Pero’s mother told me that before he left he’d begun to talk about the “anti-Muslim” rhetoric in Europe. “He said, ‘This is not our country. Many people in Europe, they hate Islam and Muslims,’” she told me. Even though he was born in Germany, he’d begun to feel more alienated the longer he spent with his new friends.
Michael and I showed up at Pero’s family home the next day, at about the same time Abu Adam arrived. Serce wasn’t the first to think he resembled Osama bin Laden; people had been saying that about him for years. Maybe it was his white clothes and checked kaffiyah, a traditional Islamic head scarf for men, or his long face and black and gray beard. He and I had spoken about his appearance before, and he said that it was crucial for the young men and women he was helping to see him as someone they could respect. “Imagine if I wore a suit and tie,” he argued. “Do you think they would trust or listen to me?”
Abu Adam had four wives, but he never judged anyone else’s lifestyle. Years ago, I’d visited his home and met his wives, who all told me they had married him of their own free will and that they felt like sisters.
At the time, I told them I didn’t know how they could share the man each of them loved; by the end of my visit, after listening to the imam argue with his wives about whether their next vacation should be a trip to Spain (his choice) or to EuroDisney (the wives’ pick, perhaps on account of their many children), I turned to him. “Actually, the question should also be, how are you handling this?” I asked.
“With a lot of patience,” he answered, laughing.
Later, he and his wives sent me pictures from their vacation in southern Bavaria. I saw the four women dressed in black from head to toe, with their faces covered, on a sled sliding down a mountain.
Abu Adam had successfully deradicalized several people in different countries and had made plenty of enemies among jihadis. “There are many people who consider me a threat in their scheme,” he told me. As a result, he always walked around with at least one acolyte as his bodyguard.
Pero’s family repeated their story. Bagica cried again, while Mitko did most of the talking. Abu Adam listened and took notes.
“First when he began to go to the mosque every day, I was happy and also somehow proud,” Mitko said. Then he turned to Abu Adam. “I’m being very honest with you. I am not the most religious person, you know. Okay, I pray sometimes, but not five times a day. So I was proud to see Pero’s dedication.… I wanted my son to go the way of God. It’s the best way. But not this.”
Pero quickly grew more observant. At one point, he even told his father that he disapproved of him drinking alcohol and that he should be more religious. Since he left, his parents had kept in touch with him via his German prepaid cell phone. “I am making sure to add money, so we can speak to him,” Mitko said. But Pero had less of a relationship with his father and kept in closer touch with his mother.
Mitko and Bagica were upset that the German authorities hadn’t stopped their son and other minors from traveling. Why was it so easy for their son and his friends to get radicalized, and then sent to fight in Syria?
“Have you asked him to come back?” Abu Adam asked.
“Yes, I told him, ‘I am not upset with you. Just come back home,’” Mitko said. His words had no apparent effect.
Mitko grew distraught as he repeated his shock that this had happened to his son here, in Germany, far from the war in his own native country and from conflicts in the Middle East. “I had no idea how to handle Pero’s growing religiosity,” Mitko said. “I thought it would be enough to make sure my children weren’t lacking for money.”
“I think his leader, this emir, is listening to every conversation we have with him, and they control him,” Bagica said.
In the weeks before he had left, Pero constantly watched videos of alleged atrocities committed by the Assad regime. Pero told his parents that the world was at war with Islam.
“He mentioned that Syria was the latest example of this war and that it was the duty of Muslims to go and help other Muslims,” Mitko said.
In one of their recent conversations, Pero had mentioned that the emir and others had told him about creating an Islamic state. His family didn’t know what group he was with, but they mentioned one other teenager who had run away with their son, who had told his parents he was planning to join an Al Qaeda affiliate.
“One time I spoke to the emir, and he told me the best we could do for our son was to send him enough money to buy an AK-47 and a bulletproof vest,” Mitko told us. “What kind of person would say this to the parents of a sixteen-year-old?”
I knew that this meant their boy had been chosen to become a fighter. During one of his most recent calls, Pero had told his mother that he would pledge allegiance to a fighting group shortly after the Eid al-Adha holiday, just weeks away. They were running out of time.
Abu Adam suggested they reason with Pero, telling him that the Koran puts family obligations first and condemns violence. If that didn’t work, maybe they could persuade him that his mother was sick, which she surely was from worry, so it wouldn’t be a lie, and that he needed to come home, or at least to visit her in Turkey, rather than in Syria.
“It’s not going to be as easy as, ‘Oh, habibi,’ and falling into each other’s arms and then leaving,” he told them, using the male form of the Arabic word for “darling.”
Mitko and Bagica had already promised Pero a new start if he came home to Germany. “I told him, ‘My son, just come home, all will be good. I promise I will be a better father.’” Mitko said, and I saw tears pooling in his eyes. “But this didn’t change his mind.”
Mitko had also tried telling Pero that his mother was seriously ill. That hadn’t worked, either.
Then Abu Adam suggested another idea: “Kidnap him.”
He advised the family what to tell Pero so that the emir wouldn’t see any way out and would allow Pero to meet his mother one last time and get her blessing before he headed out to fight.
“Maybe this is our last chance,” Bagica told me that evening. I stayed out of sight when she talked to Pero on Skype, in case the emir was with him. I listened to Pero’s voice as he told his mother that she and his aunt would be picked up in Antakya and brought to see him in Syria.
Abu Adam had told them that Pero’s emir might try to ask the women to cross the border for security reasons. “But don’t agree to this,” he told them. “You can tell him that under Islamic law, he has already committed a sin by leaving to fight jihad without his parents’ permission. You are two women who cannot travel with strange men into Syria, and he as your son will have to come and see you.”
Bagica told Pero exactly this. After speaking to another man who seemed to be in the room with him, Pero finally agreed. He also asked his mother to bring him warm socks, his leather jacket, T-shirts, and penicillin and other antibiotics.
“He looked very tired,” Bagica said afterward. “He was wearing a T-shirt. And he wasn’t alone.”