LEIDEN, Netherlands — In the private video Mohamed Nidalha showed of his son, Reda, the young man is seen partying. The 19-year-old dances and raps to loud hip-hop music, while behind him, a girl dressed in a tight top cooks something in the kitchen. A bottle of liquor sits on the table. People are smoking. It is an unremarkable video, one that anyone would expect to find on a teenager’s cell phone.
In June 2014, a few weeks after the video was recorded, Reda Nidalha, a Dutch teenager of Moroccan descent, would leave for Syria to join the Islamic State (IS). He called his younger sister from Turkey and said he was in Istanbul, on his way to “help raped women and children in Syria.” When Mohamed Nidalha found out that his son was headed for Syria, he tried to stop him. He contacted the Dutch police and secret service, but they said they couldn’t do anything because there was no international arrest warrant for Reda Nidalha.
“Six weeks later, he called us again, saying he was in Syria,” Mohamed Nidalha told Al-Monitor. “He posted some pictures of himself with guns and military clothes and bragging.”
According to Mohamed Nidalha, his son had been a normal teenager, albeit a bit of a troublemaker. Reda Nidalha dated girls, drank alcohol and liked to party. He had difficulty with school, because attention deficit disorder affected his concentrate in class. He lost interest in school, but couldn't find an internship. He began hanging out with the wrong crowd and soon got involved in a ring trafficking in drugs. After a while, he decided to quit that scene, but was unable to, because he was being extorted by criminals who said he owed them some 4,000 euros ($4,530).
AL-MONITOR All-Access gives you unlimited access to all our journalism, the full Daily Briefing, exclusive interviews, premium newsletters, and live events — for less than $2/week.
