Montasser AlDe'emeh

Montasser’s parents were both born in Mandatory Palestine. In 1948, his family fled from Sabbarin, a village in the subdistrict of Haifa that was depopulated. The family ended up in the Nur Shams camp, in the northern part of the West Bank. During the Six-Day War in 1967, his family fled to Jordan. In 1991, Two-year-old Montasser, arrived in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean.[3]

In 2011, Montasser graduated cum laude from the KU Leuven with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Language and Area Studies: Arabic and Islamic Studies. In 2012, Montasser obtained a master’s degree in Language and Area studies: Arabic and Islamic Studies (Magna cum laude) from the same university. At the KU Leuven he is researching Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTFs) in Syria.[4]

During his doctoral study, he went to Syria to interview fighters from the Al-Nusra Front.[5] In Syria, he got arrested, and interrogated by Al-Nusra.[6]

AlDe’emeh tries to help young people turn away from radical ideology.[7] AlDe'emeh tried to stop Abdelmalek Boutalliss, a young ISIS fighter, from blowing himself up in Iraq.[8]

Immediately following the 2016 Brussels attacks, Montasser started to work with Scholengroep Brussel, schools organised by the Flemish Community in Brussels, as the head of anti-radicalisation, a job that he also performed for VCLB Pieter Breughel for three school years and for GO! CLB Brussel during one year.[9]

In 2017, he embedded further field research in Kirkuk, Iraq; here he followed the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Peshmerga fighters led by the Kurdish general Wasta Rasul, during their battles with ISIS at the frontline. In 2019, he visited the Gweran Prison in Al-Hasakah, where he interviewed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant prisoners.[10] AlDe’emeh believes there are two profiles of jihadists: the naive idealists and the more violent extremists prepared to strike in their homeland.[11]

During the academic year 2019/20, he continued his studies and research in the United Kingdom, where he obtained a postgraduate diploma with distinction from SOAS University of London. The focus of this study was Academic English with Social Sciences.[12]

Montasser’s work has landed him on a ISIS hit list.[3]

His 2015 co-written highly-acclaimed book De Jihadkaravaan. Reis naar de wortels van de haat (The Jihad Caravan. A Journey to the Roots of Hatred),[13] was nominated for the Brusseprijs 2016 (award for the best journalistic book in Dutch).[14] The book includes AlDe’emeh’s interviews with jihadists in Syria.[15]