Why Europe Would Benefit from Repatriating its Foreign Fighters from Syria and Iraq - Part I

Impacts of Repatriation on Europe’s Security Environment

In many European societies, the Islamic State’s loss of its last stronghold, Baghuz Fawqani, on 23 March 2019 reignited the fierce debate on whether states should repatriate their foreign fighters from Syria and Iraq. While Europe has faced the challenges associated with returnees from the Levant since the early years of the Syrian war, both politicians and citizens worry that high-risk individuals could now come back en masse. Nevertheless, these societies were deeply shocked by recent terror incidents involving returnees in Manchester, Paris, and Brussels. They fear that the surviving Islamic State fighters would travel home to continue jihad there, bringing an explosive mix of extensive terrorist training, traumatic war experiences, and deep-rooted hatred against the West in their backpacks. Therefore, most decision-makers have shown reluctance to support repatriation and have instead implemented policy alternatives outsourcing the problem. This Security Distillery article critically examines and dismantles their main arguments, while shedding light on the self-harming implications proffered by them. In order to do so, the first part of this article discusses the impacts of repatriation on Europe’s security environment while the second part, published in a week’s time, analyses the impacts of non-repatriation. Having rebutted the constituting rationales of the repatriation opponents, it concludes that allowing foreign fighters to return is most in line with European states’ security interests.

By Livia Margna

Between 2011 and 2016, more than 5,000 adults from the European Union (EU) travelled to Syria to fight with opposition forces against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. [1] Most joined the ranks of jihadist organisations, first and foremost those of the so-called Islamic State. [2] Around 1,800 European foreign fighters are believed to be dead, and up to 1,700 have already returned home. [3] Until now, around 2,000 adult EU citizens and an unknown number of their children are estimated to have neither died nor returned. [4] From a legal point of view, most states have no obligation to facilitate their return. [5] While some states such as Germany, France, and Belgium have repatriated young children, only a few instances of European states repatriating adults exist. [6] The majority of states have instead implemented a mixture of policies outsourcing the problem.

Wreaking havoc in several European cities, – including the November 2015 attacks in Paris claiming 130 lives – earlier returnees had demonstrated their hazardous potential. Compared to the previous waves of returnees, the individuals still remaining in Syria and Iraq are believed to be even more prone to follow the Islamic State’s call to continue jihad on European soil. The network they established, the training, and status they acquired in conflict, so the argument goes, are likely to be misused at home for radicalising others, inspiring lone wolves, and potentially establishing sleeper cells, providing logistic support for attacks or even plotting attacks themselves. Given the high number of European foreign fighters remaining in the conflict zone, most states thus argue that the aggregated threat constituted by them renders repatriation unacceptable. A closer examination of the issue, however, reveals that the overall situation is less alarming. While the attacks perpetrated by returnees prove that their threat is real, repatriation opponent’s threat assessment is in many regards overstated, overgeneralised, and undifferentiated, and thus prone to misrepresent the actual risk.

Firstly, it is unlikely that the returns would be as numerous as expected, even if repatriation was arranged. Lessons learnt from previous conflicts involving foreign fighters, [7] the considerable discrepancies between estimates and actual returnees in the early years of the Syrian war, and the imagery of European nationals burning their passports show that a significant number have no intention to return, and instead would continue to fight or settle down in the Levant or elsewhere.

Furthermore, repatriation opponents do not take into account that returnees are a heterogeneous mass consisting of individuals of different ages, genders, and backgrounds who differ from each other in their motives for departing and returning, as well as in different degrees of radicalisation and combat experience. European citizens remaining in the conflict zone range from fighters to defectors, from indoctrinated youth to new-born babies, and from female enslavers of the Yazidis to teenage housewives. [8] Highly indoctrinated and potentially dangerous individuals are likely to be among them, but so are many who never assumed violent roles. Other prospective returnees were never fully committed to the cause or lacked the determination to defect, [9] while some are disillusioned, disappointed, or even traumatised and ready to leave the war experiences behind. Even those who assumed violent roles are not a homogeneous group. The willingness to fight abroad does not necessarily translate into the willingness to conduct attacks at home, even if returnees continue to glorify jihad when back: ‘Most Islamists consider confined insurgency more legitimate than international terrorism’. [10] Thus, it can be concluded that only a few might hold intentions to engage in terrorist activities at home, while the vast majority is unlikely to do so. [11]

This assumption is consistent with the current understanding of foreign fighter recidivism rates. While the counts should be used with caution, they nonetheless allow us to identify trends in foreign fighter’s aggregated attitudes. Hegghammer’s seminal study on recidivism rates of Western foreign fighter returnees between 1990 and 2010 estimates that at most one in nine return to attack, while admitting that the real figure may be closer to one in 20. [12] An analysis of Islamic State-attributed attacks in Europe shows that most were not committed by returnees, but individuals inspired by the terror group’s propaganda. [13] Moreover, the few individuals who plan an attack at home are rather unsuccessful. As of March 2015, 10 of 11 attacks plotted in the West and involving returnees were thwarted. [14] This is surprising, given that due to their combat experience foreign fighters are usually portrayed as highly capable of staging attacks. According to Byman, however, battle experiences gained in a civil war does not translate into the skills necessary to execute sophisticated terror attacks. [15]

Repatriation opponents often argue that they would be unable to deal with returnees due to a lack of capacities and resources. It holds true that past terror incidents on European soil involved returnees who were well-known to intelligence agencies but fell off their radar due to insufficient means and poor cooperation between security services. [16] Learning from these failures, however, European states have increased both their soft and hard power capacities. Thus, they augmented their counterterrorism budgets and improved inter-agency and inter-state information sharing, [17] homogenised EU policies towards adult returnees, strengthened the prosecution, [18] and accumulated experience in deradicalisation and rehabilitation of extremists. Hence, instead of leaving foreign fighters in an environment prone to alienate them further, repatriation allows European states to turn them away from violence.

Repatriation also offers opportunities that can be utilised to enhance domestic security. Disengaged foreign fighter returnees could become highly influential in discouraging others from following their path. [19] In the past, disillusioned returnees often showed a willingness to cooperate with security services for counter-terrorism purposes. [20] Moreover, disengaged returnees are valuable sources of information, both as witnesses in lawsuits against their former fellow fighters and as informants helping intelligence agencies to improve their understanding of terrorist groups. [21] In turn, such insight – for example on recruitment processes – can render counter-terrorism efforts more effective.

In summary, fears of a drastic deterioration of the security environment caused by an influx of returnees ‘are not so much wrong as they are overstated’. [22] A residual risk can indeed not be fully eliminated; however, given its limited extent and the substantial capacities of European states to mitigate it, it is manageable. Furthermore, it is partly offset by the positive influences disengaged returnees can have on the security environment. Moreover, if not repatriated, the threat posed by foreign fighters remaining in the conflict theatre or in third countries for European societies is arguably higher and more long-term, and in any case harder to mitigate. This is shown in the second part of this article which will be published in a week’s time.

Sources

[1] Barret, R. (2017). Beyond the Caliphate: Foreign Fighters and the Threat of Returnees. New York: The Soufan Center.

[2] Coolsaet, R., & Renard, T. (2019). New Figures on European Nationals Detained in Syria and Iraq. Brussels: Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations.

[3] Jenkins, B. (2019, June 6). Options for Dealing with Islamic State Foreign Fighters Currently Detained in Syria. CTC Sentinel, 11-23. Retrieved from International Institute for Counter-Terrorism Herzliya: https://www.ict.org.il/Article/2403/Dealing_with_IS_Foreign_Fighters_Detained_in_ Syria#gsc.tab=0

[4] Ibid.

[5] Pokalova, E. (2020). Returning Islamist Foreign Fighters – Threats and Challenges to the West. Washington DC: Palgrave Macmillan.

[6] Agence France-Presse. (2019, June 11). Repatriate or Reject: What Countries Are Doing With IS Group Families. Retrieved from France24: https://www.france24.com/en/20190611-repatriation-families-islamic-state-group- jihadists-children.

[7] Reed, A., de Roy van Zuijdewijn, J., & Bakker, E. (2015). Pathways of Foreign Fighters: Policy Options and Their (Un)Intended Consequences. The Hague: International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague.

[8] Jenkins.

[9] Ragazzi, F., & Walmsley, J. (2018). The Return of Foreign Fighters to EU Soil – Ex-post Evaluation. Brussels: European Parliamentary Research Service.

[10] Hegghammer, T. (2013). Should I Stay or Should I Go? Explaining Variation in Western Jihadists' Choice between Domestic and Foreign Fighting. The American Political Science Review, p.13.

[11] Reed.

[12] Hegghammer, pp. 1-15.

[13] Pokalova.

[14] Byman, D. (2016). The Jihadist Returnee Threat: Just How Dangerous? Political Science Quarterly, 69-99.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Dworkin, A. (2019). Beyond Good and Evil: Why Europe Should Bring ISIS Foreign Fighters Home. Berlin: European Council on Foreign Relations.

[18] Ragazzi.

[19] Reed.

[20] Pokalova.

[21] Jenkins.

[22] Byman, p. 71.