A 20-year-old Dutch-Moroccan died fighting with jihadist forces in Syria last Friday, the Volkskrant reports on Wednesday.

The Volkskrant, which names the youth as Mourad M from Delft, bases its claims on sources in the Moroccan community and says the boy’s older brother is also in the Middle Eastern country.

It is unclear how Mourad died but the sources say his mother, who lives in Rotterdam, was told of her son’s death by phone by the older brother. The woman has urged her surviving son to return home but he has refused, the paper said.

Warning

The Dutch counter terrorism unit said last week that around 100 jihadists had left the Netherlands for Syria and other countries in recent months. The increased radicalisation of young Dutch Muslims is reason to raise the risk of attack from limited to substantial, the NCTV said.

The security service AIVD declined to comment on the Volkskrant’s report, saying ‘we are not going to reach into each individual report’. But the report does show that men travelling to Syria are involved in fighting.

The NCTV said last week one of the biggest threats to the Netherlands is the return of traumatised jihad fighters who are used to handling weapons.