RUSI Analysis, 0 Aug 2013 By Raffaello Pantucci, Senior Research Fellow, Counter-Terrorism
British citizen Ibrahim al-Mazwagi killed earlier within the year

The ongoing intractable civil war in Syria has become a magnet for foreign fighters of each stripe. Unlike previous jihadist battlefields that experience drawn foreigners in, however, this has not to date produced a terrorist threat back within the West. This isn’t same regionally. Around the border in Jordan, a terrorist network with connections to the battlefield have been disrupted, while in Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey, bombs have gone off with return addresses in Syria. The question now preoccupying European policymakers specifically is whether or not the pipeline of European nationals going to fight at the battlefield in Syria may eventually transform right into a similar set of incidents in Europe.

The the first thing to realize is how we’ve seen terrorist threats emanate from battlefields ago. Historically speaking, jihadi battlefields have produced three sorts of terrorist threats (with an unknown number choosing to come return to dull lives): directed plots by individuals sent back with instruction; terrorist plots conducted by people who choose to perform attacks without direction; and networks of people that offer support and infrastructure for other terrorist plots.

Directed Plots

The archetypal example of here is Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shezhad Tanweer, the pair of young men on the core of the 7 July 2005 attack on London’s transport system. Khan notably was a daily to fighting and coaching abroad, and made no less than three known trips to enroll in with extremist groups with whom he conducted some variety of training, in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Initially interested in the battlefield by mythology around Kashmir, he seems to have quickly moved into preferring the Afghan struggle and ultimately believing that he was going to fight and die in Afghanistan. Once there on what he thought could be his final trip in 2004, he was instead re-directed by Al-Qa’ida to go back to the united kingdom to launch his infamous terrorist attack.

The clear lesson in foreign fighter terms here was that Khan was drawn initially to the battlefield to fight there, and was then persuaded by groups there to launch an attack back home. The motive force of this seems to have largely been the fervour of the crowd at the ground, Al-Qa’ida, to strike the West. The advent of British passport holders trying to support the cause was a present to the gang that they were capable of transform right into a tool to conduct a successful operation. The 7 July  cell could have been the sole ones to have succeeded, but a variety of other plots has been detected that bear similar hallmarks.

Self-Started Plots

Security officials on all sides of the Atlantic have spoken of outrage in regards to the growth of lone wolf or small cell terror plots. Usually involving single individuals or tight-knit units of people who demonstrate no direction from either Al-Qa’ida or certainly one of its affiliates, expressions of this threat are available in recent incidents in Boston, Paris, Toulouse, and Woolwich.

In these kind of cases, a trace connection are located to a known terrorist organisation, though there’s little evidence of any direction within the collection of targets or other operational specifics. The foreign fighters phenomenon has some linkeage here: in both the Toulouse and Woolwich cases, as an example, there’s evidence that the individuals involved sought to make connections with radical groups abroad. Specifically, in Toulouse, Mohammed Merah went to Pakistan, trained with Al-Qa’ida linked groups and was then apparently sent back with some loose direction. However, his subsequent attack against off-duty French soldiers after which against Jewish school children seems to were carried outlargely under his own steam.

Almost five years before Merah committed his bloody acts, an identical dynamic played out within the UK when Bilal Abdulla and Kafeel Ahmed first left a couple of auto bombs in central London before launching an attempted suicide attack on Glasgow’s international airport. Ahmed died through the attempt in Scotland, but Bilal Abdulla was arrested and convicted, along with his case uncovering a link between him and Al-Qa’ida’s Iraqi affiliate, with whom it’s believed he had undertaken some training. Seemingly undirected by the gang, Abdulla seems to have taken it upon himself to punish the united kingdom for its involvement within the war that tore his country apart.

Networks

In many ways it’s the networks that foreign battlefields create which might be of the best longer-term concern. The risk will not be that folks who’re attracted to foreign battlefields may very well come again and launch anti-Western attacks, rather, they could instead provide support networks for those who were tasked to launch attacks or help radicalise others.

With experience and contacts from the battlefield, they present the opportunity of providing soft support for networks desiring to launch attacks in addition to becoming potential radicalisers who persuade others of the salience of the worldwide jihadi narrative, using their very own personal experience for instance. In most terrorist plots which were uncovered within the West, links to such radicalisers are located – either when it comes to loud public preachers such asAbu Hamza or more locally radicalising figures who don’t appear at the public radar but feature within the background of security investigations.

This last group is deeply intangible, but in lots of ways can manifest itself because the most deadly long-term menace, providing a natural incubator for global jihadist ideas inside the West. Those going abroad to fight can have no intention again and launch attacks, but through connections they may find themselves drawn into supporting others and invariably through transmission in their experience will act as radicalising agents. Groups wanting to launch attacks against the West live on abroad, and it’s miles perfectly possible that they’re going to use these networks and communities to eventually try and direct other attacks.

New Ungoverned Spaces Presents Long-Term Problem

At this point the flow  of Europeans going to Syria to fight has not produced any threats back home, though there were plenty of related arrests around the continent. Within the UK a bunch is facing trial later within the year in connection to the abduction of a couple of European journalists in July 2012. A cell in Belgium appears to was overheard talking about attacking the Palais de Justice in Brussels, however it is unclear that this had moved anything beyond the discussion phase.

Other networks are available across Europe, and as security agencies do something about them, it’s likely that other echoes could be heard. The larger problem, however, is the placement in Syria where an inability to topple the regime and an incoherent opposition signifies that we’re slowly seeing a Balkanisation of the rustic with radical groups  taking hold of pieces of territory and are creating parallel governance structures. This presents the risk of latest safe havens allowing groups to coach and plot. It is all of the more menacing when one considers the heavy presence of the Islamic State of Iraq and as-Sham (ISIS, the most recent incarnation of Al-Qa’ida’s Iraqi affiliate) at the field, in addition to other Salafi-jihadi groups. Atop this, there are the reports of growing numbers of foreigners from around the Muslim world a number of whom are connected to other Al-Qa’ida affiliates being interested in Syria. Networks linking these spaces and groups to the West are of clear concern and rightly alarm security services.

Syria’s slow slide into chaos and civil war is tearing on the fabric of the Muslim world. The already tense Sunni-Shia divide now has a battlefield by which to brutally play itself out and has already provided overspill into neighbouring countries. The West remains divided over what to do, and age-old rivalries are playing themselves out within the UN Security Council. European foreign fighters provide a right away link between Europe and a battlefield this is developing in such a lot of different directions that it’s difficult to grasp what the repercussions within the longer-term would be.  What does seem clear though is that the community of foreign fighters is probably going to prolong the incubation of maximum and violent Islamist ideas in Europe for the foreseeable future.

RUSI is currently undertaking a research project the phenomenon of foreign fighters in Europe and the way this could express itself as a terrorist threat back home.

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