Omar Yilmaz (from his Twitter account)
Armed only with a face veil and her determination, a Dutch woman ventured at own initiative into rebel-held Syria to rescue her 19-year-old daughter who had gone to marry a famous jihadi fighter, media in the Netherlands are reporting.
The woman, who is only identified as Monique, had been warned by police in her home town of Maastricht that it was too dangerous for her to fetch her daughter from Raqqa, the de facto capital of the extremist armed group that calls itself Islamic State, the newspaper Algemeen Dagblad reported.
Monique nevertheless journeyed to Raqqa earlier this month and managed to extract her daughter. The two women made it to Turkey, where they were temporarily stranded because the daughter did not have her passport.
They were back on Dutch soil on Wednesday, where the daughter was arrested and is expected to be questioned on suspicions that she was involved in terrorist activities, the television program Een Vandaag reported.
Monique had previously told Een Vandaag that her daughter, who converted and changed her name to Aicha, had gone to Syria in February to marry a well-known jihadi, Omar Yilmaz.
A former member of the Royal Netherlands Army, Mr. Yilmaz is a Dutch national of Turkish ancestry who came to the public's attention last January when the Dutch program Nieuwsuur aired an interview with him.
One of the show's editors had noticed him after searching for information about Dutch jihadis and finding online photos of Mr. Yilmaz wearing a Dutch army uniform and beret as he stood with Syrian rebels.
After communicating with the journalists for eight months, Mr. Yilmaz agreed to an interview. He also spoke this fall with CBS News.
He said he was a former Dutch soldier who decided two years ago to travel to northern Syria to fight and provide military training to rebels.
While he supports an Islamic state, he denied being an extremist. "The brothers of al-Qaeda, they're here, they're fighting, everybody knows this. But me being in Syria fighting does not mean by definition that I am part of al-Qaeda," he told Nieuwsuur.
He snickered when asked if he would be a security threat if he returned to the Netherlands. "Knowing Holland, they should be worried about other things, with criminals and pedophiles roaming the streets," he replied.
Monique told Een Vandaag that her daughter was a "very sweet girl, sensitive girl" who visited religious websites, converted to Islam and began wearing full-body clothes and a face-veil.
Aicha was very impressed with Mr. Yilmaz, seeing him as a Robin Hood-like figure, Monique said.
Her daughter got in touch with Mr. Yilmaz through social-media platforms such as Ask.fm, Twitter and Instagram, Monique told Een Vandaag.
Aicha left by train last February, intending to marry Mr. Yilmaz. However, after five weeks, Monique heard that they had separated.
"Whether she loves him, he loves her. I do not know," she said.
She later learned that her daughter was in Raqqa.
According to the Algemeen Dagblad newspaper, Monique travelled in October to the Syrian border but was unsuccessful, then tried again this month. Details of her second journey were not immediately known.
Tu Thanh Ha