United States

How to Stop Terrorism, From a Jihadi Who ‘Likes the US'

Clean-cut Albert Berisha doesn't look like a man who moved to Syria to fight alongside ISIS, whose militants he calls murderous psychopaths, NBC News reported.

But the "jihadi who likes the United States," as he says, embodies a crucial question facing security officials in the West: Can a jihadi who fought in Iraq or Syria be peacefully reintegrated into society?

Berisha said he only ended up in an ISIS unit by accident, spending only nine days in Syria in 2013, including time with commanders "ready to commit attacks in Europe." But a court in Kosovo sentenced him to more than three years in prison for traveling there.

"It is hard to convince people to come back if they have two choices: stay and die inside Syria, or another bad choice, which is to end up in prison," he told NBC News in Kosovo's capital, Pristina. "Our state, our society, needs to give them a third choice, which is reintegration."

Contact Us