Sweden’s Security Police are currently investigating the alleged involvement of a major recruiter for Islamists in the country and crediting him with the recruitment of the vast majority of Jihadis in Sweden.
Abdel Nasser El Nadi, the president and principal of the Gothenburg-based Science School, is a long-time recruiter for Muslim extremism and is present on SÄPO’s list of Islamist extremists.
Despite there no being formal charges brought against El Nadi, he is under surveillance as well as the Gothenburg-based Science School where he is the president and principal. His school is responsible for the rise in a number of jihadis and extremism in Gothenburg which produced about a third of Sweden’s roughly 300 foreign fighters.
El Nadi who is 53 years old has refuted the claims despite the Science School has previously been reported for having ties with Islamism and employees who have expressed sympathies for Daesh. According to preliminary investigations, El Nadi has been running groups for Islamic studies and has appeared in various conferences within the radical Islamic environment in Sweden. Also, in 2014, he has appeared in conferences where he campaigned for strong Sunni Muslim state at the helm of ISIS which had a self-declared caliphate.
El Nadi is not the only scholar accused of recruitment, a trend is emerging where principals and teachers are playing an active role in recruitment for the extremists in the Middle East. especially in the West. Schools that over religious studies and affiliated to radical scholars have become ample recruitment grounds for different terror organizations. Moreover, radical scholars offer classes, conferences, and resources that inspire impressionable youths into radicalization, traveling abroad to join terror organization or conduct attacks in their home countries.
