South Asia Center Nonresident Senior Fellow Barbara Slavin writes for Al Monitor on the potential to rehabilitate extremist fighters:
Authorities in Denmark’s second largest city of Aarhus couldn’t stop an ethnic Somali teenager from joining extremists fighting in Syria two years ago but they appear to have been able to rehabilitate him after he returned.
Jacob Bundsgaard, mayor of Aarhus, said that mentoring and working with the family of the young man — whom he did not otherwise identify — smoothed reintegration into Danish society after the youth returned “physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted” by his experiences. He has even been able to re-enroll in his old high school, the mayor said.