Amsterdam mosque gave shelter to jihadis and recruiters

Dutch News and the Netherlands Times both give English language reports from an article in the Telegraaf.

The El Tawheed mosque in Amsterdam-West provided shelter to Muslim extremists, some of whom later joined terrorist organization ISIS, the Telegraaf reports based on a photo.

Police sources have also backed up the story, the paper said. Two of the men joined IS shortly after the photo was taken…  As far as is known they are still in Syria, though whether they are still alive is not clear.  A third man is known to the police as a jihadist recruiter. And the fourth was arrested in January 2015 for lighting a jerrycan full of petrol at a commercial building and a home that showed a Charlie Hebdo poster. He was later sentenced to three years in prison.

 One of the men, a Dutch Muslim convert, is also known to the police as a jihad recruiter, the paper said. The NRC said earlier this week that this man, Keith Rienksma, had been able to distribute IS propaganda in the Netherlands for the past three years without any interference from the authorities. The paper claimed R and another man were deliberately left out of Amsterdam city council anti-radicalisation efforts at the request of the police, who said it would interfere in their investigations.

According to the Telegraaf, the judiciary knew about this but never closed down the mosque. The police have difficulty getting access to the mosque and officers are only allowed in if they have an official appointment with the board,

Mosque chairman Mahmoud el-Shershaby told the Telegraaf that he had no idea that such a meeting had taken place in the mosque.