Fifteen people were arrested in the Netherlands on Tuesday on suspicion of spreading propaganda for the Islamic State on TikTok and trying to persuade people to commit terrorist attacks, Dutch prosecutors said.
The arrests were triggered by a TikTok account that spread large amounts of IS propaganda with Dutch subtitles, the prosecutors said.
The TikTok posts, some with more than 100,000 views, encouraged people to join the Islamic State and glorified becoming a martyr for the violent Islamist group, they said.
Thirteen of the suspects are Syrian, and four have Dutch nationality, prosecutors said, implying that some were dual nationals. Four are minors.
The suspects, aged 16 to 53, were detained in raids across the Netherlands, following the arrest last month of a person who the prosecutors said was the main suspect.
Islamic State member goes on trial in the Netherlands
In 2024, A Dutch woman who joined the Islamic State in 2015 went on trial in the Netherlands for crimes against humanity for allegedly enslaving two Yazidi women in Syria.
The Netherlands is only the second country to put an alleged Islamic State member on trial for crimes against humanity against Yazidis, an ancient religious minority who combine Zoroastrian, Christian, Manichean, Jewish, and Muslim beliefs.