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Fearing the Western Muslim Foreign Fighter FEARING THE WESTERN MUSLIM FOREIGN FIGHTER THE CONNECTION BETWEEN FIGHTING THE DEFENSIVE JIHAD AND TERRORIST ACTIVITY IN THE WEST Jeanine de Roy van Zuijdewijn A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Internationale Betrekkingen in Historisch Perspectief, Universiteit Utrecht. Supervisor: Dr. M.L.L. Segers This thesis has been written as a capstone of the selective MA Internationale Betrekkingen in Historisch Perspectief (International Relations in Historical Perspective) of Utrecht University. A special thanks to my supervisor dr. Mathieu Segers and the external support of prof. dr. Edwin Bakker (Leiden University), to Tom Buitelaar for proofreading it and to everyone who has been of help in the process of researching, writing and editing, including mental support offered by colleagues, friends and family. Utrecht, January 2014 Contact: [email protected] © Jeanine de Roy van Zuijdewijn ABSTRACT This thesis started with the observation that many Western countries are worried about the high number of Western Muslim foreign fighters currently fighting in Syria. The concern is that these fighters might return radicalised and battle-hardened and decide to mount a terrorist attack. The purpose of this study was to investigate to what extent these fighters have indeed been directly involved in jihadist-inspired terrorist plots and attacks in Europe in the past. Instead of presenting a threat assessment of the risk posed by the current fighters, this thesis thus investigated historical examples of Western Muslim foreign fighting. The first approach examined the presence of foreign fighters in the most serious terrorist attacks and plots in Europe between 1994 and 2013 by means of compiling a database. The second approach focused on foreign fighters in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Somalia. This resulted in a typology of foreign fighters based on their post-conflict behaviour, consisting of five types: the martyr, the veteran, the recruiter, the reintegrated fighter and the terrorist. These results showed that the threat posed by Western Muslim foreign fighters in terms of direct involvement in terrorist attacks and plots in Europe has been rather low and certainly lower than what is now being portrayed. However, this study also pointed at some important exceptions and, unfortunately, it only takes one foreign fighter to launch a deadly attack. Thus, this thesis should not be regarded as a prediction of the future threat posed by Muslims fighting in Syria. The main contribution of this thesis has been academic: it challenged existing figures on foreign fighters and tried to address the current lack of knowledge. Still, a more nuanced and evidence-based view of the Western Muslim foreign fighters in the past could also be helpful to better understand the current risk posed by Western Muslims fighting in Syria and perhaps serve as a starting point to look at possible strategies of how (not) to counter this issue. i CONTENT ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................................ i GLOSSARY ...................................................................................................................................... iv LIST OF IMPORTANT EVENTS ..................................................................................................... v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Who is concerned and why? ..................................................................................................... 1 1.2 International phenomenon ........................................................................................................ 2 1.3 Operationalisation ..................................................................................................................... 4 1.3.1 Foreign fighter : terrorist ratio and the typology................................................................ 8 CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ............................................................................. 15 2.1 Literature review ..................................................................................................................... 15 2.2 Need for a new approach ........................................................................................................ 25 2.3 Motivation: does it matter? ..................................................................................................... 28 CHAPTER 3: FROM THE CRUSADES TO THE MUJAHIDEEN .............................................. 31 3.1 Islam and the concept of defensive mobilisation .................................................................... 32 3.2 Join the caravan – Afghanistan and beyond ........................................................................... 34 CHAPTER 4: APPROACH 1 - FOREIGN FIGHTER: TERRORIST RATIO ............................... 38 4.1 Overview of existing databases .............................................................................................. 39 4.2 Plot selection ........................................................................................................................... 41 4.3 The results ............................................................................................................................... 44 4.3.1 Two corrections ............................................................................................................... 45 4.3.2 The lethal plots................................................................................................................. 47 CHAPTER 5: APPROACH 2 - FOREIGN FIGHTERS IN PAST CONFLICTS ........................... 48 5.1 Afghanistan ............................................................................................................................. 49 5.1.1 The Soviet occupation ..................................................................................................... 49 5.1.2 Recruitment ...................................................................................................................... 50 5.1.3 Western fighters? ............................................................................................................. 51 5.1.4 The aftermath ................................................................................................................... 53 ii 5.2 Bosnia ..................................................................................................................................... 55 5.2.1 A gift from heaven ........................................................................................................... 55 5.2.2 El Mujahid ....................................................................................................................... 58 5.2.3 Western fighters – the importance of firebrand clerics .................................................... 60 5.2.4 And then? ......................................................................................................................... 63 5.3 Somalia ................................................................................................................................... 66 5.3.1 Western fighters – the United States and Canada ............................................................ 68 5.3.2 Western fighters – Europe ............................................................................................... 70 5.3.3 The internet ...................................................................................................................... 72 5.3.4 Somalia: Afghanistan or Bosnia 2.0? ............................................................................... 75 5.4 Other conflicts ........................................................................................................................ 76 5.4.1 Chechnya ......................................................................................................................... 76 5.4.2 The failure of Iraq ............................................................................................................ 77 CHAPTER 6: A FIRST TYPOLOGY OF THE FOREIGN FIGHTER ........................................... 79 6.1 The types based on post-conflict behaviour ........................................................................ 81 CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................... 86 7.1 The first approach ................................................................................................................... 86 7.2 The second approach .............................................................................................................. 89 7.3 The impact of small numbers .................................................................................................. 91 CHAPTER 8: DISCUSSION............................................................................................................ 94 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................. 99 APPENDICES ................................................................................................................................ 113 Appendix I - Typical problems when returning from battlefield ...............................................
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