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A Jamaican 16-year-old has been sent back to his country after being detained in Suriname over the weekend while attempting to make his way to Syria to join ISIS.
The teenager, whose identity was not disclosed due to his age, planned to fly from a Suriname airport to the Netherlands, and then make his way into Turkey and Syria. He is the most recent in a string of teens who have joined or attempted to join the terrorist organization, and crossing the Turkish border into Syria is a common approach for these youths.
United States Southern Command General John F. Kelly just last month warned about the threat of radicalization in the Caribbean. He estimated that 100 Caribbean natives had traveled to Syria to join ISIS.
"While in Syria, they get good at killing and pick up some real job skills in terms of explosives and beheadings, things like that," Kelly said in March at a press conference. "Everyone is concerned, of course, if they come home. If they went over radicalized, one would expect they will come back at least that radicalized but...with really good job skills that they picked up in the fight."
According to Kelly, the United States is working with intelligence forces within multiple Caribbean nations to track the movements of radicalized citizens. It was not disclosed whether U.S. intelligence was involved in detaining this particular teenager.