In the coming months, around 20 women and children of jihadists, currently living in territory controlled by the extremist Islamic State group, will start to arrive in Portugal."The return of women and minors is expected to increase in 2018," including "more than two dozen descendants of national citizens," according to Adélio Neiva da Cruz, director of the Security Information Service (SIS), at a seminar on terrorist victims.
"The return of these women and children poses a problem for the security forces and the justice system, while raising social issues that need to be resolved by the Portuguese State.
“These women and children should be welcomed in Lisbon, or in other European countries where they have family roots, without any hostility. That is, instead of being detained - as will happen to each of the Portuguese jihadis who are the target of an international arrest warrant - the best thing is reinsertion,” said the SIS director.
These family members of jihadis will able to apply for Portuguese nationality.
The situation for the 10 -20 children born to jihadis of Portuguese descent is even more "complex" as some of them may have been seriously damaged due to the armed conflict.
The latest internal security report warns of the possibility of returning "youth without background" but already "shaped by the ideology of the jihad" and "exposed for years to the violence of the Daesh soldiers, considering their practices as normal, legitimate and appropriate."
The document concludes that the "younger ones play a key role in perpetuating the ideal of the 'caliphate' even after the loss of territory."
A source from the security forces said that, "It has to be determined in which environments these minors lived."
The number of Portuguese jiadistas was around 20 but by now this known number is smaller due to fatalities.
Comments
in the summer month the Algarve, their football supporters terrorize every town in Europe where their football clubs play a match and there intolerance with foreign residents in England is the reason that they do not have to import jihadists children. They produce them themselves. The four green marks that are given to TT underlines my remarks.
Nobody has yet mentioned how to integrate the young "Portuguese Jihadists" coming back from the UK in the next few years. Sent there on the understanding that they were to continue fighting a clandestine war that the Brits knew nothing about. Campaigning for a UK Republic; Trains to Run on Time; Remain in the EU; anti McCann's; more money for the NHS; better University Grants - you name the protest and you will find Portuguese busy in it. But having been living in the future, what campaigns will they launch when back here in Portugal?
If these Jihadists get the message that their actions will destroy their own family's chances as well as those of the people they are fighting perhaps they will think again. Long shot, I know, but we still do not need this trash coming back.