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Showing posts from April 20, 2017

FROM ALTER BOY TO ISIS FIGHTER

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Special Report  Senior International Correspondent: Clarissa Ward Executive Producer: Liza McGuirk Producers: Andy Segal, Barbara Arvanitidis and Margot Haddad ITH  his blue eyes, brown hair and beaming smile, young Michael Delefortrie looked every inch the angelic altar boy. But fast forward twenty years, and Michael had changed his name to Younnes, traded his Christian faith for Islam, and the sleepy Belgian suburb he’d grown up in for the front lines of ISIS’ war in Syria. Now, back in Belgium, he still expresses open support for the group’s warped ideology and says he wishes he could return to the group’s self-proclaimed Islamic State. “I regret coming back,” he told me. “I want to live under the caliphate.” Michael 'Younnes' Delefortrie Despite his shocking words, the most striking thing about the 28-year-old is how utterly unremarkable he appears. The first time we meet, in a café in the port city of Antwerp, he wears a hooded sweat