Foreign Fighters In Syria And Iraq

Aaron Y. Zelin is the Richard Borow fellow at The Washington Institute. His research focuses on how jihadist groups are adjusting to the new political environment in the era of Arab uprisings and Salafi politics in countries transitioning to democracy. Dr Zelin is a frequent contributor to Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, and the Atlantic, and is the author of the New America Foundation’s 2013 study The State of the Global Jihad Online. He independently maintains the widely cited website Jihadology.net and co-edits the blog al-Wasat. On a visit to Australia, Aaron Zelin addressed The Sydney Institute on Monday 17 November 2014

FOREIGN FIGHTERS IN SYRIA AND IRAQ

AARON ZELIN

Many thanks for having me. I’m going to talk about foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq. It is always important to look back to see how we got to where we currently are, and the motivations of these individuals, to better understand how the future might pan out and the trajectory it could take. As background, I’m going to talk about the situation in Syria and Iraq.

The uprising in Syria started in March 2011 and eventually turned into a civil war by June/July 2011 when the Assad regime started killing his own citizens. This led to the creation of a free Syrian army. At the time, people didn’t realise jihadists had entered the conflict as well. Al Qaeda, and Al Qaeda in Iraq, were still okay with one another and, from behind the scenes, sent a cell of individuals from Iraq into Syria to create what would later become what we know as Jabhat al-Nusra.

Additionally, while it didn’t become an agenda issue for many Western governments until 2013 or so, in August 2011 we started to see signs that foreign fighters were going over to Syria as well. Jabhat al-Nusra initially targeted the Assad regime’s military and security apparatus, they worked with local rebel groups and did not focus on killing civilians. So it seemed, in many ways, that they had learned the lessons of the failures of Iraq over the past decade.

When the US designated them, in December 2012, there was a major backlash from mainstream rebels against this. They discussed how they should support Jabhat al-Nusra, not designate them, and that the true terrorists were actually the Assad regime. At this point, I realised US policies related to Syria were in trouble. This, in spite of some believing a so-called moderate force inside of Syria could help fight the Islamic state.

Many people thought that Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State were one in the same. In reality, there was a split between the two groups causing a rift between Al Qaeda and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Islamic State. We’ve seen this over the last year and a half or so. Part of this is because the pro-Al Qaeda Abu Mohammad al-Julani believed that some of the worst practices of the Iraq jihad, last decade, would come to Syria and ruin the hard work done within the local population. This resulted in the two groups killing each other, essentially.

While there was an attempt at reconciliation in the background, it never came about. In February 2014, Al Qaeda put out an official statement disaffiliating itself from the Islamic State and for the first time they kicked out an affiliate. In terms of Iraq, one of the things to remember is that we have seen a vacuum being filled by the Islamic State after the US left in December 2011. This happened because the Iraqi military and political establishment didn’t have the same level of skills or capabilities of the US military.

As a result the Islamic State built up its networks again, including its criminal enterprises in Mosul and parts of Anbar. They created new military campaigns and targeted Iraqi security officials and people in the military. In addition, IS also targeted a number of people who were in the tribal awakening the US had helped to build. With the surge, IS was able to consolidate some of the gains from what they were doing militarily on the ground against Al Qaeda in Iraq.

IS then started to assassinate a number of top leaders while reaching out to a number of the clans within the tribes to co-opt them. Thus, Islamic State was attempting to divide and conquer many tribes. IS was worried that if they returned to prominence there would be a renewed tribal awakening and they’d be pushed out of territory once again. In fact, they have been very successful in maintaining control as we see in the current military campaign with the US is trying once again to build some of the assets they used last decade in the fight against Al Qaeda in Iraq.

But now the context is different. Many tribal figures feel they were burned by the United States. After the US left, they were promised integration with the Iraqi political system. Tribal figures were promised positions in the security and military forces. In fact, the Maliki regime continued to be sectarian and the promises were not carried out. This led to protest movements by the Iraqi Sunnis against the Maliki regime, in September 2012, and they continued these protests over time. In turn, this made Maliki and some on his side nervous. They feared the Sunnis would once again rise up bringing on a return to a Saddam Hussein style era. Something the Shia never wanted again.

In December 2013, Maliki miscalculated by destroying one of the protest camps in Ramadi. Sunni and tribal figures now believed they no longer could influence the government with non-violent protest. A number of brigades were recreated and mainstream Islamists began fighting again – Ansar al-Islam, Jaysh al-Mahd, Jaysh al-Islam. This is what led to the rebirth of a larger scale insurgency that hadn’t been seen for some time inside of Iraq.

Of course, the Islamic State then piggy-backed off of this insurrection. It worked with such groups, even if they had their own aims at the end of the day. Fallujah and parts of Ramadi fell to them in February 2014. More recently, we have seen the rise of Western involvement as a result of the takeover of Mosul in June 2014. This sets the stage for how we got to this point. And it is related to the phenomenon of foreign fighters.

Foreign fighters have been around since the early 1980s when a number of Arabs went to Afghanistan after the Soviets had invaded. At that time, the Afghan jihad or the Soviet jihad, as some called it, was the biggest foreign fighter mobilisation that we’ve seen in the contemporary era. About 5000 individuals went over the years and this was unique up to that time. Last decade, in Iraq, we saw about 4000 individuals join from foreign parts, but the time period in Afghanistan was longer. In comparison, 5000 foreign fighters over a 13 year period went to Afghanistan, about 4000 in a 5-6 year period went to Iraq and in Syria, right now, in three years more than 10,000 foreign fighters have joined with the Islamists. This is completely unprecedented. As well, unlike the past where the majority of people represented were Arabs, there are now Westerners – at least 90 nationalities have been represented.

What is notable about the figures in the media, it’s not necessarily how many people are currently there at the time because it’s impossible to do a census in a warzone. The important statistic is how many people have gone to the conflict since the beginning of 2011. Some of them have died, and we can record at least 25,000 foreigners who have been killed. We’ve also seen people return home and be arrested, others have returned home and gone back to their regular life. Still others have gone on to new conflict zones inside Sinai, Libya or even Yemen. There are even some cases of people going to the Afghanistan and the Pakistan region.

Primarily, foreign fighters come from the Arab world, mostly from Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Libya. The second largest regional block is from Western Europe. In terms of the number of individuals who have gone, this is completely unprecedented. We’ve seen about 3000 to 4000 Europeans going, mostly from France, Britain, The Netherlands and Belgium. There has been a steady flow of individuals going to Syria over the last couple of years. But there are also three key spikes in terms of when people have gone at a particular time.

The first one was when Jabhat al-Nusra announced itself officially in January 2012. Many individuals felt there was a clear banner they could fight under. The second largest was in May 2013 when Hezbollah announced itself, officially inside Syria, as assisting the Assad regime. Previously, Hezbollah had also been involved with training and advising but this was an overt subscription to fighting on the ground. It led to a huge mobilisation, as well as radicalisation among the Sunnis. For the first time in the contemporary era we saw a huge number of key mainstream Gulf sheiks calling for jihad and saying that it was a duty for people to fight on the side of the Sunnis against the Assad regime. We did not see this in Afghanistan in the 1980s, in Bosnia and Chechnya in the 1990s or Afghanistan and Iraq in the last decade.

The most recent spike is related to the announcement of the Caliphate, by the Islamic State. They are not just calling for people to come and fight, but also for people to be involved in their state building project. That allows the recruitment pitch to expand the pool of potential individuals coming, because not everybody wants to go there to fight. People have other skills. Islamic State is calling for doctors, engineers, and for people to work in the administration of the state. Some go now who would not have gone in the past. It might be wives who could be involved in educating younger children and nurturing the young militant milieu. So individuals bring their families. A number of younger women have become involved as nurses and helping out in general, or making sure that women within the society are following the precepts of their interpretations of Sharia.

One of the key reasons for this unprecedented mobilisation is the ease of travel. It is quite easy to get to Syria via Turkey. In the past, it’s been very difficult to get to Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia or Mali, and plane tickets to those areas might look dubious, and likely to get you on some kind of watch list. But Turkey is a huge tourist destination; Istanbul gets millions of people per year. Travelling there is not necessarily a sign of somebody trying to become radicalised. Additionally, in terms of Western Europe, it’s quite cheap to get to Turkey and there are visa waiver programs between countries in the EU. For $50 to $80 you can get a plane ticket. Some just drive to the Syrian border.

Of note also is the legacy of the facilitation and logistic networks from the Iraq war last decade. While Turkey is currently the hub of this type of activity for what’s going on in Syria and Iraq, last decade Syria played that role. A number of networks have been rejuvenated. Another aspect is social media. Social media in the past would primarily be on password-protected forums. Now, a much larger number of people can be targeted on social media networks, and in different languages. Additionally, the emotional resonance of this conflict is very important. Some, seeing the Assad regime slaughtering Sunni Muslim men and women, felt Westerners weren’t doing enough, nor were Arab governments. They felt an individual duty to help out.

British jihadis have put about the so called “five star Jihad”. Compared to Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia or Mali, life in Syria isn’t too bad. Many individuals involved live in nice villas, with pools in the background; some have video game rooms with Xbox for the day while they fight at night. They go from the virtual to the real world. They have easy access to the internet on their mobile phones from a Turkish sim card and can interact with people online. It’s a lot easier in many respects than living life in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Another reason people are going is religious. Historically, one of the past caliphates in Islamic history was based in Damascus. This gives a resonance. For those who know “end times” prophesies related to Islam, part of the story plays out in the Levant, in Syria. Some believe that what they’re seeing is a sign of the end times leading to the day of judgement. So they’ll go over to paradise if they’re victorious – which they obviously believe they will be.

Significantly, in this conflict, is the larger role of Iran, Lebanese Hezbolla and Iraqi Shia militiamen on the side of the Assad regime. Large scale, sectarian religious hatred is fermenting. Sectarianism has propelled many foreign fighters, especially from Saudi Arabia. A more recent motivation related to this is the so-called caliphate project. Many seek to be part of this state building project; they feel empowered by it. For the first time in their own lives, or even looking back a couple of hundred years, they believe Muslims are doing things on their own, they’re not relying on the West, they’re not relying on Arab regimes. They can do it on their own. This has a resonance with younger people, especially those who have identity issues inside of Western countries. The alienated in Britain – for example – who feel neither fully Pakistani or British. In the Caliphate, they believe there are Muslims who will provide them with a level of empowerment.

From the jihad in Afghanistan, we saw a legacy with foreign fighter groups where there was mayhem when they returned home. This applied to groups like Al Qaeda, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, GIA in Algeria, the Moroccan Islamic Combatant group and a whole host of others. There are a lot of questions about what happens to individuals within these groups if they decide to return home.

One of the largest among these more national jihadi groups is Harakat Sham al-Islam, a Moroccan group. They say they are definitely there to fight the Assad regime, but when they return home their plan is to take out the Moroccan monarchy. They see Syria as a training ground to gain new skills. As with Afghanistan in the 1980s, different types of low level and high level insurgencies evolved in Egypt, Libya and Algeria in the 1990s. This is an issue of concern. What happens when foreign fighters return home? There has been blowback already with an attack in Brussels against the Jewish museum earlier this year. More recently, we saw the attack in Canada at the parliament, and there has been a host of arrests as well. It’s not a theoretical issue; it’s a reality.

The question is, how will this manifest itself over months and years to come. We are still very much in the early stages. It is important also to note that there is a difference between how Al Qaeda views external operations and how the Islamic State does. This is one of the reasons Western governments are more worried about Jabhat al-Nusra and Al Qaeda’s plans for external operations than the Islamic State’s. Al Qaeda’s first priority, their raison d’etre, has always been terrorist attacks against the West, to bring Western governments into an exhausting economic war. The purpose being that the West won’t have enough money to prop up the apostate Arab regimes. As Western money dries up, it will be easier for them to take over.

Islamic State’s legitimacy is based on the so-called caliphate, their territorial control. They are not so concerned with an external operation; their main priority is to continue to consolidate their control over the areas they’re ruling and to expand. If they lose or their territory is contracted, a caliphate in name only won’t look so good. One of the reasons, I believe, that IS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, more recently called for individuals to attack outside the zone, was for psychological effect. And as it is done by outsiders, IS does not have to plan, direct or fund such campaigns. Yet, there is no evidence of a planned, directed and funded Islamic State plot outside their zone.

So how do people respond to this? There has been much discussion in many Western countries over recent months, even the past year about new Countering Violence Extremism programs and how to deal with it on the local level in terms of community engagement, between the police, the government and Muslim communities. There is a need to bring religious leaders and social workers into the operation so that people are aware of what’s going on, as well as making parents aware. In the case of France and Germany, they’ve actually opened up a hotline for parents to call in case they’re worried about their sons or daughters going abroad. In many cases we’ve seen parents not knowing about their kids getting involved in these types of activities because they’re in their bedrooms by themselves on their cell phones. Parents have no idea what’s going on. Then, one day, they end up leaving for IS. Parents are an important asset in this as well.

We’ve seen more cases of governments rescinding passports. Of course, Australia’s been doing this for years even before these events in Syria and Iraq. But we’re seeing other countries starting to develop these types of rules as well, such as the US and Canada. Another issue is related to control orders. This is something the British government does. It involves, essentially, putting individuals under house arrest. Sometimes it’s difficult to get large scales of data. Many would-be insurgents talk to each other face-to-face and full evidence is hard to get. Under house arrest, they may co-operate. In the US, there are sting operations. This is one of the reasons IS has not been a large scale issue in the US. The Danes instituted a rehabilitation program for returning to reintegrate them into society, to bring them back into the fold. It could be by using the local Imams or social workers.

And then there is the act of banning returnees for a length of time – two years or some such – or taking away passports. This can create a concern that the frustrated would-be fighters might resort to a terrorist attack at home. There’s no silver bullet. While the message of Islamic State resonates with people, they will get involved.

In all of this, however, we take for granted the work of our intelligence service and law enforcement. There have been some 400-500 plots against Western countries since 9/11. You don’t hear about most of them. But it shows that intelligence operations have been most successful in dealing with this problem. For that, we should give them a round of applause more often than we do.