Interview

‘Western jihadists follow their friends to Syria’

Counter-terrorism expert Peter Neumann says that legal prosecution cannot be the sole solution for returning European fighters

Elhanan Miller is the former Arab affairs reporter for The Times of Israel

An image grab taken from a video released by the Islamic State (IS) and identified by private terrorism monitor SITE Intelligence Group on September 2, 2014 purportedly shows a masked militant holding a knife and gesturing as he speaks to the camera in a desert landscape before beheading 31-year-old US freelance writer Steven Sotloff.  (AFP PHOTO/SITE Intelligence Group/HO)
An image grab taken from a video released by the Islamic State (IS) and identified by private terrorism monitor SITE Intelligence Group on September 2, 2014 purportedly shows a masked militant holding a knife and gesturing as he speaks to the camera in a desert landscape before beheading 31-year-old US freelance writer Steven Sotloff. (AFP PHOTO/SITE Intelligence Group/HO)

Western foreign fighters flocking to Syria to take part in the “jihad” against the Bashar Assad regime follow their friends and acquaintances more than online recruiters, a counter-terrorism expert said on Tuesday.

Speaking to The Times of Israel on the sidelines of a conference in Herzliya titled “Europe and Israel: New Shared Terrorist Threats and Opportunities for Cooperation,” Peter Neumann, an expert on European radicalization at Kings College London, said that the number of European recruits in Syria has surpassed 15,000, and is nearing the numbers of foreign fighters who joined the decade-long jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

“A whole new generation of people is being drawn into the jihadist orbit,” he said. “Syria has managed to attract a similar number of foreign fighters within three years as Afghanistan did in a decade.”

Based on the Afghanistan precedent, European governments are growing more concerned over the threat of returning fighters, radicalized and with military training. Data collected following the Soviet war in Afghanistan, which lasted from 1979 to 1989, found that between 75 to 90 percent of fighters would not engage in terrorist activities following their return home. Nevertheless, the potential threat emanating from the rest is viewed by Western leaders as highly significant.

Counter-terrorism expert Peter Neumann in Jerusalem, December 2, 2014 (photo credit: Elhanan Miller/Times of Israel staff)
Counter-terrorism expert Peter Neumann in Jerusalem, December 2, 2014 (photo credit: Elhanan Miller/Times of Israel staff)

The London research center headed by Neumann, the International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence (ICSR), has found that some 60% of foreign fighters have been following two Western preachers on social media: US native Sheikh Ahmad Musa Jibril, and Australian convert Musa Cerantonio. A report published by the organization in April has led to the arrest of Cerantonio and to the imposition of restrictive bail conditions on Jibril.

“When we examine how people get radicalized over the Internet, it’s not sufficient to just look at official ISIS accounts and publications. Many people serve as ‘cheerleaders’ for ISIS’s message, but aren’t necessarily formally associated with it, and aren’t based in Syria or Iraq,” he said.

Radical Islamist preachers Ahmad Musa Jibril (L) and  Musa Cerantonio (photo credit: YouTube screen grab)
Radical Islamist preachers Sheikh Ahmad Musa Jibril (left) and Australian convert Musa Cerantonio (screen capture: YouTube)

The official Twitter accounts of IS spokespeople didn’t even rank among the top 10 most popular accounts among Western jihadists, the ICSR research found.

‘If you understand that people go because their friends are going, then finding out who these friends are, becomes very important.’

However, the decision of Westerners to travel to Syria is usually not based on online recruitment, but rather on personal acquaintance, Neumann said. He estimated that 70-80% of fighters have gone because they are part of peer groups that collectively radicalized in the West. Typically, one or two members travel to Syria first and then bring over the rest.

“Social connection is extremely powerful,” he explained. “When a friend tells you to do something, whether it’s to fight in Syria or quit smoking, it’s much more powerful than seeing a poster on the street.”

Personal connections are also proving more effective in allowing Western volunteers to enter Syria, as organizations such as the al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front have grown more suspicious of Westerners, now requiring men to produce personal references at the border.

If he were responsible for preventing potential jihadists from leaving their homes in the West, Neumann continued, he would start by tracking the social-network activities of men who have already traveled to Syria.

“If you understand that people go because their friends are going, then finding out who these friends are, becomes very important.”

Unskilled in combat, foreign volunteers are usually used by jihadist organizations either for professional tasks, such as mechanical work or media editing, or as “cannon fodder,” often carrying out the most ruthless operations on the battlefield. An estimated 70% of suicide bombings in Syria have been carried out by foreigners, research has found.

“This isn’t a new phenomenon,” added Neumann. “During the Iraq war in the mid-2000s, 95% of the suicide bombings were carried out by foreigners.”

Local members of even the most extreme Syrian groups, such as al-Nusra Front, are refusing to carry out missions — such as suicide bombings and beheadings — which they view as “un-Syrian.”

An image grab taken from a video released by jihadist group Al-Nusra Front and uploaded on LiveLeak on May 30, 2014 allegedly shows a portrait of American citizen Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, who is believed to have been involved in the suicide bombing against regime forces in Syria's northern province of Idlib on May 25, 2014, and smoke rising in the background which allegedly shows the scene moments after the attack (screen capture: AFP/LIVELEAK)
A still image from a video released by the al-Nusra Front jihadist group and uploaded onto LiveLeak on May 30, 2014, allegedly shows a portrait of American citizen Moner Mohammad Abu Salha, believed to have been involved in the suicide bombing against regime forces in Syria’s northern province of Idlib on May 25, 2014. (screen capture: AFP/LiveLeak)

“They’re saying: ‘This is not how we do things in Syria, it’s never existed in our country, and we don’t want to start it,'” Neumann said. Local actors are often wary of carrying out atrocities against people they may personally know.

“It’s much easier to behead someone you don’t know and can’t speak to because of the language barrier. Foreign fighters allow for very effective dehumanization, because they only see in the other an ideological abstract notion.”

The most effective way of curbing “jihad tourism” from the West is denying passports to potential travelers in their home countries, Neumann opined. But that is by no means an exclusive remedy.

“Once they return, it’s important to distinguish between three groups, which I refer to as the three D’s — the dangerous, the emotionally disturbed, and the disillusioned,” he said. While the first group poses an immediate threat to society and its members should be arrested and prosecuted, the latter two groups should be dealt with either psychologically or through social reintegration into society.

“The numbers of foreign fighters is so large that prosecuting them all, and locking them all up, would be beyond the capacity of many countries’ judicial systems.”

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