revistaieee7

Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies Núm. 7 / 2016
case of foreign fighters in Syria. The authors argue that Belgium and Germany have
set up tailored initiatives aimed at the reintegration of returnees who are not prosecuted,
whereas in France and the United Kingdom there appear to be little efforts to
reintegrate foreign fighters upon return. 11 Overall, in order to weight the level of threat
posed by returnees, the authorities should evaluate them on a case-by-case basis and
find out why they went to Syria, what they did or happened to them there, and why
they returned. The main reason why most of the foreign fighters have gone to Syria
would be to defend its Muslim community either by fighting or by providing humanitarian
aid. 12 However, some of the fighters who join Daesh are sent to Iraq by the organization,
regardless their intention is to stay or not in Syria. From statements made
by some Muslim clerics such as Ammar al-Hakeem, Head of the Islamic Supreme
Council of Iraq, one can deduce that foreign fighters compose about 30% of Daesh
forces in Syria and 10% in Iraq. 13 In addition, a second and sometimes complementary
reason why many fighters have joined the conflict would be to live in a ‘caliphate’
under the strict application of Sharia.
Once the individuals who travel to Syria or Iraq are integrated in a terrorist organization,
they are susceptible to further radicalization by interacting in groups. Thus,
the initial idea of just helping Muslims who are under attack could suddenly turn
to the perception that conducting attacks in Europe is legitimate. In this line, it is
necessary to distinguish between individuals who joined the Free Syrian Army (FSA),
which only has the purpose of defeating the Assad regime, and those who ended up
in jihadist groups such as Daesh or al-Nusra, which have an anti-Western ideology.
Furthermore, foreign fighters who experience a stressful event or situation of an exceptionally
threatening or catastrophic nature may suffer from Post-traumatic stress
disorder, which is already one of the main causes of violent behavior in conventional
war veterans. 14 Many of the Europeans fighting in Daesh have a greater probability of
experiencing this sort of trauma than if they had joined another organization since
that one is by far the most violent of all of them. Finally, some individuals are stripped
of their radical views as a consequence of having left the group rather than that being
a cause for leaving. 15 However, most of the returnees are disappointed and the reason
for coming back is because what they have seen in Syria or Iraq did not match what
they expected to find.
11 CSS ETH ZURICH. Foreign fighters: an overview of responses in eleven countries, 2014.
12 BARRET, Richard. Foreign fighters in Syria, The Soufan Group, 2014.
13 REUTERS. Saddam’s former army is secret of Baghdadi’s success, 2015.
14 MACMANUS, Deirdre. Aggressive and Violent Behavior Among Military Personnel Deployed
to Iraq and Afghanistan: Prevalence and Link With Deployment and Combat Exposure, Oxford
Journals, 2014.
15 HOLMER, Georgia. What to do when foreign fighters come home, Foreign Policy Magazine,
2015.
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