Threat rises from Dutch converts to Islam

AMSTERDAM: Radical Islam is finding new recruits in the Netherlands among Dutch converts to Islam and young Muslim women, the government said on Friday.

“Along with Muslim youths of foreign decent, several Dutch converts are undergoing a particular process of radicalisation. The police are receiving lots of reports of this,” the government said in a report to parliament on fighting terrorism.

The warning comes after a female convert from neighbouring Belgium blew herself up in a suicide bombing in Iraq last month.

Young Muslim women in the Netherlands are also increasingly coming into contact with radical ideas through informal Islamic marriages, the report said.

The government reiterated that it saw a significant threat that the Netherlands would be the target of a terrorist attack.

The country’s security alert level has been at “substantial” since the bombing attacks in London on July 7, the second highest in a four-stage warning system.

“The international profile of the Netherlands remains high. That is mainly due to the negative role, in the eyes of radical Muslims, that the Netherlands plays as an active participant in the international fight against terrorism,” the report said.

The trial starts in Amsterdam next week of 14 young men, mostly with Moroccan roots, who are suspected of belonging to a militant Islamist group that was planning attacks.

In a separate statement, the cabinet said it wanted to amend laws to allow the intelligence services to demand information from organisations like airlines, financial services companies and Internet service providers to help it fight terrorism.

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