ISISIslam “not strongest factor” driving foreign fighters to join extremists in Syria, Iraq
A new study of foreign recruits who joined Islamist groups in the Middle East shows that the overwhelming majority had no formal religious education and had not adhered to Islam for their entire lives. Jihadist groups in fact prefer recruits who are ignorant of religion because they are “less capable of critically scrutinizing the jihadi narrative and ideology” and instead adhere unquestioningly to their group’s violent and reductive interpretation of Islam, the West Point study says. Many Western recruits who travel to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamist organization are driven to join the jihadist cause because of cultural and political identities rather than Islam itself, which is moved into a “secondary role.”
A new study by the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point shows that the overwhelming majority of almost 1,200 ISIS militants surveyed had no formal religious education and had not adhered to Islam for their entire lives.
Jihadist groups in fact prefer recruits who are ignorant of religion because they are “less capable of critically scrutinizing the jihadi narrative and ideology” and instead adhere unquestioningly to their group’s violent and reductive interpretation of Islam.
The Independent reports that analysts said many Western recruits who travel to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamist organization are driven to join the jihadist cause because of cultural and political identities rather than Islam itself, which is moved into a “secondary role.”
“The ability of jihadi groups to recruit foreign fighters is thus based on creating a narrative that is focused on the ongoing deprivation of Muslims, both in specific Western polities, as well as in the international arena,” the CTC’s report says.
The study’s conclusions are in line with revelations from a large number of ISIS entry questionnaires retrieved by U.S. forces in Iraq earlier this year, which showed that the majority of foreigners joining ISIS listed their Sharia knowledge as “basic” (see “It turns out many ISIS recruits don’t know much about Islam,” Washington Post, 17 August 2016).
Two young Britons, who responded to ISIS calls for foreigners to join the group in 2014, during the high point of ISIS campaign to recruit foreign foot soldiers, ordered The Koran for Dummies andIslam for Dummies from Amazon to prepare for life in the caliphate.
The findings in the CTC study, and in other studies, also raise questions about government-led counter-radicalization policies in Europe and the United States, which have urged mosques to take a lead in combatting radicalization. The CTC’s and other studies, however, have found that religious leaders played only a “minimal role” in influencing radicalized youths. Those who joined ISIS were isolated from Muslim communities at home, and their radicalization was the result of jihadist recruiters, social media, or friends.
The CTC study examined the lives and deaths of foreign fighters who joined the ranks of Islamist groups in Syria and Iraq from 2011 to 2015. The study analyzed recruits from France, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, and twenty-five other countries.
The report notes that “Foreign fighters are not just engaging in a significant amount of fighting, but they are also doing a large amount of dying.”
About 74 percent of those surveyed had been killed in action. For U.K. fighters, the death rate stands at 66 percent for ISIS and 77 percent for al-Qaeda’s affiliate Janhat al-Nusra (which has now renamed itself as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham).
The Pentagon estimates that U.S. air strikes have killed 45,000 ISIS fighters, both foreigners and locals.
The CTC found that foreign fighters joining Islamist groups do not fit a single profile, but most were in their 20s, were unemployed or students, and had an immigrant background.
Previous studies have shown that many also have a criminal past.
Western recruits are deployed as soldiers, suicide bombers, or support personnel. They are especially valuable in propaganda roles. ISIS often uses European recruits for videos in which the recruits call on their fellow countrymen to launch attacks at home.
“For some, exposure to violence may serve to harden their belief in the organization on behalf of which they are working,” the CTC’s report said.
“For others, the brutal realities of the battlefield may be the first step in their disenchantment with an organization.
“Wrestling with how to distinguish between returnees who are hardened as opposed to those who are disillusioned, as well as what to do in either case, is a challenge that will only grow larger as fighters return in greater numbers and governments struggle to respond.”
The CTC estimates that only 10 percent of Western fighters analyzed in the study had returned to their home country. The risk of them being used in future terror operations increases the longer they stay in Islamist-held territory.
Security experts say that about 90 percent of militants were arrested after arriving back in the West, but that the rest have managed to slip through the gaps.
“While the direct return and execution of attacks is an important concern, the data here has shown that is far from the only concern,” the CTC’s report concluded.
“Unfortunately, history would suggest that the flow of foreign fighters into Syria and Iraq is unlikely to be the last time individuals decide to travel long distances to take up arms in an ongoing conflict.”
