Inside the ISIS Hunt: Tracking Former Jihadi Fighters in Europe

It’s estimated that half of the foreign fighters who left Europe to join ISIS have already returned to their countries of origin. Posing as refugees or travelling on fake passports, others were able to flee the caliphate for the West and rebuild new lives. But a handful of men are on a mission to find them. At the Al-Roj camp in Syria, hundreds of women and children live in squalid conditions while the world decides what to do with them. They are the wives and children of ISIS fighters, captured when the caliphate fell. Among them are hundreds of Westerners who desperately want to come home. For the moment, there is little indication of that happening. But what about the fighters who weren’t captured? Ahmad Ramadan, 33, leads a secret network aimed at tracking down these former jihadists and holding them to account for their crimes. Today, he’s on the trail of a fighter believed to be now living in Germany. A video provided by an informer shows him training as a truck driver. Thanks to this network, high-profile members, like jihadi spokesman Abdul Kader el Raqqaoui, have been arrested in Europe. But the members themselves pay a heavy price and are themselves the target of ISIS reprisals. This documentary was first released in 2021.