Terrorism has arguably been one of the defining factors of our age. It frequently makes headlines, threatening or attacking governments, private business and ordinary citizens. And in many parts of the world, it has been one of the most important threats to peace, security and stability. But what does this exactly mean? What is the nature of this threat? Who or what is threatened, how, by whom and why? What can be done about it or how can we at least limit the impact of terrorism and make sure that terrorists do not make headlines and manage to scare us? These are just a handful of questions that will be addressed in this course that consists of three parts. First it focuses on the essence of terrorism as an instrument to achieve certain goals, in addition to an exploration of this phenomenon and the difficulties in defining it. The second part provides an overview of the state of the art in (counter) terrorism studies. Since ‘9/11’ terrorism studies have grown exponentially, reflecting the rise in perceived threats. But what has academia come up with? What theories, assumptions and conventional wisdom has it produced that could be of help in understanding terrorism and dealing with it? The most interesting results are examined and compared with empirical evidence with the aim to either stress their importance or to debunk them as myths. The final part looks into the implications and possibilities for policy making. The course ends with a module specifically designed to address one of today's most topical issue: the foreign fighter phenomenon.
6.1 Why is it Making Headlines?
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From the course by Universiteit Leiden
Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Comparing Theory and Practice
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From the lesson
Making Headlines Today - Foreign Fighters
The final module of this course will look into a highly topical and politically sensitive issue of today: foreign fighters. Since the beginning of the civil war, high numbers of foreign fighters have joined the struggle, including many from Western countries. In this module, we will see who these people are and why they are going. Also, we will discuss to what extent these fighters pose a threat and which policy options are available to address this phenomenon.
Meet the Instructors
Edwin BakkerProf. dr.
Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Leiden University
Jeanine de Roy van Zuijdewijndrs.
Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Leiden University
[MUSIC]
Hi there, this is week six of the course Terrorism and Counterterrorism,
Comparing Theory and Practice.
In this week we're going to discuss the issue of foreign fighters.
Last week we discussed how to deal with terrorism and
the impact of terrorism and terrorism related incidents.
We looked into under-researched topics and the future of terrorism.
Previously that was the last part of this course.
But in light of developments in Syria and Iraq, and given the global impact of
the foreign fighter phenomenon, we decided to add these videos to the course.
Because it's highly topical and
I think it deserves to be part of this course on terrorism.
This is the number one issue on many security agendas around the world.
So what are we going to discuss this week?
This week we are going to look into the question,
why is it making headlines today?
What makes it so relevant?
What's so important about this phenomenon of foreign fighters?
Then we'll look into the foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq.
Questions like why do they go, what are they doing out there, will be addressed.
And then third, we’re going to look into
different foreign fighting groups that are active in Syria and Iraq.
And we look at foreign fighters as a potential threat.
Do they pose a threat over there or in the countries of origin?
And then, finally, we look into policy options.
We do so using the UN counterterrorism strategy as a guideline.
Why is it making headlines today?
Well, it's very much related to the Syrian uprising and the civil war in Iraq.
Well, in Syria, a number of demonstrations in 2011 and
in 2012 turned into a civil war between, on the one hand, the regime of Assad, and
many opponents who wanted to get rid of that regime.
But also many joined from outside Syria, so-called foreign fighters.
Estimates vary, mid-2016, the number was believed to be about
30,000 foreign fighters that had traveled to Syria and neighboring Iraq.
Europol, the European Union's law enforcement agency,
estimated in that same year that about 5,000 Europeans are part of that figure.
So it's making headlines because of its international nature but also because
of the fact that it's a very bloody civil war causing a lot of casualties.
People being killed,
large numbers of refugees that try to find a safe place, and so on.
Add to that the fear that some of these foreign fighters might return to their
countries of origin and also start making trouble out there.
So what do we know about these people, and why do they go?
So what about research into this phenomenon of foreign fighters.
Well, first, how to define it?
I like the definition by David Malet, who defines foreign fighters as
noncitizens of conflict states who join insurgencies during civil conflicts.
Basically it's about people that are not part of that country that go to another
country to join the fight over there, and this phenomenon is not new at all.
Let me focus on Europeans but also others that joined a foreign fight in the past.
Think of Spanish Civil War,
many people from around the world came to Spain in the 1930s.
Here you see a picture of Hemingway,
the famous American writer who also joined that civil war.
Well, he and other fighters joined either the conservative Franco side or
the leftist side with the international brigades.
Which received around 40,000 foreign fighters.
Hemingway was part of the latter group.
Well, another example from the 1930s was the invasion of Finland
by the Soviet Union in 1938, the so-called Winter War.
The big Red Army against small Finland.
Nobody, no other country went to the aid of Finland.
But thousands of volunteers did, mainly from Scandinavian countries, Sweden,
Denmark, Norway, but also from Britain, Germany, Hungary and other states.
And then more recent examples, Afghanistan.
Also after the invasion of the Soviet Union, 1979,
when a lot of people came to the aid of the Afghans as Muslim fighters that wanted
to defend after the country had been attacked by the Soviet Union.
And also another example from the past is Bosnia, in the early 1990s.
There were a lot of people who came to the aid of the Bosnians and
Bosnian government, and also some to other sides that were involved in its civil war.
Well, what do we know about this phenomenon?
What do we know from research?
If I have to recommend one general study about foreign fighters,
it's the book by David Malet.
Here you see the cover,
title is Foreign Fighters: Transnational Identity in Civil Conflicts.
Malet collected data on foreign fighters and
looked into civil conflicts between 1815 and 2005.
And he discovered in the 331 cases that he studied that there were at least
70 of them featuring foreign fighters, so it's not a new phenomenon.
And it's happening in 70 out of more than 300 cases in the past.
But there are surprisingly few studies.
And most studies on foreign fighters are case studies about countries or
single cases, individuals.
And they're mainly descriptive in nature, and look at numbers and trends, but
there are no general explanations for this phenomenon.
And, again, the exception to the rule is the book by Malet.
A few more exceptions.
A study by Mustapha about the mujahideen in Bosnia that describes foreign
fighters as cosmopolitan citizens and/or terrorists.
And a book by Marc Sageman, very well known book, Understanding Terror Networks,
that partly looked into foreign fighters in Afghanistan.
But who are these people?
What does the individual foreign fighter look like?
Well, we know very little about foreign fighters on the individual level.
What's the motivation of persons to go and join a fight abroad?
There's also little known about what happens to them after their return,
or after their reintegration.
We know that thousands of people in the past have gone to places to fight,
as foreign fighters.
Some have died, but many have returned.
But how, what happened afterwards?
And what have they done after their return?
There's not so much written about the organizational aspects and obstacles.
How do you manage to get to a foreign country?
People might want to join a group but how do you make that happen?
Are they accepted or not?
And we also know very little about why some persons might have had the idea, or
even express the idea that I'm going to join the fight, but
in the end for certain reasons they did not go.
We can draw some conclusions on the yet relatively limited body of knowledge.
While these conclusions are not very surprising, they go for ideological or
religious reasons, or politically religious reasons.
It's often organized or part of a larger movement, a trans-national movement.
And they're mainly young.
And they're mainly male.
And most historical cases are case in which governments or
governmental actors directly or indirectly sponsored it.
Well, after 2012, you could say our understanding of the phenomenon
foreign fighters has improved or has been updated.
There's a lot more recent interest in the study of foreign fighters.
We see a sudden increase in publications, reports, etc.
Mainly by governmental agencies, think tanks and consultants, and
relatively few scholars, at least until recently.
We also see that many of these studies,
especially from the West, are alarmist in nature.
They focus on the potential threat to the countries of origin.
And they're very policy-oriented, focusing on prevention, the return and
reintegration of foreign fighters.
There seems to be less attention for the impact on the ground in Syria and
Iraq and elsewhere.
To what extent do these foreign fighters contribute to the atrocities?
Are they a fighting force to be reckoned with or are they just cannon fodder or
a nuisance to these fighting groups?
Or are they very important mainly for propaganda reasons?
And also an important question is are they accepted by the local population or not?
They claim to defend these people but
do these people want to be defended by these foreign fighters?
Well we can explain the boom in studies and
reports as these are pressing issues that governments face.
And they provided funds to do research.
Well, we at Leiden University and at the ICCT have done so
by looking at the phenomena from many different angles.
From the impact that this phenomenon has on inter and intrafaith relations,
to the role of parents and communities, to the international dimension,
the military and diplomatic side of it.
Well research is also possible and
very interesting because of the possibility to have access to key players.
The foreign fighters themselves.
We discovered with my team that it's actually surprising how many of them want
to talk to you or people that have had the intention to go want to talk to you
either directly or by way of social media.
Well this has changed a bit in the last few years, now that an increasing number
of foreign fighters have been convicted for terrorism.
So they're a lot less open now of course about what they are doing there
then they were, for instance, in 2013 and 2014.
But it's still possible to talk to them.
To sum up, foreign fighters are not a new phenomenon.
But it's surprisingly under researched at least until recently.
There has been a boom after 2012 because of the situation in Syria and
later also in Iraq.
And it's actually quite surprising how many opportunities there are to
study today's foreign fighters.
In the next video, we'll look into foreign fighters in the Middle East.
Who are these people, and why did they go to join the fight out there?
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