“Picking a Side,” The Western Muhajirat of ISIS: What the Women Want, What ISIS Wants with Them, and What Western Governments Can Do About It By: Katherine M. Kelley B.S. in Computer Science and International Relations, December 2002, The College of William and Mary A Thesis submitted to The Faculty of The Elliot School of International Affairs of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts May 15, 2016 Thesis directed by Joanna Spear Associate Professor of International Affairs Table of Contents 1. Introduction and Literature Review ............................................................................... 1 - Defining Terms .................................................................................................. 3 - Women in Past Conflicts ................................................................................... 5 - Literature Review ............................................................................................ 11 - Overview of Paper ........................................................................................... 15 2. A Closer Look at the Muhajirat of ISIS ...................................................................... 19 - General Characteristics ................................................................................... 22 - Case Studies of Women Fighters .................................................................... 28 - Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 35 3. Why ISIS Wants Western Women .............................................................................. 41 - Mixed Messages .............................................................................................. 43 - The Benefits the Muhajirat Provides to ISIS .................................................. 45 A. Media Coverage of the Muhajirat .................................................... 45 B. Building the Caliphate ..................................................................... 48 C. Depicting a Normal State ................................................................ 51 D. Exploiting the Commitment of the Muhajirat ................................ 53 - The Future of the Muhajirat in ISIS ............................................................... 57 4. Western Efforts to Stop the Flow of Recruits to ISIS .................................................. 63 - State-Sponsored Counter Messaging Programs .............................................. 67 - Community-Based Prevention Programs ......................................................... 71 - Individual (One-on-One) Interventions ........................................................... 75 ii - Methods of Radicalization… ......................................................................... 79 - Addressing the Returnees ................................................................................... 81 - Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 84 5. Conclusion and Recommendations .............................................................................. 88 - Recommendations for Improvements in Government Programs ....................... 89 - Recommendations for Future Study… ............................................................... 92 6. Works Cited ................................................................................................................. 95 -- Appendix A: Spreadsheet of the Western Muhajirat Associated with ISIS iii List of Tables Table 1: Western Women Affiliated with ISIS .............................................................. 22 iv Chapter 1: Introduction and Literature Review Thousands of foreign fighters have flocked to Syria and Iraq since the beginning of the hostilities in this region; while figures vary and may be somewhat unreliable given incomplete intelligence on this issue, some studies indicate that as many as 30,000 foreign fighters have traveled to Syria since 2011. A significant number of these fighters, approximately 7,500, have come from Europe and Turkey, and over 250 have traveled from the United States.1 The Global Terrorism Index, which provided those statistics in mid-2015, indicated that the flows of foreign fighters into Syria and Iraq was not slowing down, as approximately 7,000 foreign fighters had arrived in that region during the first 2 six months of 2015. Many of these fighters are joining the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), the organization that has taken control of large sections of territory in both Iraq and Syria. After securing these sections of territory in 2014, ISIS also declared the re-establishment of the Islamic Caliphate under the leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, aka Caliph Ibrahim al-Baghdadi, and called for Muslims around the world to travel there and take part in this new and utopian society. The ISIS spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, claimed “it is a dream that lives in the depths of every Muslim believer… it is the 3 caliphate.” As shown by the estimated figures of foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq, this call to travel to join the Caliphate has clearly resonated among Muslim communities worldwide. Foreign fighters joining Islamic extremist organizations is not a new issue; as many as 20,000 foreign fighters are believed to have traveled to Afghanistan over the course of 1 the conflict in the 1980s.4 The conflict in Syria and Iraq has introduced a new dimension to the foreign fighter issue, however, in that approximately 10-12% of the individuals traveling to Syria and Iraq from western countries are women. This includes approximately 70 women from France, 60 from the United Kingdom, 30 from the Netherlands, and even several from the United States.5 The introduction of western women migrants into this conflict leads to several questions including what the motivations are for western women to join ISIS and also why ISIS is trying to attract western women. This paper will seek to address both of these questions, and will highlight the differences that exist in the expectations of the migrant women and the realities ISIS has planned for them when they arrive in Syria and Iraq. While this paper will seek to use first-hand statements from both ISIS and western women fighters when possible, it is currently not possible to obtain direct access to women involved with ISIS given legitimate security concerns. Many of the western women cited in this work are currently or have been heavily involved with social media propaganda efforts for ISIS, but this is at times an unreliable mechanism for tracking these women. First, these accounts are likely sanctioned to some degree by ISIS, even if they are not official ISIS accounts, and therefore provide a biased view of life in ISIS territory. Given the view that ISIS generally holds of the role that women should play in society coupled with ISIS’s control over their territory, ISIS authorities would be able to halt the online activities of women who were not aligning to their general messages. Further, social media accounts are often disabled by the social media sites (Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, among others) when they are known to be directly advocating violence, making it difficult to find accounts that may have been used in the past by 2 women associated with ISIS. Also, the hacktivist group known as “Anonymous” has been disabling social media accounts they believe are affiliated with ISIS following the attacks in Paris on 13 November 2015.6 Some academic researchers and journalists have attempted to engage with the western women who have traveled to ISIS-controlled territory directly on social media, and those works are included because they provide some key insights that are not available in public statements made by these women on social media. In general, however, the literature on women terrorists relies heavily on 7 “theory, secondhand data, or sources that cannot be verified.” Defining Terms: Before delving into the issue of western women and foreign fighters, it is important to define key terms that will be used throughout this paper. First, as the central part of this work, the western women traveling to ISIS-controlled territory will be referred to as women migrants or muhajirat, a Qu’ranic name referring to “one who avoids or abandons bad things” or “migrant.” Most reporting from ISIS-controlled territory indicates that women are not being encouraged to fight upon their arrival in Syria and Iraq, and therefore the term “foreign fighters” would inaccurately suggest that these women are actually participating in the fighting. Further, the western women identify themselves using the term muhajirat on social media, “indicating in this way a discontent with their previous living environment (the West), an impellent drive to move to a place of ideal perfection (the Caliphate), and the religious motivation for seeking change.”8 As this is both the most accurate description of these women and also how these women refer to themselves, it is the most appropriate term to describe them in this work. 3 Several terms have been used to describe ISIS in the media, political discourse, and academic literature including ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and the Islamic State. While ISIS currently refers to itself as the Islamic State, this term is somewhat ambiguous; many states in the Arab world, such as Saudi Arabia