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From Bullied Teenager to ISIS Recruit: The Kundby Case
How a Danish girl's online radicalization led to terror charges—and what it reveals about youth vulnerability to extremism
BEVIS
Sagsdetaljer
Quick Facts
In January 2016, Danish police arrested a 15-year-old girl from Kundby, a small village in Northwest Sealand, on suspicion of terrorism-related offences. What emerged was a harrowing portrait of rapid online radicalization: within months, a bullied schoolgirl had allegedly moved from social isolation to active planning of bomb attacks against her former elementary school and a Jewish school in Copenhagen.
The case of Natascha Colding-Olsen would become one of Scandinavia's most significant terror prosecutions involving a minor—a rare glimpse into how extremist networks exploit the vulnerabilities of isolated young people through social media.
**The Bullying Pipeline**
Timeline
1 June 2015
Türkei-Urlaub und Konversion
Nach einem Familienurlaub in der Türkei konvertiert die 14-jährige Natascha zum Islam. Beginn ihrer Beschäftigung mit extremistischen Inhalten.
1 December 2015
Beginn der Chemikaliensammlung
Natascha beginnt systematisch, Chemikalien für die Herstellung des Sprengstoffs TATP zu sammeln und im Elternhaus zu lagern.
5 January 2025
Heimliche Tonaufnahme durch Lehrer
Der ehemalige Lehrer Christian Koed trifft sich mit Natascha und zeichnet das Gespräch heimlich auf – ein entscheidendes Beweismittel.
13 January 2025
Verhaftung in Kundby
Die 15-jährige Natascha Colding-Olsen wird wegen Terrorplanung verhaftet. Bei der Hausdurchsuchung werden Chemikalien und Propagandamaterial sichergestellt.
1 January 2026
Verurteilung nach Terrorparagraf
Natascha Colding-Olsen wird als eine der jüngsten Terroristinnen Europas nach dem dänischen Terrorparagrafen verurteilt.
According to court documents and investigative reporting, Colding-Olsen's path to radicalization began not with ideology but with trauma. Around age 14, she became a target for bullying at her local school. The psychological pressure was severe enough to trigger self-harm and, reportedly, a suicide attempt. In a tightly knit Danish village where "everyone knows everyone," the social isolation became suffocating.
This vulnerability—depression, identity confusion, and social ostracism—is a recognized pattern in youth radicalization cases across Europe. Researchers studying similar cases in Britain, France, and Germany have found that extremist recruiters deliberately target isolated adolescents online, offering them community and purpose that their offline world has denied them.
**The Turkish Summer and Religious Conversion**
A family holiday to Turkey in summer 2015 marked a turning point. Upon returning to Denmark, Colding-Olsen converted to Islam in October 2015. In her later testimony, she would describe her attraction to extremist ideology in strikingly mundane terms: ISIS was "exciting," and "everyone was talking about it." For a bullied teenager, the propaganda offered something schools and her village could not—belonging to a global movement.
Within weeks, her online activity shifted dramatically. She began actively seeking ISIS propaganda on social media platforms and in darker forums. She made contact with individuals she believed to be Islamic State militants, including messages claiming to reach IS's senior leadership. These online contacts became her primary social network.
**From Chat to Chemicals**
By late 2015, conversations escalated from ideological support to operational planning. The online contacts instructed Colding-Olsen to obtain chemicals for explosives. Court records indicate she began purchasing acetone and hydrogen peroxide from local shops, claiming they were needed for school projects—a cover story that went unchallenged by Danish retailers at the time.
Her target: TATP (triacetone triperoxide), an extremely unstable homemade explosive notorious in jihadi circles as "Mother of Satan" for its unpredictability and lethality. She stored precursor chemicals in her family's cellar, following online guides to attempt synthesis. Security services later assessed that while she gathered materials, her chemical knowledge proved insufficient to successfully produce functional explosives.