{"id":2505,"date":"2017-08-18T14:11:39","date_gmt":"2017-08-18T14:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/?p=2505"},"modified":"2017-08-18T14:11:39","modified_gmt":"2017-08-18T14:11:39","slug":"balkan-jihadis-return-disillusioned-with-isis-caliphate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/2017\/08\/18\/balkan-jihadis-return-disillusioned-with-isis-caliphate\/","title":{"rendered":"BALKAN JIHADIS RETURN DISILLUSIONED WITH ISIS \u201cCALIPHATE\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sourced : Balkan Insight<\/p>\n

By Jovo Martinovic<\/p>\n

Hilmi, an ethnic Bosniak, travelled to Syria hoping that life in Islamic State\u2019s\u2018caliphate would be an ideal religious environment – but he managed to escape 16 months later, disillusioned with what he had found there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was nothing there, no electricity, no books, no internet, nothing,\u201d Hilmi told BIRN.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had some 400 euros of savings, which were quickly spent on food. Then I started getting around $50 per month as I reported myself sick. My wife was helping the older women so sometimes she would get some allowance. I was going crazy and all the time I was thinking how to save my family and run away from there,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook,\u201d he continued, opening his laptop and showing a video.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no nature, there is no grass, everything died, was abandoned; look at this skinny sheep…the only thing we could do is walk around a bit,\u201dhe commented, before going through photos of his family and friends, some of whom never managed to return from Syria.<\/p>\n

Hilmi, who holds dual Bosnian and Montenegrin citizenship, is just one of 250 people who returned to the Balkans after spending time in the war zones in Syria and Iraq- some of them, like him, because they became disillusioned with ISIS.<\/p>\n

Although many of them deny that they went to fight, Balkan states treat them all as terrorists after a series of laws were passed in 2015 that criminalised any kind of involvement in foreign conflicts.<\/p>\n

Read more at : http:\/\/www.balkaninsight.com\/en\/article\/balkan-jihadis-return-disillusioned-with-isis-caliphate–08-10-2017<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sourced : Balkan Insight By Jovo Martinovic Hilmi, an ethnic Bosniak, travelled to Syria hoping that life in Islamic State\u2019s\u2018caliphate would be an ideal religious environment – but he managed to escape 16 months later, disillusioned with what he had found there. \u201cThere was nothing there, no electricity, no books, no internet, nothing,\u201d Hilmi told… Continue reading BALKAN JIHADIS RETURN DISILLUSIONED WITH ISIS \u201cCALIPHATE\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[1639,1638,299,9,606,15],"class_list":["post-2505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conflict","tag-balkans","tag-bosnia","tag-iraq","tag-isis","tag-islamic-state","tag-syria","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2505"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2506,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2505\/revisions\/2506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}