming increasingly distant and more interested in the Islamic cause. During a news report one evening, Bontinck found out about a local organization, Sharia4Belgium, and its leader, Fouad Belkacem. Belkacem had been in earlier contact with Jay , and it was found out that he enrolled the sixteen-year-old in a program of Islamic radicalization.
As a concerned father, Bontinck tried to intervene, but his efforts were unsuccessful. Jay turned eighteen in January, 2013, and a month later, he told his parents he was going to Amsterdam with some friends. Instead, Connelly reported, he left for Syria and even deeper involvement with the Islamic State.
After becoming involved with an organization that trained Islamic fighters, Jay discovered the depths of the violence, cruelty, and inhumanity that characterized the Islamic State and its members in Syria. It was too late, however; he was unable to detach himself from their influence. He was seized and confined by members of the group he belonged to and accused of being a spy. Tortured and abused, Jay eventually found out that their suspicions were based on texts from Bontinck, pleading with his son to leave Syria and come back home.
Bontinck describes these harrowing events and his subsequent efforts to find Jay by traveling to Syria. He recounts his in-person search for Jay and the frustration of not finding him or of being in places Jay had been earlier. Bontinck frequently risked his life to make contact with fighters or other radicals who might have had an idea where Jay could be found. He recounts his capture, imprisonment, and torture in his search for his son and the events that finally allowed him to escape with his life. Bontinck tells how he was eventually successful in finding Jay and bringing him back to Belgium, though the homecoming was not necessarily a pleasant one. Bontinck had removed his son from Syria and the influence of Islamic radicals, but Jay was arrested and imprisoned for his involvement in a terrorist organization. He was tried, but in 2015, “Jay’s testimony led to the conviction of forty-six members of Sharia4Belgium as terrorists. He was sentenced to a forty-month suspended sentence,” Connelly reported.
“The very fact that Bontinck escaped with his own life, and that of his son, is amazing enough. That he did so without any knowledge of Arabic or any pre-existing contacts in Syria in the midst of a war zone is miraculous,” remarked Jonathan Holahan, writing in the Christian Science Monitor. Holahan further stated: “Bontinck is a unique character, and it is hard not to admire a man who took such drastic efforts to recover his son.”
After his experiences finding and rescuing his own son, Bontinck began helping other parents whose sons had become radicalized and joined Islamic groups or terrorist organizations. He returned to Syria multiple times to assist these people in their search, using the network he had developed and the techniques he acquired while searching for Jay.
“Bontinck’s account is a loving and revealing tribute to the father-son bond,” observed a writer in Publishers Weekly. A Kirkus Reviews writer called Bontinck’s book a “moving personal account that offers profound insights into Islamic terrorism and the struggle against it.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Christian Science Monitor, August 15, 2017, Jonathan Holahan, “Rescued from ISIS Recounts a Father’s Harrowing Journey to Save His Son,” review of Rescued from ISIS: The Gripping True Story of How a Father Saved His Son.
Independent (London, England), May 13, 2013, Charlotte McDonald, “When Dimitri Bontinck’s Son Ran Away from Home to Become a Jihadist in Syria, He Went to Try to Find Him—in Aleppo,” profile of Dimitri Bontinck.
Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 2017, review of Rescued from ISIS.
New York Daily News, July 22, 2017, Sherryl Connelly, “Dad Risks It All to Save His Radicalized Son from Jihadists in Rescued from ISIS,” profile of Dimitri Bontinck.
New York Post, August 22, 2014, Sophia Rosenbaum, “Dad Who Rescued Jihadist Son Is on a New Mission,” profile of Dimitri Bontinck.
Publishers Weekly, June 26, 2017, review of Rescued from ISIS, p. 171.
ONLINE
Dimitri Bontinck Website, http://www.dimitribontinck.com (April 8, 2018).
National Public Radio Website, November 17, 2015, Peter Kenyon, All Things Considered, “A Belgian Father Works to Prevent Kids from Joining the Jihad,” interview with Dimitri Bontinck.
DIMITRI BONTINCK is a former soldier for the Belgian army, UN peacekeeper in Slovenia, and security officer who in 2013 discovered that his teenaged son had traveled to Syria to join the group that later became ISIS. Bontinck traveled to Syria and, after several dangerous encounters with ISIS jihadis, rescued his son from the terrorist group, chronicling his experiences in Rescued from ISIS: The Gripping True Story of How a Father Saved His Son. Since then, he's traveled numerous times to the region to save other young men and has become an expert on resistance to violent Islamic radicalism.
When Dimitri Bontinck’s son ran away from home to become a jihadist in Syria, he went to try to find him – in Aleppo
Charlotte McDonald-Gibson meets Dimitri Bontinck, father of Jejoen
Charlotte McDonald-Gibson Monday 13 May 2013 19:06 BST0 comments
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When Dimitri Bontinck’s son ran away from home to become a jihadist in Syria, he went to try to find him – in Aleppo
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Dmitri Bontinck, left, with Syrian rebels while hunting for his son
There was only one fleeting moment when Dimitri Bontinck questioned whether his life was worth sacrificing to save his son. Hooded and beaten by the Islamist fighters who were holding him hostage in Syria, the Belgian former soldier felt his will ebbing away as the blows landed on his body.
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“I struggled to breathe. That time I was thinking: ‘Is it all worth this, that I came here to look for my son?’ I was almost dead myself,” he said. “Then another side in my body said: ‘I believe in my son, there is love for my son, if there is any god, they will release me and believe me.’ And they did.”
Mr Bontinck has spent much of the last month trying to convince Syrians to believe him: to believe that he is father to a young Muslim who travelled to Syria to fight with the rebels, to believe that he is not a spy, and to believe that they should trust him and help him bring his son Jejoen home.
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Back in Antwerp on Monday, his face reddened from the Middle Eastern sun and his eyes nervously darting around, Mr Bontinck pulled out Jejoen’s passport, which he took from one opposition group to another, begging for help. “Everywhere I went I needed to prove that this is my son,” he said
The last time Mr Bontinck saw Jejoen – an 18-year-old convert to Islam – was in late March. Jejoen told his father he was off to study in Egypt, and while Mr Bontinck did not share his son’s religious beliefs, he was keen to support him. But then he heard about another young Belgian who had gone to Syria to fight with the rebels, and the alarm bells went off.
“I just knew for sure, my son is in Syria,” Mr Bontinck said on Monday. “So I started to look every day at thousands of pictures of soldiers [in Syria], of people who are wounded. And one day I recognised my own son.”
The EU estimates that at least 500 young men from Europe are fighting alongside the Syrian rebel forces, many of them recruited by extremist Islamist groups who now form a large faction of the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad.
While authorities scramble to try to prevent the youngsters from leaving, there is little they can do to repatriate those who have gone of their own free will. So Mr Bontinck – who is separated from Jejoen’s Nigerian-born mother – called a press conference and announced that he was going to Syria to find his son himself.
Just over a month later, Mr Bontinck was again in front of the media, which has been following his Syrian odyssey. But Jejoen was not by his side. He knows where his son is, he claims, but was unable to reach him.
Mr Bontinck’s Facebook page gives a glimpse into his transition from proud parent to despairing father. Back in December 2009, there are photographs titled “my kids”, with the teenage Jejoen smiling shyly at the camera, striking a pose in a tight T-shirt and an ear stud.
Like most Western teenage boys, Jejoen was into music and girls. Then, around the age of 15, he fell for a young Muslim girl and converted. That is Mr Bontinck’s narrative, although there have been hints in the Belgian media about possible problems at home.
Whatever the catalyst, Jejoen’s parents were not too concerned. But a year ago, the teenager started associating with Sharia4Belgium, an Islamist group that the Belgian government has tried to disband because of feared connections to extremism.
“He totally changed, he started to grow a beard, he started praying,” said Mr Bontinck.
It is the link between European Muslims in Syria and the extremist groups which worries the authorities. Governments are desperate to stem the flow of young men heading to take up arms in a conflict that has killed an estimated 70,000 people since it began just over two years ago.
The Belgian authorities have shut down soup kitchens after reports that extremists were recruiting vulnerable young men there. The Netherlands has raised its terror alert, citing the concern that returning fighters could pose a domestic threat. Security officials in the UK think up to 100 British Muslims have gone to fight in Syria.
Mr Bontinck said he saw many fighters from across the world when he was in Syria. He spent his first two weeks with a Belgian media crew who documented his search, before they decided he was taking too many risks. He then relied on a Syrian group called the Free Lawyers of Aleppo, who helped him navigate the different factions of the opposition.
He went from group to group, and claims to have been held against his will twice, when he was beaten and had a gun forced in his mouth. But many opposition fighters from the moderate groups welcomed and supported him, and Mr Bontinck was clearly moved by what he saw in Syria. His Facebook timeline is full of harrowing photographs of dead Syrian children and tortured fighters.
“I met so many mothers, families. You can’t imagine how many families are innocent victims of the regime,” he said.
But other Facebook pictures of a grinning Mr Bontinck flanked by heavily-armed rebels as he flashes the victory sign prompted some Belgian journalists to ask whether he was perhaps also seeking adventure in Syria. Mr Bontinck, who is in his late 30s, simply said his previous experience in the armed forces helped him deal with his fear.
“I have experience, I am a war veteran,” he said. “I started my career at the same age as my son... I think maybe if I didn’t have this experience from the past I might not have done this.”
Talking about his son, Mr Bontinck appeared at times agitated and rambling, perhaps scarred from what he saw in Syria or from the frustration he that he got so close to Jejoen – he believes he was at one point in a villa where his son had stayed – but had to return alone.
His lawyer, Kris Luyckx, says they are now cooperating with the authorities, but cannot say much more for security reasons.
Mr Bontinck is determined to return to Syria and bring Jejoen home. He claims that his son is not there of his own free will, but was coerced into travelling there and is being forced to stay. He points to the fact that Jejoen somehow managed to leave Belgium and enter Syria without his passport, although it is not clear how he was able travel without his documents.
But having spent a month moving from one rebel camp to another and seeing the scale of the suffering, Mr Bontinck at least has a greater understanding of what drives young Europeans to head to Syria to take up arms.
“I have seen so many cruel, evil things that the regime is doing to innocent people, so I can understand why people fight there, because they fight for freedom,” he said. “But I have a problem that my son has been radicalised, that his future has been destroyed, to end in a jihad in Syria, in a country that does not belong to him – it’s not his revolution.”
Dad risks it all to save his radicalized son from jihadists in 'Rescued from ISIS'
A desperate dad rescued his jihadist son from the bloody grasp of ISIS — and dismantled a major terrorist network in the process.
In his book “Rescued from Isis,” Dimitri Bontinck describes watching helplessly as his boy JeJoen — known as Jay — was recruited by jihadis in their native Belgium.
Dimitri, a former soldier in the Belgian Army, could do nothing as his radicalized son traveled to Syria and took up arms with the Islamic State.
“Radical Islam had come right to the door of my home, stolen my son, and we had no laws, no formulas to stop it,” Dimitri writes.
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Bontinck and his Nigerian wife, Helen, raised their son and daughter in Antwerp. As a biracial child in a country of blond, blue-eyed kids, Jay was an outsider.
JeJoen (Jay) Bontinck (pictured at age 14) performs a Michael Jackson song at a talent contest.
JeJoen (Jay) Bontinck (pictured at age 14) performs a Michael Jackson song at a talent contest. (HANDOUT)
In the midst of it all, close to the family home, grew a festering “hotbed of jihadis.” Sharia4Belgium, a now-defunct terrorist group suspected of radicalizing dozens of young Belgians, was headquartered nearby.
Dimitri learned about his 16-year-old’s allegiance to the cause while watching the news late in 2011. The lead story concerned the discovery of a Kalashnikov rifle at the Sharia4Belgium mosque.
The program cut to a video of the group’s charismatic leader, Fouad Belkacem, surrounded by followers as he proselytized in a town square.
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Jay was at Belkacem’s side.
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He had converted to Islam earlier in the year, shortly after he began dating a Moroccan classmate. Within months, Belkacem had lured the boy into his 24-week program of radicalization.
Things soon changed dramatically for Jay.
The police were called after Jay threatened to “purge” his school of nonbelievers. Dimitri would hear Jay speaking Arabic on the phone.
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The father tried to engage his son, even inviting Belkacem over for a talk one evening. Belkacem denied he was radicalizing Jay — even scolding the teenager for his sulky, rebellious behavior.
The video of Foley’s beheading, kneeling in the desert in an orange jumpsuit, sickened the world when is was posted by ISIS in August 2014.
The video of Foley’s beheading, kneeling in the desert in an orange jumpsuit, sickened the world when is was posted by ISIS in August 2014. (YOUTUBE)
On Jan. 29, 2013, Jay turned 18 and was free to do as he pleased. A month later, telling his parents he was off to Amsterdam with friends, he decamped for Syria.
Jay landed in a training compound run by the Mujahideen Shura Council in Kafr Hamra, a town outside of Aleppo. The international jihadists intended to violently seize northern Syria as an Islamic State.
Jay discovered how the war was actually fought. Soldiers told him that when he killed a man, Jay could seize the victim’s money, jewelry and guns.
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Christians or Shiites were taken hostage, then shot or beheaded — even if their families paid a ransom for their freedom.
"Rescued from ISIS: The Gripping True Story of How a Father Saved His Son"
"Rescued from ISIS: The Gripping True Story of How a Father Saved His Son" (HANDOUT)
If a family had no money, the infidel’s head was hacked off with a knife or rusty machete.
The carnage was videotaped and shown to the new recruits in the evenings. The group set up checkpoints on the roads in and out of Kafr Hamra to snare new victims.
Jay was sickened — physically and emotionally. On the third day of training, he asked to see a doctor for a sinus infection. What he actually wanted was antidepressants.
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Dimitri was simultaneously flooding his son’s phone with pleading texts. He offered to do anything to extract the teen from Syria. In one text, Dimitri made a mistake that nearly got Jay killed.
Jay Bontinck's ID card is shown on a jihadi website. To this day, radical websites call for his assassination and post updates reporting his current hairstyle and whether he’s wearing glasses.
Jay Bontinck's ID card is shown on a jihadi website. To this day, radical websites call for his assassination and post updates reporting his current hairstyle and whether he’s wearing glasses. (HANDOUT)
“Should I contact the Mossad?” the terrified father asked. “Would that help?”
Jay still had the phone in his possession — but soon, he would not. He asked one of the council leaders about returning to Belgium, using the sinus infection as an excuse.
On his eleventh day in Aleppo, after eating breakfast, Jay was seized by two fellow Belgian converts. They bound his hands and marched him to a bunker where Jay was chained in a cell.
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During one interrogation, he discovered his torture was linked to the text on his phone. Sometime later, the soldiers threw a question Jay had no answer for.
Front page of the New York Daily News for August 20, 2014
Front page of the New York Daily News for August 20, 2014 (NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)
Dimitri had shown up looking for him. How had he known where Jay was?
Driven mad by worry in Antwerp, Dimitri left his job as a court system administrator. His days and nights were spent scrolling through online videos, searching for his son.
In a YouTube clip of gun-toting Dutch-speaking jihadists standing in a field of yellow flowers, he spotted Jay.
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The teen was exactly where Dimitri hoped he wasn’t — on the front lines in war-ravaged Syria.
UNDATED FILE STILL IMAGE FROM VIDEO RELEASED BY GLOBALPOST. AP PROVIDES ACCESS TO THIS HANDOUT PHOTO TO BE USED SOLELY TO ILLUSTRATE NEWS REPORTING OR COMMENTARY ON THE FACTS OR EVENTS DEPICTED IN THIS IMAGE.
Jay was imprisoned with Foley (pictured). (ANONYMOUS/ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Dimitri did an interview with a Belgian newspaper stating his need for help finding his way in Syria. Journalists Joanie de Rijke and Narciso Contreras signed on in exchange for rights to the story.
After two weeks of fruitless searching in Aleppo, a tip led Dimitri to the compound in Kafr Hamra. He’d been repeatedly warned how dangerous it was. He was terrified.
Still, when the soldiers ordered him to leave Rilke and Contreras in the car and come in alone, he obeyed. After a brief interview, Dimitri was informed there were no Belgians in the compound.
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He was then seized by several soldiers, who forced a black hood over his head and shoved Dimitri into a basement.
The jihadi in the middle threatened to kill Dimitri Bontinck after Jay's rescue.
The jihadi in the middle threatened to kill Dimitri Bontinck after Jay's rescue. (HANDOUT)
The jihadists howled as they beat him to the ground. Then a hand grabbed the back of his head, and the barrel of a Kalashnikov was shoved into his mouth.
“Now, Mossad spy,” came a voice, “you tell us how you got here.”
The bloodied father, his ribs broken, was forced to cluck like a chicken, get down on his fours like a goat, dance like a monkey and prance like a horse.
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When his humiliation was complete, they served Dimitri tea before letting him go. While he was in custody, the reporters were beaten and threatened with execution. Reunited, they fled.
Dimitri Bontinck is pictured as he learns to aim a heavy gun in Aleppo.
Dimitri Bontinck is pictured as he learns to aim a heavy gun in Aleppo. (HANDOUT)
Dimitri returned to Antwerp before making a second, fruitless pilgrimage to Aleppo.
Jay was eventually released but betrayed again as he plotted escape. Beaten raw with a machete, he was later imprisoned with James Foley, the American war correspondent taken prisoner.
The video of Foley’s beheading, kneeling in the desert in an orange jumpsuit, sickened the world when it was posted by ISIS in August 2014.
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After six months in prison, Jay was sent to serve as a lookout in Sheikh Najjar, an industrial complex near Aleppo. The fighting was heavy, but the posting had its advantages.
Dimitri Bontinck
Dimitri Bontinck (HANDOUT)
It seemed no one was watching him anymore.
Jay slipped away to an internet café several times, sending messages to his father. Dimitri had connections in Bab al-Hawa, a border town near Turkey. He guided his son there.
After flying to Reyhanli, the town on the Turkish side, Dimitri spent a long day waiting for his son to show up. Two of his contacts had volunteered to deliver Jay.
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Standing at the prearranged destination, the father saw a motorcycle fast approaching. Jay was on the back. Dimitri had no words, only a father’s arms finally able to reach his son.
In 2015, Jay’s testimony led to the conviction of 46 members of Sharia4Belgium as terrorists. He was sentenced to a 40-month suspended sentence.
But Jay’s reentry was not without its bumps. Dimitri painfully learned from a press interview given by Jay that his son only wore Western clothes to fool him.
Outside of his presence, Jay reverted to long Islamic shirts and still believed the violent transformation of Belgium into a caliphate was “inevitable.”
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Even when Jay renounced his beliefs, his notoriety made it impossible to find work.
To this day, radical websites call for his assassination and post updates reporting his current hairstyle and whether he’s wearing glasses.
Dimitri, too, has become a controversial figure — staging high-profile rescue efforts for other parents desperate to bring their sons home from Syria.
< A Belgian Father Works To Prevent Kids From Joining The Jihad November 17, 20155:53 PM ET 2:18 Download ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: One of those young radicals from Belgium is the subject of our next story. He was a Belgian teenager who converted to Islam and later went to Syria to join fighters there. NPR's Peter Kenyon met up with his father, who is now trying to prevent other young Europeans from following the same path. PETER KENYON, BYLINE: Dimitri Bontinck is part of Belgium's Dutch-speaking majority. He says his son, Jejoen, was raised as a typical Western boy. But then, Bontinck says, his son began dating a Muslim girl, joined a radicalization group and wound up in Syria, where he spent nearly nine months, most of them in misery. DIMITRI BONTINCK: From that nine months, I think he was almost six months hostage. Because they suspected he really was a spy, they called his father to come and rescue him. KENYON: Bontinck did go to Syria after his son. He says he was captured and tortured but finally managed to bring Jejoen back to Belgium. Since then Bontinck has acted as a consultant giving presentations in schools and elsewhere, trying to convince other young people not to fall for the recruiting lures used by Islamist groups. He freely admits he's no longer the same tolerant Westerner he once was. He believes many Islamist groups abuse Europe's laws defending freedom of religion and expression to run shadowy recruiting efforts that the Belgian government has been unable to deal with. BONTINCK: There is no de-radicalization project in Belgium. In the whole entire world, there is only four countries where there is a de-radicalization project, it's Holland, Swiss, Denmark and Saudi Arabia. KENYON: As for programs in other countries, he dismisses them with an expletive. Bontinck believes that the Belgian link to the Paris attacks proves that the government's scrutiny and control of suspected Islamists is clearly inadequate. BONTINCK: They really need - not only in Belgium, but worldwide - more technology, more budgets, more workers to save our nations and our security of our people, you know? KENYON: Doesn't that also mean less individual freedom, less democracy, less of the Western values that are supposed to be the whole point of the EU? BONTINCK: Yeah. KENYON: Yeah, he sighs, before putting it more bluntly, saying, do I think we need to live in a police state? BONTINCK: Well, I'm sorry to say, in the security of our nations - Western nations - I think it's necessary. KENYON: It's a view many Europeans would reject out of hand, even Dimitri Bontinck - before his son's dramatic experience among the Islamists in Syria. Peter Kenyon, NPR News, Brussels.
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NEWS
Dad who rescued jihadist son is on a new mission
By Sophia Rosenbaum and Danika Fears August 22, 2014 | 1:57am
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Dad who rescued jihadist son is on a new mission
Dimitri Bontinck saved his son from the grip of the Islamic State after the son had run off to become a jihadist. Getty Images
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A tough-as-nails Belgian man who rescued his jihadist son from the Islamic State’s grip — then helped other dads do the same — told The Post on Thursday that is he is back in Syria for another rescue effort.
Dimitri Bontinck began his mission to retrieve the militant groups’ foreign jihadists after his 18-year-old son, Jejoen, became radicalized and fled to Syria, where he got caught up in the struggle to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.
“It is difficult just to watch and do nothing,” the dad told The Post.
The former soldier said his son’s love for a Moroccan girl led him to convert to Islam at age 15. About nine months later, Jejoen joined a radical Muslim organization in Antwerp and his religious fervor grew.
Bontinck let his son move to Cairo last year to study Islam but worried when Jejoen didn’t call on his sister’s birthday, CNN reported.
The dad looked online and was startled to find pictures of Jejoen living in Syria with Antwerp pals.
Intent on bringing his son back, Bontinck traveled to the war-torn country in 2013.
He says he was captured and beaten by members of Jabhat al-Nusra, a branch of al Qaeda, but that they freed him and led him to his son, who was living with militants.
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Dimitri Bontinck (right) in Syria
Police charged Jejoen with participating in a terrorist organization when he arrived back in Belgium, but Jejoen said he was there only to deliver medical supplies to the group, according to CNN.
Jejoen, who is among the 5,000 to 6,000 Europeans who went to fight on behalf of the Islamic State, has been living with his dad in Antwerp, watched closely by Belgian authorities.
His trial will begin at the end of September.
Bontinck’s rescue missions in the Middle East didn’t end with his son’s arrival home.
The dad returned to Syria with three other fathers looking for their sons — and got their kids out of extremists’ hands, too.
He’s currently on a “mission” in Syria to reunite another family with their child.
“I risk my own life to try to make a better world,” he told The Post, adding parents from all over the globe have asked for his help.
Bontinck said he was crushed to hear about journalist James Wright Foley’s execution by terrorists and said he was in touch with the man’s mom, Diane, over the last year.
Asked whether he ever volunteered to save Foley from the Islamic State militants, he replied only, “It’s so secret we can’t talk about it.”
Bontinck, Dimitri: RESCUED FROM ISIS
Kirkus Reviews. (June 15, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Bontinck, Dimitri RESCUED FROM ISIS St. Martin's (Adult Nonfiction) $26.99 8, 8 ISBN: 978-1-250-14758-5
A Belgian military veteran and former United Nations peacekeeper tells how he rescued his son from the infamous terrorist group.Failing to find help from Belgian authorities when his son, Jay, disappeared, Bontinck had no alternative but to fall back on his own resources. Fortunately, he was armed with both love for his son and the personal courage sufficient to succeed against the deadly dangers he encountered during his mission. His personal, in-depth account is a powerful dissection of the step-by-step recruitment of his son into the web of Islamic terrorist networks. This process began when Jay's new girlfriend, a Muslim from Morocco, asked, "why don't you convert to Islam?" After attending a few services at a local mosque, he changed his name and clothing, grew a beard, and became a participant in a radical group called Sharia4Belgium. When Jay was 18, Bontinck learned that a friend had called to tell Jay that he was in Syria along with all of Jay's friends. Jay deceived his father with a duplicitous cover story and left to join them. Discovering a clue to his son's whereabouts from a video on YouTube, he began his quest to find him. Jay, meanwhile, had aroused the suspicions of the terrorists and been thrown into an underground dungeon as a suspected enemy agent. Frequently one step behind Jay's captors, the author was captured but was able to escape, and he developed a network that helped him track down his son, who had been sent to die working in Aleppo. Arrested as a terrorist on his return, Jay provided information to law enforcement and helped convict the recruitment network in court. Bontinck had done what no one had before, and he became the person other families could turn to for help. A moving personal account that offers profound insights into Islamic terrorism and the struggle against it.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Bontinck, Dimitri: RESCUED FROM ISIS." Kirkus Reviews, 15 June 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495427766/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=5a6c2d4b. Accessed 15 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A495427766
Rescued from ISIS: The Gripping True Story of How a Father Saved His Son
Publishers Weekly. 264.26 (June 26, 2017): p171.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Rescued from ISIS: The Gripping True Story of How a Father Saved His Son
Dimitri Bontinck. St. Martin's, $26.99 (288p) ISBN 978-1-2501-4758-5
Bontinck, a former Belgian soldier and U.N. peacekeeper in Slovenia, writes of his harrowing quest to find his radicalized son, who joined a group of ISIS terrorists. His pride in his son, Jay, born to a Nigerian mother, never wavers as Bontinck charts the evolution of a curious, Catholic boy into a 16-year-old jihadist, brainwashed by "hardline, pure Islamic views," militant videos, and lectures on Islamophobia and "corrupt Christians." In 2013, Jay joined a group of foreign fighters willing to die for Allah in Syria, while his father traveled to the war-ravaged region in desperate search of him. Following two fruitless trips, Bontinck learned that the group had accused his son of being a spy and that Jay was being held in an ISIS prison containing American journalist James Foley and British photographer John Cantlie. Bontinck's dogged determination and meaningful contacts opened the door for Jay's release months later. The rescue is one of the few success stories among parents who have lost their children to ISIS recruitment. Bontinck's account is a loving and revealing tribute to the father-son bond. (Aug.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Rescued from ISIS: The Gripping True Story of How a Father Saved His Son." Publishers Weekly, 26 June 2017, p. 171. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A497444464/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=3a900077. Accessed 15 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A497444464
'Rescued from ISIS' recounts a father's harrowing journey to save his son
Jonathan Holahan
The Christian Science Monitor. (Aug. 15, 2017): Arts and Entertainment:
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 The Christian Science Publishing Society
http://www.csmonitor.com/About/The-Monitor-difference
Full Text:
Byline: Jackson Holahan
When violence becomes as routine as it has in Central Asia and the Middle East over the past decade and a half, only the most sensational and gruesome acts tend to warrant inclusion in the daily headlines. The rise of ISIS has been catalogued in detail by both its savvy internal social media arm as well as the mainstream media. Both publish videos exposing the ghastly acts of torture and violence that have come to define the group to the wider world.
The ISIS propaganda machine broadcasts a coordinated digital message that serves as a valuable recruiting tool. The distribution power of the internet has given rise to an unsettling phenomenon few people predicted; Large numbers of Europeans and North Americans are radicalized in their home countries, pledge loyalty to ISIS, and serve its will, whether on the battlefields of Syria or in support of the group's widening operations abroad.
Dimitri Bontinck, a court officer in Antwerp, experienced ISIS's international reach firsthand. His son Jay was radicalized by the charismatic leader of a local Islamic organization. In early 2013, Jay left Antwerp and made his way to Syria, where he joined an outfit of Dutch and Arab fighters who were one of the earliest Syrian groups to align themselves with ISIS. Jay left without a trace and, worse yet, would not respond to any messages or calls from his parents.
While desperately scouring the internet in search of his son, Bontinck spotted Jay in a video standing alongside several Dutch fighters in a Syrian field. Bontinck knew that he had to bring his son home or risk never seeing him again. He headed to Syria before the week was out.
In Rescued from ISIS: The Gripping True Story of How a Father Saved His Son, Bontinck recounts the harrowing journey to find his son. Bontinck describes his odyssey into the heart of ISIS territory with an urgent, staccato ring. You can almost picture him jotting down notes while bumping across dusty roads to the next meeting that will hopefully lead him closer to Jay.
Bontinck's dogged persistence ultimately succeeds, after three separate trips and an exhaustive number of meetings. The very fact that Bontinck escaped with his own life, and that of his son, is amazing enough. That he did so without any knowledge of Arabic or any pre-existing contacts in Syria in the midst of a war zone is miraculous.
Bontinck accepts every meeting or call, be it with a journalist, jihadi, or any number of the opportunists who thrive in the ungoverned space of war zones. Bontinck's success is perhaps dependent upon the power of the father-son connection that resonates with nearly everyone he encounters on his quest.
Bontinck is a unique character, and it is hard not to admire a man who took such drastic efforts to recover his son. Upon returning to Belgium with Jay, who was prosecuted and imprisoned for joining a terrorist organization, Bontinck realizes that his situation is not unique. He is barraged with calls from parents whose sons have left their European homeland for the battlefields of Syria. Their parents beg him to help. Unable to say no, Bontinck returns to Syria a number of times and leverages his network to bring their children home.
Bontinck's days in Syria are now over, but he continues to worry about the lure of radicalism for today's youth. He believes many Western countries are hesitant to admit that a problem even exists. Furthermore, Bontinck astutely illustrates a trend in which governments are not only slow to take preventive measures but also are unwilling to provide the rehabilitative steps necessary to integrate reformed jihadis back into society. He worries that the alienation Jay and others like him feel upon returning home will not be assuaged by societies that refuse to embrace and employ them. He's right. We'll need more than the bravery of one man to upend a societal epidemic that shows few signs of abating.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Holahan, Jonathan. "'Rescued from ISIS' recounts a father's harrowing journey to save his son." Christian Science Monitor, 15 Aug. 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A500666363/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=188ec440. Accessed 15 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A500666363