Former fighters should be offered a way back home

Rehabilitating citizens who fought for extremist groups like ISIL would be a smarter strategy than hardline responses, writes Taylor Luck.

How countries should deal with their citizens returning from fighting with groups like ISIL in places like Kobani, shown here, is a vexing question. Photo: Gokhan Sahin / Getty Images

Western European and Arab states are now facing the first stages of one of the greatest threats posed by ISIL: returning fighters. According to estimates by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and the CIA, more than 20,000 foreign fighters make up ISIL’s 25,000-strong force. Around 3,600 of them are from western Europe.

Saudi Arabia and Jordan, allies of the US and Europe and members of the anti-ISIL international coalition, have emerged as major source countries of ISIL fighters. An estimated 2,000 Saudi nationals and 1,500 Jordanians are fighting under the extremist group’s banner.

Nationals of other coalition members – France (1,200 fighters), the UK (500), Germany (600) – have also travelled to Syria and Iraq to join the jihadist cause. And now hundreds have begun their eventual return home.

The UK has been out in front in dealing with returnees, ushering in a tough new Counter- Terrorism and Security Act, under which the British government retains the right to bar entry, deport and strip the passports of those who have fought with terrorist groups.

The hard-line, no-second-chances approach has caught on in many western countries, with Australia passing measures that allow the arrest of nationals who have travelled to Syria and Iraq. Canada has revoked the passports of nationals who have joined ISIL.

France has adopted a policy of instantly arresting returnees. It has taken 80 into custody, but so far, unlike Britain, it lacks the legal framework for wider action.

Perhaps the strongest response has been from Jordan, which has jailed more than 100 ISIL supporters since the launch of the US-led coalition in September. It also has a far-reaching antiterrorism law that prescribes jail sentences of three to five years for even expressing support for ISIL via Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp.

The tough approach has had limited success. Hundreds of western and Arab nationals still serve in ISIL and pose a direct threat to their homelands. The threat of arrest and of passports being stripped has done little to curb the enthusiasm of those who continue to travel to Syria and Iraq.

Perhaps a better, more successful approach has been that of Saudi Arabia. It has offered returning jihadists the chance of rehabilitation.

At the Mohammed bin Naif Counselling and Care Centre, experts work on the rehabilitation and reform of former jihadists. They report a 90 per cent success rate in the 3,000 prisoners they have dealt with in the past three years. Some of them were formerly with ISIL.

Sweden too has adopted a soft approach. Its security service Säpo reports 40 returns and has left the door open for former fighters to return unmolested.

Saudi Arabia and Sweden are the only two countries with a realistic approach to the problem posed by returning fighters. Former fighters need rehabilitation, not jail time.

By granting wider amnesty to former fighters, allowing them to return home, the coalition would do more than overcome a growing domestic threat. It would be offering the hundreds of ISIL fighters who have grown disillusioned to abandon the jihadist group.

Such an amnesty would not extend to ISIL’s leadership, which must be held accountable for terrorism and heinous crimes. However, the group’s foot soldiers, who were initially drawn by its ideology and later repulsed by its reality, should be given a second chance.

This would be a good time to grant an amnesty. ISIL has been on the defensive since the video of Jordanian pilot Maaz Kassasbeh burning alive was released by the group. The killing was denounced as un-Islamic and “barbaric” by all schools of Islam, including salafist jihadists.

In the most recent issue of its Dabiq magazine, ISIL defended the killing, referencing obscure killings in an attempt to save face before current fighters and prospective recruits repulsed by the graphic video.

But that murder has already had an impact. According to jihadist sources, about 400 new recruits have attempted to defect in recent weeks, while long-standing supporters outside Syria and Iraq have cut ties with the group over the killing.

ISIL reportedly referred two clerics to a sharia court for disagreeing with the method of Kassasbeh’s execution.

As Mohammed Shalbi, or Abu Sayyef, leader of the Jordanian salafist jihadist movement, which maintains ties with ISIL, says: “Now no one is willing to raise the Islamic State’s banner.”

By all accounts, the group is suffering from internal divisions too. There is no better time to offer its supporters a way back home, albeit with conditions.

Saudi Arabia keeps close tabs on the former fighters it accepts into its rehabilitation programme. Although it has yet to arrest a single returning ISIL fighter, Sweden also maintains a close watch over returnees to ensure that their ties with the jihadist group have truly ended.

By adopting such an approach, Jordan, Germany and the UK could maintain surveillance of returnees and monitor their movements and contacts rather than drive them underground.

The resulting defections brought on by an amnesty may not be enough to hasten ISIL’s demise. According to various reports, only two per cent have successfully broken ties with the group and the logistics of leaving war-torn regions in Syria and Iraq make it very difficult to return home.

But by legalising and institutionalising the return of fighters, western and Arab states can follow the principle that serves best in a war of attrition: a good defence is the best offence.

Taylor Luck is an Amman-based political analyst and journalist