Alberto Caballero Díez European foreign fighters in syria and iraq... JOURNAL OF THE SPANISH INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES Alberto Caballero Díez Visiting felow at CESEDEN. E-mail:
[email protected] EUROPEAN FOREIGN FIGHTERS IN SYRIA AND IRAQ: ARE THEY LIKELY TO ATTACK UPON RETURN? Abstract The study examined the likelihood whereby EU citizens who were or still are fighting in the Syrian civil conflict or the Iraqi insurgency could perpetrate an attack upon return. A comparative analysis was conducted among the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Belgium in terms of capability, intent and opportunity of their foreign fighters and returnees to pose a threat. It is argued that independent attacks by returnees are more likely to happen in France than in the UK, Germany and Belgium due to the fact that French extremist networks appear to have distanced themselves from Syria-related issues in order to avoid being banned and go undetected by the authorities. KeyWords Foreign fighter, returning fighter, returnee, plotter, jihadist, terrorist plot, independent attack, Daesh. http://revista.ieee.es/index.php/ieee 393 Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies N. 7 / 2016 EUROPEAN FOREIGN FIGHTERS IN SYRIA AND IRAQ: ARE THEY LIKELY TO ATTACK UPON RETURN? INTRODUCTION he EU authorities have estimated that between 5,000 and 6,000 European citizens and residents went to fight to the Syrian civil war.1 That amount of foreign fighters in just one conflict is unprecedented. During the 2000s for Texample only 200 Europeans joined the insurgency in Afghanistan and 100 in Iraq.2 The difference with respect to the Syrian conflict and the last outbreak of Iraqi insurgency has probably to do with the increasing use of social media we have recently seen in other events such as the Arab Spring in 2011, although this time globalization is having a negative effect.