In the last few years, Syria and Iraq have emerged as new hotbeds of international militancy and terrorism. The ability of the terrorist group, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), to attract foreign fighters has created new challenges for global peace and security. A recent UN report indicates that, notwithstanding US airstrikes against ISIS, the number of foreign fighters joining the group has risen to unprecedented levels. The report notes that around 15,000 foreign fighters from 80 different countries have joined ISIS and other extremist groups. The region is now hosting the largest congregation of jihadists since the Afghan jihad (1979 to 1989). While the return of these foreign fighters to their home countries is a threat to be monitored, it is imperative to understand the factors that attracted them to join the fight in Syria and Iraq to formulate counter-strategies.
To a great extent individual choices play a great part in explaining why foreign fighters in such large numbers have travelled to Syria and Iraq. While across-the-board jihad remains the primary motivating factor, partly the answer to this jigsaw puzzle also lies in the examination of foreign fighters’ ideological beliefs and social paradigms. One major attraction for foreign fighters to join ISIS is rooted in the Islamic belief that the final battle of all times (Armageddon in the Christian context) will take place in Syria. According to this belief, the eventual defeat of evil forces will lead to the end of time (Day of Judgement) and God’s word will come to pass. In its online propaganda campaign, ISIS has exploited this belief to recruit volunteers across the Muslim world.
In the context of western foreign fighters, the lure of the so-called Islamic caliphate declared by ISIS has played a very important role in prompting them to join the group. After 9/11, the west’s negative stereotyping of Islam couched in the narratives of the clash of civilisations and Islamophobia alienated segments of western Muslim populations. Further, Islam’s treatment as a mediaeval belief-system unable to coexist with Western liberal-secular values, and prone to violence, disillusioned a large segment of Western Muslim youth. For them, moving to Syria and Iraq was a migration, ‘Hijrah’, undertaken to find a new home and live their lives in the ‘Islamic way’. Later, the desire to defend and expand this state became an imbedded part of their so-called holy sojourn to Syria and Iraq.
The sectarian nature of Syrian and Iraqi conflicts has also galvanised a large number of volunteer fighters across the Sunni-Shia divide from the Muslim world. The ISIS jihadist ideology constitutes an anti-Shia, Pan-Sunni Islamism in the Middle East (and the world). Many Sunni foreign fighters have travelled to Iraq and Syria to fight against the present regimes of Syria and Iraq. In retaliation, Shia volunteers have gone to Syria and Iraq to protect holy shrines and relics of the sect. For the Shias, it is a fight for their survival and the existence of their creed. Iraq and Syria are home to the most sacred sites of Shia Islam in the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf.
Another reason for foreign fighters flocking to ISIS’s ranks is the group’s indiscriminate all welcoming attitude, unlike that of al Qaeda. Since its inception, al Qaeda has remained a secretive organisation, with a very strict vetting process for new recruits. Moreover, the Qaeda leadership has maintained an Arab supremacist attitude, which has prevented non-Arab jihadists from advancing into the organisational hierarchy, until recently. In glaring contrast, ISIS welcomes all Sunni Muslims and treats them as equals within the organisation.
On their return, these battle-hardened and ideologically radicalised jihadi fighters will pose immediate threats and challenges to their home countries. They have the ability to cause political unrest and plot violent attacks as lone wolves, by joining the existing militant groups or creating new ones. If history is anything to go by, the culmination of the Afghan jihad (1979-1989) resulted in the creation of al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban movement. The veterans of the Afghan jihad also spearheaded the militant uprisings in Indian Held Kashmir (IHK) and inspired uprisings in Bosnia and Chechnya.
The attraction of foreign fighters to Iraqi and Syrian battlefronts underscores the failures of the decade-long international campaign against terrorism and religious extremism. Tactically, the US and international community may have prevailed over al Qaeda but strategically they have failed to address the causes that breed radical Islamist tendencies. This calls for a comprehensive review and reappraisal of US-led counterterrorism policies. A more comprehensive counterterrorism approach with a political vision is needed.
The writer is an associate research fellow with the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies