What will post-Assad Syria do about foreign fighters?

Khaled Brigade, a part of Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, holding a military parade in Damascus in December. Reuters

Syria faces plenty of uncertainty about its future: the future of its economy, the future role of women, the role of minorities and the multitude of rebel factions that will eventually need to be dissolved. Yet one group that seems to be on surprisingly stable ground includes the thousands of Islamist foreign fighters still living in the country.

Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, the formally dissolved organisation that runs Syria’s new government, has integrated many of these fighters into the country’s Ministry of Defence. This has sparked outrage among rival groups, notably the Syrian National Army, whose members had hoped their experience and loyalty as early defectors from Bashar Al Assad’s forces would earn them senior military roles.

Members of the SNA have also argued that Ahmad Al Shara, the head of HTS and Syria’s de facto leader, does not have constitutional power to grant military ranks – which is solely reserved for the president – to non-Syrians. Meanwhile, American, French and German envoys have reportedly told the new government that these appointments are a security concern.

Syria expert Aymenn Al-Tamimi told me how difficult it is to get accurate figures on the number of foreign fighters currently in Syria. But he estimates figures vary between 5,000 and 10,000.

Their presence has created unease among some Syrians. A friend of mine in Damascus expressed mixed feelings. “On one hand, they fought side by side with the rebels to free us of Assad,” she said. “But on the other hand, we know some of them are extremists, and some might even have been part of [ISIS].”

Feeling perhaps like fish out of water in Damascus, quite a few foreign fighters have reportedly returned to Idlib and other northern provinces, where the way of life is more suited to their conservative values and where they have families.

Foreign fighters began heading to Syria in late 2012, driven by two primary motivations. The first was a visceral reaction to the carnage inflicted by the Assad forces. The second was a potent mix of religious zeal and apocalyptic beliefs.

Foreign fighters, suspected of being part of ISIS, lie in a prison cell in Hasaka, Syria. Reuters

When the fervour subsides, what will become of the fighters who have called Syria home for more than a decade?

Radical preachers in Europe, Central Asia and beyond fanned the flames, proclaiming that the Syrian conflict was the precursor to the Day of Judgment, supposedly foretold in Islamic eschatology. The prophecy that the final battle would begin in Dabiq, a small town in the north, spurred waves of radicalised young men to seek glory in Bilad Al Sham, or Greater Syria.

Many of these fighters, some arriving as adolescents, were radicalised at home through social media and social networking platforms such as Telegram. Once they reached Turkey, networks operating along the Turkish-Syrian border arranged their journey into the rebel heartland.

By 2014, about 12,000 foreign fighters from more than 80 countries joined the battlefield.

Today, many of them are basking in the success of toppling a half-century-old government, feeling justified in their “struggle”. Social media footage shows how many of the first fighters to enter Aleppo and Damascus visited the historic Grand Mosque of Aleppo and the Umayyad Mosque – sites that served as pivotal battlegrounds during the Crusades and other periods in history.

But when the fervour subsides, what will become of these fighters who have called Syria home for more than a decade? Will Syrians remain broadly welcoming to extremists driven by the idea of building an Islamic state?

Between 2013 and 2015, I interviewed a handful of fighters who left the UK for Syria. Within months, some of those young men joined ISIS. But they did not see themselves as extremists.

In 2014, I asked a British man, Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, if he felt Syrians were turning against them. He said: “Come to Syria and ask the civilians who helps them, and they will say the mujahids with the black flags – we clean streets and put up electricity [lines].” But Mr Bary’s radicalisation was just in its infancy at the time; he later became one of the most extreme and terrifying western fighters to be associated with ISIS, responsible for abhorrent crimes.

Not all foreign fighters joined ISIS. Many aligned themselves with other Islamist factions, and some with the mostly secular Free Syrian Army, while others – mainly British and American former military personnel – fought alongside Kurdish groups. By late 2014, most fighters entering Syria knew they would probably never return home. Crimes committed by these fighters, often justified in their minds as necessary for their cause, have caused much heartache in Syria.

Ahmad Al Shara, the leader of Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, is welcomed by supporters before addressing a crowd at Umayyad Mosque in Damascus in December. AFP

“Jihad is a lifetime commitment,” a young British fighter who joined Jabhat Al Nusra, since rebranded as HTS, told me at the time. “When I went to Syria, I effectively accepted that my citizenship would be revoked. I had zero plans to return.”

Indeed, many fighters today are stateless, while many others fear prosecution if they attempt to return to their countries of origin. For some, the spoils of victory, the power, the prestige and the sense of purpose may be too tempting to leave behind.

One of HTS’s founding principles is that the group would not betray or surrender foreign fighters to their home countries. Mr Al Shara, who has upheld this principle, has been strategic in overlooking past crimes of these fighters. This policy has even extended to Assad loyalists and former members of the army. Evidently, Mr Al Shara’s amnesty serves a dual purpose in encouraging Syrians to overlook crimes committed by his own group, which was once affiliated with Al Qaeda.

Of course, foreign fighters are not the primary concern of most Syrians, who have far more pressing issues to tackle. Beyond those still detained in ISIS prison camps, most fighters don’t appear to pose an immediate threat. Mr Al Shara’s leadership has largely kept the various factions relatively stable across all fronts.

Now that some of them are in the inner circles of power in Damascus, they will be expected to become or, at the very least, appear as moderate as Mr Al Shara has shown himself to be. But the question is, for how long?

It’s too early to predict what the new constitution will look like, or whether the majority of citizens will vote for a secular state or one based on some interpretation of Sharia. What is clear is that the foreign fighters will stay put for now, and it will be up to them to rehabilitate themselves into a new Syria, whatever shape it takes.