Returning Islamist Foreign Fighters

Threats and Challenges to the West

Elena Pokalova

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9783030314781
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: National Security
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book examines the challenges foreign fighter returnees from Syria and Iraq pose to Western countries. A number of returnees have demonstrated that they are willing to use violence against their home countries, and some have already staged terrorist attacks on Western soil on apparent orders from ISIS. Through the historical context of previous waves of mobilizations of Islamist foreign fighters, the author tracks the experiences of returnees from previous conflicts and discusses the major security challenges associated with them. The book analyzes the major approaches implemented by Western countries in response to foreign fighter returnees, discusses the prosecution of returnees, and evaluates the corresponding challenges of prison radicalization.

© The Author(s) 2020

E. PokalovaReturning Islamist Foreign Fightershttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31478-1_1

Begin Abstract

1. The Returnee Challenge

Elena Pokalova¹

(1)

College of International Security Affairs, National Defense University, Washington, DC, USA

Elena Pokalova

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

Abdelhamid Abaaoud’s pictures featured prominently on the pages of ISIS’s English-speaking magazine Dabiq . In one, he is shown smiling at the camera with a black ISIS banner waving in the background. In another, he poses holding the Quran in one hand and the black flag in the other. Such appearances in ISIS’s propaganda materials turned Abaaoud into a poster child of foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq. A Belgian of Moroccan roots, Abaaoud, also known as Abu Umar al-Baljiki, traveled to Syria where he rose in the ISIS ranks and recruited and trained other foreign fighters like himself. He boasted of his success in evading European intelligence services during several of his trips between Belgium and Syria. He incited terrorism and praised those who carried out attacks on his orders. “I ask Allah to accept the fruitful deeds of the shuhada’ who terrorized the crusaders of America, France, Canada, Australia, Germany, and Belgium,” Abaaoud shared.¹

Abdelhamid Abaaoud grew up in the Molenbeek district of Brussels. Not many details are known about Abaaoud’s childhood, but his upbringing does not seem to stand out. He was enrolled in an exclusive Catholic school, College Saint-Pierre d’Uccle, but was expelled from it.² He soon became involved in criminal activities and as a result spent time in prison. It was a surprise to his friends and family when Abaaoud suddenly became very religious and in 2013, traveled to Syria where he joined ISIS. People who knew Abaaoud were shocked to see videos in which he, along with his fellow ISIS members, was shown loading corpses into a truck. “Before we towed Jet Skis, motorcycles, quad bikes, big trailers filled with gifts for vacation in Morocco,” Abaaoud was shown commenting in the video. “Now, thank God, following God’s path, we’re towing apostates - infidels who are fighting us.”³

It was not his actions in Syria that made Abaaoud famous. Instead, it was his relentless efforts to strike at home. In Syria, ISIS entrusted Abaaoud with command of its European operations wing under the auspices of a clandestine Emni unit. As head of the unit, Abaaoud was able to recruit many Western foreign fighters. In addition to training them to become loyal citizens of ISIS’s Caliphate, Abaaoud vetted and prepared some of them to return to their home countries to stage terrorist attacks. He helped them travel back from Syria and Iraq and gave them instructions on what to do. Allegedly, he succeeded in placing up to 90 of his French, German, British, Syrian, and Iraqi agents in the Paris region.⁴ Soon they had an opportunity to show their presence. On November 13, 2015, Abdelhamid Abaaoud and his collaborators dealt an unforgettable blow to France. He gained instantaneous notoriety by orchestrating a series of coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris that killed at least 130 people and injured over 350 more.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud became the epitome of a foreign fighter returnee from Syria and Iraq whom Western security services so feared. He represented a larger group of individuals who were willing to travel back to their home countries with plans to attack. Among them was Mehdi Nemmouche, who carried out the Jewish Museum shooting in Brussels. Ayoub El Khazzani returned to Europe to mount an attack on the Thalys train. Najim Laachraoui and Mohamed Abrini came back to plot terrorist attacks in Brussels. While at first glance, these individuals seemed to be lone wolves, closer investigations revealed that they were all connected to the foreign fighter returnee networks that Abaaoud was able to build. Terrorist attacks successfully carried out by these individuals demonstrated that returnees from Syria and Iraq were not always coming back with peaceful intentions.

This book examines the challenges foreign fighter returnees from Syria and Iraq pose to Western countries. It examines the unique features of the outflow of Western foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq by placing it in the historical context of the previous waves of mobilizations of Islamist foreign fighters. The book proceeds to track and analyze the experiences of foreign fighter returnees from previous conflicts and discuss the major security challenges associated with them. The book then turns to the very thorny issue of responses to foreign fighter returnees and examines major approaches implemented by Western countries. It discusses in detail imprisonment of foreign fighter returnees and the corresponding challenges of prison radicalization. The book also examines the particular issues associated with the return from Syria and Iraq of women and children.

Terminology

Terms such as terrorists, extremists, and radicals are notoriously difficult to define. Similarly, the meaning of “foreign fighters” is also difficult to capture. In his groundbreaking analysis of the issue, David Malet discusses the complexity entailed in efforts to provide conceptual clarity for the term.⁵ Malet himself defines foreign fighters as “noncitizens of conflict states who join insurgencies during civil conflicts.”⁶ In turn, David Byman uses the term in reference to “individuals who travel to a state other than their own to join an illicit group and perpetrate or assist in terrorist attacks or armed conflict.”⁷ Building on these definitions, I use the term foreign fighters to designate individuals who leave their state of origin or residence and travel elsewhere to take part in an armed conflict or terrorist activity. I intentionally leave the definition broad, as it allows the inclusion of those individuals who travel to fight, those who go to engage in terrorism-related activities, as well as those who travel to assume supportive roles.

Foreign fighter returnees are individuals who return to their countries of origin or residence. UN Security Council Resolution 2178 (2014) states that foreign fighters are able to “increase the intensity, duration and intractability of conflicts, and also may pose a serious threat to their States of origin, the States they transit and the States to which they travel, as well as States neighbouring zones of armed conflict in which foreign terrorist fighters are active and that are affected by serious security burdens.”⁸ The Resolution points out that a number of threats are associated with foreign fighters, foreign fighter returnees, and relocators. Relocators are foreign fighter veterans who do not demobilize but migrate from one conflict zone to the next.

The book focuses exclusively on Islamist foreign fighters, and the conclusions presented here might not be relevant to foreign fighters motivated by other ideologies. The term Islamist foreign fighters refers to adherents of global jihadism who believe in using violence in the name of Islam to protect the faith from nonbelievers, to expel infidels from the Muslim lands, to restore the purity of faith, and to eventually install Islamic governance based on Sharia. Beginning with Afghan Arabs who traveled to Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet invasion, Islamist foreign fighters have joined many conflicts worldwide that had various causes and used different justifications for jihad. What united them was their desire to fight under the banner of Islam and wage the war against its enemies, near and far. Thus, only Sunni foreign fighters are considered here, while Shia foreign fighters remain beyond the scope of the present analysis.

Foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq hailed from various countries worldwide. Returnees from Syria and Iraq have engaged in violence in numerous countries, and relocators have already been spotted in Afghanistan, Libya, and the Philippines. However, to make the project feasible, this book was limited to the examination of Western experiences. Western countries under consideration here include the 28 Member States of the European Union, Norway, Switzerland, the United States, Canada, and Australia. The data collected for the project included information on the experiences of these countries with Islamist terrorism, the role returnees have played in terrorist activities, and the corresponding responses these countries have implemented.

Main Arguments

I argue that foreign fighter returnees from Syria and Iraq pose certain security challenges to their home countries. While far from all returnees will come back dangerous, a number of returnees have already demonstrated that some will return without renouncing their dedication to violence. Some foreign fighter returnees have already staged terrorist attacks on Western soil on apparent orders from ISIS. Others have returned to boast of their foreign fighter experiences, spread extremist propaganda, and attract new recruits. As the lessons from the past conflicts suggest, returnees have the potential to expand terrorist networks, to co-opt new conflicts for the jihadist cause, and to build effective training facilities for new generations of foreign fighters.

Looking at history, one can see that previous waves of Islamist foreign fighters gen...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. The Returnee Challenge
• 2. Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq: Aberration from History or History Repeated?
• 3. Foreign Fighters After the Conflict Ends
• 4. Foreign Fighter Returnees from Syria and Iraq
• 5. Dealing with the Challenge: Responses to Foreign Fighters and Foreign Fighter Returnees
• 6. Prosecution of Foreign Fighter Returnees
• 7. Women, Jihad, and Female Returnees
• 8. Child Returnees
• 9. Moving Forward
• Back Matter