Reports: Foreign Fighters and the Threat of Returnees

On October 24, The Soufan Center and The Global Strategy Network released the collaborative report “Beyond the Caliphate: Foreign Fighters and the Threat of Returnees” on the global threat posed by Islamic State foreign fighters returning from Iraq and Syria. According to the report, at least 5,600 men, women and children from 33 countries have already returned home. Returnees have varying reasons for going home, but all represent a major security concern for countries of origin, residence, and even third-countries. Globally, states have yet to find adequate ways to address the threat of returnees, the report says. Women and children represent a more difficult subset for states.

The Beyond the Caliphate report also draws on a manual, Responses to returnees: Foreign terrorist fighters and their families, issued by the Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) in July 2017. The manual outlines practical responses for states to address foreign fighters and their families returning from conflict zones in Iraq and Syria. The following are excerpts from both the reports.

Beyond the Caliphate: Foreign Fighters and the Threat of Returnees

Facts and Figures

“A Pew survey published on August 1, 2017, found that the fear of an attack by the so-called Islamic State (IS) ranked first in global concerns, just above climate change.”

“Over 40,000 foreigners….flocked to join IS from more than 110 countries both before and after the declaration of the caliphate in June 2014.”

“Earlier this year, in February, President Putin said that 10% of the 9,000 foreign fighters from Russia and former republics of the Soviet Union had returned.”

“Other countries, for example in South East Asia, have not only seen an influx of returnees, but also a certain number of foreign fighters who appear to have chosen to go there rather than return to their own homes, whether or not advised to do so by IS leaders.”

 

“Between the declaration of the caliphate in June 2014 and February 2017, IS conducted or inspired around 143 terrorist attacks in 29 countries, causing the death of over 2,000 people and injuring many more.”

“It is highly likely that even as the territorial caliphate shrinks and is increasingly denied an overt presence, its leadership will look to supporters overseas, including returnees, to keep the brand alive.”

“Most returnees will be unlikely to experience anything in their lives at home that matches the intensity of their experience as a member of IS, whether or not they were fighting on the front line.”

“Returnees may be particularly vulnerable to contact from people who were part of the network that recruited them, or appeals for help from ex-comrades in arms. It seems probably that the influence and involvement of returnees will grow as their numbers increase.”

 

“As of mid-June 2017, the Turkish authorities, having persuaded other States to help them monitor the increasing flow of foreigners passing through Turkey to Syria, had recorded the names of 53,781 individuals from 146 countries whose State of residence feared they might attempt to join the fight in Syria and Iraq.”

“France foiled twelve attacks between January and September 2017; in a nine-week period between April and June 2017, the United Kingdom saw three successful and five foiled plots; Germany suffered five attacks in 2016, and has seen more since then.”

“In the United States, over 250 Americans have either tried to travel abroad or have succeeded in trav­eling to IS territory to fight within its military ranks. Of the 129 who have left the United States, 7 have returned from IS territory. Overall, the United States has charged 135 individuals for terrorism offenses relating to IS, with 77 convicted thus far.”

“Like al-Qaeda, IS has maintained meticulous records of its membership, administrative orders and deployments, and there has been a considerable international effort to col­lect and share this information, especially the details and origins of its fighters. By September 2017, INTERPOL had collected the names of around 19,000 people who were confirmed to have joined IS, along with detailed identifying particulars.”

“Lists recovered in Iraq in 2017 suggested that at that time, there were potentially 173 members of IS prepared to commit a sui­cide bombing; six of whom were Europeans. By then, their fate was unknown, as were their whereabouts.”

On Women and Children

“Some of the 600+ members of the all-female Al Khansaa unit in Raqqa claimed to have taken part in torture and to have enjoyed doing so.”

“An August 2017 report from The Heritage Foundation noted a marked jump in the involvement of women in terrorist plots in Europe over the previous two years, finding that in the five months to May 2017, seven terrorist plots in Europe, or 23 per cent of the total, had involved women, a similar figure to the previous year but a marked increase over 2014 and 2015 when the numbers had been only 13 per cent and 5 per cent respectively.”

“The caliphate has regarded anyone over 15 as an adult, but children as young as nine have been trained to use weapons and taught to kill.”

 

“From 2014 to 2016, IS is believed to have recruited and trained more than 2,000 boys between the ages of nine and 15 as Cubs of the caliph­ate.”

“In June 2017, Euro– Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor reported that IS had recruited over 1,000 children for military training, including as suicide bombers.”

“Although outside the immediate scope of this paper, between April 2011 and July 2017, IS in West Africa, otherwise known as Boko Haram, ‘deployed 434 bombers to 247 different targets during 238 suicide-bomb­ing attacks. At least 56% of these bombers were women, and at least 81 bombers were specifically identified as children or teenagers.’”

Responses to returnees: Foreign terrorist fighters and their families

Facts and Figures

“More than 42,000 foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) have travelled to join Daesh from over 120 countries (between 2011-2016).”

“More than 5,000 FTFs have departed from Europe. Many of these left from Belgium, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, but significant numbers also left from Austria, Denmark, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden.”

“The average percentage of FTFs returning to Europe is around 30%, but the figure is higher for Denmark, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Nearly half of FTFs from these countries have returned.”

“The terrorist attacks in Brussles in May 2014 (Jewish Museum) and March 2016 (airport and metro station), as well as the multiple attacks in Paris in November 2015, were all atrocities perpetrated to some degree by FTF returnees.”

“In the Paris attacks, at least six of the perpetrators were FTFs returning from Syria, while three out of five Brussels attackers were FTF returnees.”

“Between 2014-2016, there were 42 terrorist attacks against the West, of which 38 involved some connections between Daesh and the terrorists who carried out the attacks.”

“Recruits are helped across the border by Daesh facilitators; they are interviewed or interrogated, filling in recruitment forms to cross-verify who had facilitated the journey and providing other verifiable personal details. These forms include 23 data fields.”

“Foreign fighter testimonies reveal that recruits are then separated according to Daesh-identified specific skillsets that determine whether the recruit will, after training camp, take up frontline duties or more specialised roles.”

On Women and Children

“The recruitment of women to Daesh usually occurs through social media and during social activities such as childcare, the preparation of food and attending activist demonstrations.”

“It is also clear that women play an active role in disseminating Daesh propaganda on social media to attract more female recruits.”

“The Dutch counter terrorism coordinater estimates that at least 80 children with a Dutch connection live within Daesh-held territory in Syria and Iraq. Of these 80 known children, 30% are between four and eight yeras old and around half of them are aged three or younger.”

“According to French officials, there are around 460 French minors in Daesh claimed territory, with half of them under the age of five and a third born there. Belgian officials reported around 78 Belgian minors in Daesh-claimed territory.”

“According to the Daesh manifesto ‘Women of the Islamic State: Manifesto and Case study’, girls can marry at the age of nine and at the latest at the age of 16 or 17 years old. They should not work.”