The forces fighting the remnants of the Islamic State group in Syria have tacit instructions on dealing with the foreigners who joined the extremist group by the thousands: Kill them on the battlefield.
As they made their last stand in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, an estimated 300 extremists holed up in and around a sports stadium and a hospital argued among themselves about whether to surrender, according to Kurdish commanders leading the forces that closed in. The final days were brutal – 75 coalition airstrikes in 48 hours and a flurry of desperate IS car bombs that were easily spotted in the sliver of devastated landscape still under militant control.
No government publicly expressed concern about the fate of its citizens who left and joined the Islamic State fighters plotting attacks at home and abroad. In France, which has suffered repeated violence claimed by the Islamic State – including the Nov. 13, 2015, attacks in Paris – Defence Minister Florence Parly was among
the few to say it aloud.
"If the jihadis perish in this fight, I would say that's for the best," Parly told Europe 1 radio last week.
Those were the orders, according to the U.S.
"Our mission is to make sure that any foreign fighter who is here, who joined ISIS from a foreign country and came into Syria, they will die here in Syria," said Brett McGurk, the top U.S. envoy for the anti-IS coalition, in an interview with Dubai-based Al-Aan television.
"So if they're in Raqqa, they're going to die in Raqqa," he said.
The coalition has given names and photos to the Kurdish fighters to identify the foreign jihadis, who are seen as a threat back home and a burden on their justice systems, according to a commander with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The commander said his U.S.-backed fighters are checking for wanted men among the dead or the few foreigners among the captured.
An official with the powerful YPG, the backbone of the SDF that also runs the local security and intelligence branches, said foreigners who decided to fight until the end will be "eliminated." For the few prisoners, the Kurds try to reach out to the home countries, "and we try to hand them in. But many would not want to take their (detainees)," he said. Both men spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the sensitive issue with reporters.
No country will admit to refusing to take back citizens who joined the Islamic State, including women and their children. But few are making much of an effort to recover them.
In Iraq, hundreds of Islamic State fighters have surrendered or have been taken into custody and their families have been rounded up into detention camps. The men are put on trial and face the death penalty if convicted of terrorism charges – even if they are foreigners. One Russian fighter has already been hanged.
France, which routinely intervenes when citizens abroad face capital punishment, has said nothing about its jihadis in Iraq. More French joined the group, also known by its Arab acronym Daesh, than any other European country.
Foreigners captured by Kurdish forces are in a more precarious position because the SDF doesn't answer to Syria's government and has no state of its own. A Syrian woman whose French husband surrendered to Kurdish authorities in June said she had no access to him and didn't know where he was 50 days after they separated. She denied her husband was an IS fighter.
The camps for displaced civilians from Raqqa contain only foreign women and children. As for the fate of any French citizens there, France's Foreign Ministry had a short response: "Our priority today is to achieve a complete victory over Daesh." German diplomats say all of the country's citizens are entitled to consular assistance.
As the final battle in Raqqa drew to a close, Parly estimated a few hundred French fighters were still in the war zone. For Germany, about 600 men were unaccounted for.
Britain has not said how many of its former citizens are believed still fighting, but at least one holdout posted a furious 72-minute monologue earlier this month from Raqqa as airstrikes and artillery fire boomed behind him. He said Muslims around the world should be outraged at the treatment of Islamic State's followers.
"This is not me being an extremist. I'm a very moderate, mild person, hamdullah (thanks to God) and I find Islamic State to be very moderate and mild," said the man, who called himself as Abu Adam al-Britani and was identified by British media as Yasser Iqbal, a Porsche-driving lawyer who defended Islamic State's brutal practices as ordained by God, including killing non-Muslims and dissenting Muslims. He did not mention the group's routine public beheadings, enslavement of women or brainwashing of children to become hardened killers.
At its height, between 27,000 and 31,000 may have travelled to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State group, according to an analysis by the Soufan Group. Of those, about 6,000 were from Europe, with most from France, Germany and Britain. A majority had immigrant backgrounds and was heavily targeted by the group's propaganda, which highlighted the injustices they faced at home. One study found that fewer than 10 percent of the Western fighters were converts to Islam.
As many as a third of the Europeans may have returned home. Many are jailed immediately and awaiting trial in backlogged courts, but others are freed and under surveillance.
Raqqa's foreign holdouts are generally acknowledged to be midlevel IS recruits and most are believed to have little information about the group's inner workings. U.S. Col. Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the coalition, said he had no information about any "high-value targets" among approximately 350 fighters who surrendered in Raqqa in the last days, including a few foreigners.
But for their home countries, they pose a risk.
"The general sentiment in northern Europe is we don't want these people back, but I don't think anyone has thought about the alternatives," said Pieter Van Ostaeyen, an expert on the Belgian jihadis.
Among the complications are how to prosecute any returnees and how to track them if and when they leave custody.
"You can see why almost the preferred resolution is that they don't return," said Bruce Hoffman, head of Georgetown University's security studies program and author of "Inside Terrorism."
"What worries me is I think it's wishful thinking that they're all going to be killed off," he added.
Wishful thinking or not, Parly said it's the best outcome.
"We cannot do anything to prevent their return besides neutralise the maximum number of jihadis in this combat," she said.
Source: The Associated Press, October 24, 2017
IS foreign fighters: 5,600 have returned home - report
At least 5,600 supporters of so-called Islamic State (IS) have returned to their home countries as it loses ground in Iraq and Syria, a new report says.
The Soufan Center, a US-based think tank, says 33 states have reported arrivals in the past two years.
The figure includes half of the estimated 850 people who left the UK.
The report says the returnees - most of whom are imprisoned or disappear from view - will continue to present a security challenge for years to come.
IS has lost much of the territory that once made up the "caliphate" it proclaimed in June 2014, attracting thousands of jihadists from across the world.
Last week, US-backed alliance of Syrian Kurdish and Arab fighters said they had taken full control of Raqqa, the jihadists' de facto capital.
The Soufan Center's report says the flow of foreign fighters came to a virtual standstill in late 2015, as IS began to suffer defeats and states implemented better measures to prevent travel.
The recovery of data following the fall of IS administrative centres such as Raqqa has helped confirm the identities of 19,000 of the more than 40,000 foreigners from 110 countries estimated to have flocked to Iraq and Syria to join the jihadist group.
The data does not, however, reveal what has happened to them.
Citing figures provided by the authorities in 33 countries, the Soufan Center says at least 5,600 foreign fighters are now believed to have returned home.
They include 400 of the 3,417 fighters from Russia; 760 of the 3,244 from Saudi Arabia; 800 of the 2,926 from Tunisia; and 271 of the 1,910 from France.
Added to the unknown numbers from other countries, this represents a huge challenge for security and law enforcement entities, according to the report.
"Although there is disagreement over the threat that returning foreign fighters may present to their countries of residence or origin, or to other countries they pass through, it is inevitable that some will remain committed to the form of violent 'jihad'," it says.
The report warns that as the territorial "caliphate" shrinks and is increasingly denied an overt presence, the IS leadership is highly likely to look to supporters overseas, including returnees, to "keep the brand alive".
"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."
Returnee women and children represent a particular problem, as states struggle to understand how best to reintegrate them, the report adds. Proper mental health and social support mechanisms will be especially relevant for children.
The Soufan Center noted that Tunisia's government had revised down the number of Tunisians believed to joined IS from 6,000 in 2015 to 2,920. That change meant Russia was the home of the most foreign fighters.
The head of the UK Security Service, MI5, told the BBC last week that fewer than expected of the 800 Britons who joined IS had returned recently and that at least 130 had been killed.
Those who were still in Syria and Iraq might not now attempt to come back because they knew they might be arrested, Andrew Parker said.
Source:
BBC News, October 24, 2017
Jihad: Toulouse boy's name leads to France dilemma
Is it acceptable to name your baby "Jihad" in France, which has suffered Europe's worst Islamist terror attacks in recent years?
France's chief prosecutor now has to wrestle with that question after a couple's chosen name for their son was referred by authorities in Toulouse.
In turn, the French judge for family issues may have to rule on the case.
"Jihad" in Arabic means "effort" or "struggle", not specifically "holy war".
French law does not restrict parents' name choices for their children, provided a name does not harm the child's interests and is not opposed by other family members on reputational grounds.
The Toulouse boy called "Jihad" was born in August. Previously, other boys have been allowed to keep that name in France.
The term "jihadists" is commonly used to describe Islamist militants, such as those who carry out terror attacks in the name of so-called Islamic State (IS).
Since the start of 2015, Islamist militants have killed more than 230 people in France, where a state of emergency remains in force.
In 2013 a mother in the French city of Nimes was given a one-month suspended jail term and a €2,000 (£1,783; $2,353) fine after sending her three-year-old boy called Jihad to school in a T-shirt bearing the words "I am a bomb" and "Jihad, born on 11 September".
The sentence was for the "provocative" T-shirt, which referenced the 9/11 terror attacks in the US, but not for the name "Jihad".
Source:
BBC News, October 24, 2017
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