Not everyone who went to fight in Syria goes on to live life as a Jihadi: Some return fed up with the experience

2014/09/15 Leave a comment

A caution that some policies meant to reduce radicalization can be counter-productive:

“The whole jihad was turned upside down,” the militant recently told Shiraz Maher, a senior researcher for the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King’s College London. “Muslims are fighting Muslims. I didn’t come for that.”

The fighter’s disillusionment, experts say, has become a recurring theme among some of the thousands of young men and women from around the globe who have answered ISIS’s call for holy war but have found the reality is significantly less glorious than what they were promised.

For those trying to stanch the flow of fighters and combat extremism here in Britain, it’s a perspective that could be the perfect antidote to ISIS propaganda. And yet it’s one that is seldom if ever heard here, in part because of government policy that focuses on keeping Brits who have gone to war from returning home — and locking them up if they even try.

“A lot of them feel trapped by [ISIS] not letting them go, and by the British government not letting them back,” said Richard Barrett, a former counterterrorism director with Britain’s foreign intelligence service, MI6. “But if you want people to understand that it’s bloody terrible out there, you have to hear from these people.”

Not everyone who went to fight in Syria goes on to live life as a Jihadi: Some return fed up with the experience

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How ISIS Is Recruiting Women From Around the World | TIME

2014/09/11 Leave a comment

Small numbers but start of a trend. Last para captures the mentality:

The exact number of women who have joined jihadi groups in Syria is impossible to ascertain, but terrorism analysts at London’s International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation estimate there are some 30 European women in Iraq and Syria who either accompanied their jihadi husbands or have gone with the intention to marry members of ISIS and other militant groups. That may be less than 10 percent of the number of Western men currently estimated to be fighting in Syria and Iraq, but the fear is that the number of women involved may grow more quickly. A recently established French hotline for reporting signs of jihadi radicalization has seen 45% of its inquiries involve women, according to the Interior Ministry, and there have been several cases of women, one as young as 16, arrested at France’s airports under suspicion of trying to travel Syria to join Islamist rebels.

….But for any woman who thinks coming to Syria and joining ISIS might bring new opportunities or equal rights, Al-khanssa is clear. “The main role of the muhajirah [female migrant] here is to support her husband and his jihad and [God willing] to increase this ummah [Islamic community].” She follows with a quote culled from a salafist website. “The best of women are those who do not see the men, and who arenot seen by men.” ISIS’ recruitment may take place with 21st century technology, but when it comes to women, its ethos is firmly ground in the seventh.

How ISIS Is Recruiting Women From Around the World | TIME.

National Post also has a good article, focussing on British women, some converts, some not, going to Syria and Iraq and enforcing their version of the Islamic dress code and behaviour on other women:

British women join ISIS police force responsible for punishing Muslims who break strict sharia law

Lastly, more on one of the Gordon brothers, two Canadian-born extremists, and the wondering why they chose this path. A reminder that the factors and influences that push people over the edge vary and do not fit any particular pattern:

[Thompson Rivers University political science professor] Cook said many people on campus are shocked by the revelation about Gordon, and those who knew him and still care about him are understandably worried.

But, he said, the former volleyball players old acquaintances should be wary of trying to contact him.

“It’s impossible to know whether you can communicate with him because the cadre of ISIS elite control the media. Even if you think you may be engaged with him on Facebook you don’t know that for sure,” Cook said. “If we tried to persuade him to come back, what would happen? Hed be killed.”

“Unfortunately, he’s lost,” Cook said.

The goal now is to ensure others don’t follow the Gordon brothers path, he said.

How ISIS recruited Collin Gordon, former Thompson Rivers University student – British Columbia – CBC News.

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Mother of fallen Canadian jihadi launches de-radicalization effort – Canada – CBC News

2014/09/10 2 Comments

Good grassroots initiative led by Christianne Boudreau, mother of Damian Clairmont, and Dominique Bons, mother of Nicholas and Jean-Daniel Bons, all of whom were Western converts and were killed while fighting in Syria.

No universal strategy but the more grassroots and community level “soft” initiatives, the better, to complement the “hard” security measures. Sheema Khan also advocates a strong role for mothers (Partner with Muslims to root out extremism).

And for the mothers themselves, likely part of the grieving and healing process regarding their sons:

After sitting for hours and sharing lovingly built photo albums of their sons as little boys, parsing their lives and deaths and constantly replaying the questions about signs they saw or missed, they got to work.

Canadian-born Muslim convert Damian Clairmont left Calgary in 2012 for Syria, where he was killed in during battle against a faction of the Free Syrian Army.

The pair decided to form an international mothers group, determined that there must be a way to intervene and stop the radicalization process before it’s too late. They are sharing best practices as they find them and are both poking at their respective governments to step up.

Boudreau has also set her sights on establishing the Canadian chapter of a German group called Hayat. That means “life” in Arabic, and its aim is to work with families to help de-radicalize young men and women.

Hayat is an offshoot of a German organization called “Exit,” which has had good success in deprogramming neo-Nazis; as if plucking them from a cult. Hayat adopts similar methodology and applies it to dealing with militant Islamists.

After meeting with its organizers in Berlin, Boudreau came away convinced that with the right funding and staff, a Hayat chapter could make a difference in Canada.

“Its a sense of reining them [radicals] back in so they are closer to the family again,” she said. “They work with them closely after theyve taken a step back and decided maybe this is not for me, and help them get reintegrated within the community, finding a job, so they focus on the normalities.”

Mother of fallen Canadian jihadi launches de-radicalization effort – Canada – CBC News.

Satyamoorthy Kabilan of the Conference Board has a somewhat naive view of government and social media and its potential to reduce radicalization:

Despite the risk of individual mistakes and the required change in mindset for bureaucracy, I would also argue that the risk of not being a core part of the conversation and simply remaining mute, is far more dangerous. The benefits simply outweigh the risks.

We have recently seen successful uses of social media by authorities in emergency situations such as the 2013 Calgary flood and the tragic shootings in Moncton. Organizations like the Toronto Police Service TPS have had policies in place for some time that allow members of the force to represent the organization on social media. TPS has also been very vocal in sharing experiences. Learning from these and continuing to build a social media presence can help combat the threat of violent extremism in the virtual world. We simply cannot afford to have the extremists leading the conversation on social media.

By quickly occupying the public space around social media before someone else does, we can prevent others from setting the agenda and grant ourselves the opportunity to tell our own story first.

Hard to imagine any federal government taking such risks, let alone the current one, given the need to control messaging. One thing for local issues like the Calgary flood, another for issues related to radicalization where government will be very risk averse.

Better at the community level where there is likely more credibility than government.

To beat terrorists online, let’s raise our social media game – The Globe and Mail.

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Jonathan Kay: Thirteen years after 9/11, the debate about Islam is still dominated, on both sides, by hysteria

2014/09/09 Leave a comment

Good commentary by Jon Kay on the difficulty in having a rational, balanced conversation:

The larger problem here is that, 13 years after 9/11, we still can’t seem to manage to have an adult conversation about Islam. Express any sort of compassion or nuance about the faith, and you’re accused of universal prostration before the Mohammedan hordes. Speak up about the religious and cultural traditions that cause someone to cut a journalist’s head off, and you’re an Islamophobe. Sometimes, it feels like the conversation hasn’t progressed much since the Twin Towers were still standing.

Thirteen years after 9/11, the debate about Islam is still dominated, on both sides, by hysteria

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Isils Western converts are not motivated by Islam. They are motivated by boredom – Telegraph Blogs

2014/09/08 1 Comment

Tim Stanley’s  take on radicalization from a conservative perspective, noting the similarities to Islamic-inspired radicalization to the European young terrorists of the Baader Meinhoff and Red Army in the 1970s:

To this collage of conservative thought, I’d add two observations. First, alienation from Western materialism being expressed through revolution is far from new. It demands comparison with the urban guerilla movements of the 1970s – all of which were predominantly drawn from middle-class kids who saw their parents’ success as a form of collaboration with capitalism and fascism.

Is there any real difference between, on the one hand, Mahmood allegedly abandoning professional achievement and the life of a liberated Western woman for Jihad, and, on the other hand, Ulrike Meinhof of the Red Army Faction abandoning her children and sparkling literary career for a life of assassinations and bombings in the 1970s German terrorist underground? None, except the contrasting ideological manifestations of their malaise.

And, aside from bourgeois angst, Seventies Marxism and contemporary Jihad are linked by a an obsession with America/Israel as a nexus of capital and military power that is responsible for everything wrong with the world and b an unrealistic sense of their ability to do anything about it. They are, in reality, grubby little criminals poking at the system with a blunt dagger. But they believe they are heralds of a New Order. They all suffer from the arrogance of youth.

….I’m not convinced. Aside from the terrible idea of turning history classes into propaganda about how wonderful the Whigs were, I also don’t believe that alienation is generally reduced by attempts at indoctrination. And while theocracy is a wretched idea, it’s pretty self-evident that the undoubted appeal of Anglosphere freedom is limited. That would be – to return to Michael Brendan Dougherty’s observations – because it offers material rewards but little in the way of spiritual sustenance. Mahmood was perfectly aware of the benefits of Anglosphere liberty (Magna Carta, kangaroos and apple pie?) because she had the privilege of growing up in the midst of its wealth and freedom. Yet, still, her family say that she has rejected it. Perhaps because it was not enough. And that’s the challenge that the West faces when fighting for the souls of narcissistic revolutionaries. What we have to offer as an alternative is, for many of them, not enough.

Isils Western converts are not motivated by Islam. They are motivated by boredom – Telegraph Blogs.

From the National Post, a profile on Aqsa Mahmood, the woman mentioned in Stanley’s piece:

Inside the life of a 20-year-old Scottish woman who ran away to become a hardline supporter of ISIS  

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The Myth of the Invisible Jetsetting Jihadi | TIME

2014/09/08 Leave a comment

Good series of articles putting the risks – they are real – of returning ISIS and other extremists to the West.

Starting with the Globe’s Doug Saunders, who notes:

In other words, there is a good chance that at least one Canadian will return to attempt an attack here. While returning terrorist fighters are nowhere near Canada’s top terrorist threat in terms of numbers, they should certainly be watched very closely by intelligence agencies.

This is where you’ll find one small silver lining in this otherwise dark development: By going abroad to fight, such Canadians become very easy for intelligence agencies to notice, track and monitor. “We’re going to know who these guys are and we’re going to watch them closely as they transit home,” Brookings counterterrorism scholar Will McCants told an interviewer this week. The fact that these fighters aggressively use Twitter, Facebook and YouTube as propaganda tools makes them even easier to find.

Plus, their mortality rate is very high, and rising. So viewed from another angle, by going abroad to fight, our extremists – already very few in number – are self-culling dramatically and rendering themselves far more visible to authorities.

They are a genuine threat, but not the largest or most ominous one facing us. We should be afraid, but we should not be very afraid.

Homegrown terror – be afraid, sort of afraid

From Time’s David Sternam, a similar message:

Three years into the Syrian civil war, there has been only one lethal attack in the West – the murder of four people at a Jewish museum in Brussels by Mehdi Nemmouche, a veteran of the Syrian jihad. In the United States, no one returning from or seeking to join a Syrian jihadist group has even been charged with plotting an attack inside the United States. In comparison, there have been two deadly incidents in the United States committed by individuals motivated by far right ideology in the past six months. If thousands of extremists were only a plane ride away from American cities, one would hardly expect such a limited record of Syria related violence in the West.

None of this is to say that Jihadist groups in Syria should be allowed to fester and develop the capability to conduct attacks in the United States, or that it is impossible that a returning Syrian foreign fighter will evade the layered defenses that protect the American homeland. That Abu Salha was able to return undetected to the United States after participating in Jihadist training should concern law enforcement. The layered defense system may need reinforcement to deal with new challenges, but the constraints it imposes upon jihadist activity ought not be obscured, particularly when making the case that the threat posed by foreign fighters calls for military action. Doing so does a great disservice to the admirable efforts of Muslim communities, local and federal law enforcement, and American citizens in confronting Jihadist extremism at home.

The Myth of the Invisible Jetsetting Jihadi | TIME.

Calls for parliamentary testimony on radicalization and the implications for Canada:

Liberals want hearings on Islamic radicals who have returned to Canada

Lastly, a good overview and profile of ISIS in the Globe:

 How a former U.S. prisoner of war created an Islamic state 

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RCMP looking at ways to identify young people at risk of becoming radicalized

2014/09/06 Leave a comment

Good overview by Douglas Quan on the various approaches being taken to reduce the numbers of those drawn to extremism:

For those who show signs of becoming involved in violent extremism but who have not yet crossed that threshold, the RCMP is developing an intervention program — set to roll out by the end of the year — designed to link those individuals with community mentors for “advice, support and counselling.”

Dash confirmed that public safety officials have been studying different intervention models, such as the Berlin-based EXIT program, which provides help to Germans trying to leave the neo-Nazi movement. A few years ago, the group created an offshoot program to support families of radicalized Muslims.

Dash declined to say what criteria the RCMP have developed to decide who merits intervention. She did say that someone who expresses extremist views is not necessarily going to be radicalized to violence. “It could be just someone who is being curious. We don’t want to stigmatize anybody.  There’s no one-size-fits-all indicator,” Dash said.

Experts say various “diagnostic tools” have been developed around the world to assess where someone falls on the “spectrum of dangerousness,” but no consensus has been reached on which one is best.

In the U.K., a police-led early-intervention program called Channel saw in its early days referrals of young people simply for wearing what were deemed to be “radical” clothes, according to a 2012 report by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence. “People were not sure what to look for and so they erred on the side of caution,” a Channel coordinator was quoted as saying.

The program has since developed a “vulnerability assessment” framework consisting of 22 behaviours to look out for. They include spending time in the company of extremists, changing style or appearance to accord with the group, loss of interest in friends, and condoning violence or harm towards others.

RCMP looking at ways to identify young people at risk of becoming radicalized | canada.com.

And Wesley Wark, as usual, pointed in his criticism for the lack of serious discussion by the Government:

The 2014 Public Report on the Terrorist Threat to Canada sums all this up. Whether you agree with the government statement or not (and maybe there are other things we should be worrying about, such as cyber threats, climate change impacts, pandemics, a new Cold War, etc…) the report moves our thinking into the present and nudges us out of a frame of reference dominated by legacy fears of Al Qaeda.

So why the whisper? Maybe the government can’t find the headline in its own report. Maybe it feels uneasy because it can’t say with certainty what the exact threat to Canada from terrorism is in the post-Al Qaeda age. Maybe it feels the public doesn’t really need an education on the new terrorism threats or is not interested. Maybe it thinks there are no votes here. Whatever the answer, it’s simply not right. We need a little less megaphone on the world stage and a little more at home.

Wesley Wark: Where’s the megaphone on the threat to Canada?

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ISIS: The Death Rattle Of Islamism? « The Dish

2014/09/04 Leave a comment

Interesting take by Jonah Shepp:

This is all by way of saying, as a reminder, that “Caliph Ibrahim” Baghdadi represents Muslims about as thoroughly as Tony Alamo represents Christians. The fact that he has attracted enough funding and followers to run roughshod over northern Iraq and eastern Syria is nothing to brush off, but it’s not winning him any friends, and it doesn’t make his ideology any less ridiculous. It’s certainly not “Islam”, at least not as any Muslim I know practices it. That’s why I suspect it will fail, like most grandiose visions of world domination do. And by radicalizing the Islamic heartland against radicalism, as it were, perhaps ISIS will take the entire edifice of radical Islamism down with it.

The Death Rattle Of Islamism? « The Dish.

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Canadian International Council – Canadas hub for international affairs » How to Stop Canadians From Becoming Jihadists

2014/09/04 Leave a comment

Not sure that this article says much that is new. Yes, a variety of approaches, both “soft and hard” should be used, but no matter how good and varied the programs, and no matter how engaged the community and Imams, some will persist and reject the “soft approach” and try to skirt the security approach.

No easy solutions, but this article would benefit from greater acknowledgement of existing soft approaches and Canadian agencies learning from the experience of other governments, a lot has been done here:

While the spirit of these initiatives is welcome, considering the secretive process involved and the RCMP as the lead agency, it seems this counter-radicalization strategy may take a strong, policing, approach to the issue. Also, the government will reportedly make the RCMP the intended first point of contact for concerned community members and parents, meaning community reluctance to involve the police will potentially hamper the ability of the government to address radicalization early and effectively.

Instead, community policing should be coupled with soft approaches to pre-emptively deal with radicalization and should not end when the individual attempts to or successfully travels overseas. This requires a whole-of-government approach, one which includes Public Safety Canada and the RCMP, to create a positive effect on identifying and curbing the growth of extremism and reintegrating those caught in its clutches.

As Mubin Shaikh, former CSIS informant in the Toronto-18 case and currently a PhD student in terrorism studies said in an interview: “A counter-narrative should include Canada’s Muslim community in cooperation with the government, private industry and non-profits. It should include theological appeals and work on the strengths of multiculturalism.” Such a counter-narrative must de-legitimize the extremist narrative by using both the strengths of Canada’s pluralistic society and religious guidance based upon Islamic teachings.

These young men must be made to feel that they are a part of Canadian society, as well as made to understand that their actions are not religiously condoned. This approach must involve community leaders, relatives, colleagues, social workers and organizations with experience in de-radicalization.

Canadian authorities must learn from the counter-radicalization programs of their European peers: which tactics and strategies work; how to partner with impacted communities; how to integrate individuals into Canadian society; and, how best to disrupt the networks that exploit these individuals. Only then will it be possible to fully understand and address the issue of radicalization in Canada, to pre-emptively tackle threats to Canadian security and deal fairly and equitably with radicalized individuals and the communities in which they live.

Canadian International Council – Canadas hub for international affairs » How to Stop Canadians From Becoming Jihadists.

Sheema Khan is more concrete and focused on some of the “soft” initiatives and actions that are needed to reduce radicalization:

Second, rather than pointing fingers at all Muslims and fanning the flames of Islamophobia, there must be meaningful partnerships in which Muslim communities play an important role in rooting out extremism. Muslim communities are the best sensitized to observe changes, which can be subsequently reported to authorities and/or addressed by community programs that focus on religious literacy about jihad, messaging against extremism, support for converts, mentoring, constructive channelling of political grievances and the special role of mothers.

The post-9/11 environment sent a chill about discussions of the “j” word. This naturally led to underground discussions, away from mainstream counternarratives. Today, the topic of jihad must be addressed openly by imams. Religious literacy about its strict conditions and unequivocal prohibition of violence against non-combatants is essential. For example, the British government has appealed to anti-extremist imams to counteract the seeds of radicalization.

Muslims can play an important role by speaking out against atrocities committed in the name of Islam. Muslims throughout the world have spoken and demonstrated forcefully against the Islamic State’s brutality. Strong community abhorrence provides a powerful alternative to the romanticized extremist jihad message.Converts to Islam often lack community support networks and in-depth knowledge of religious sources. Programs need to be developed to provide both elements in order to prevent their exploitation.

Partner with Muslims to root out extremism – The Globe and Mail.

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Extremism loves company: Sunstein

2014/09/03 2 Comments

Cass Sunstein on the psychology of radicalization.

What nudge does he suggest to reduce polarization and extremism?

Why does group polarization occur? The first answer involves information. Suppose that most group members begin by thinking that some religious group, leader or nation is evil. If so, they will hear a lot of arguments to that effect. As they absorb them, they will be inclined to move toward a more extreme version of their initial judgment.

People also care about their reputations, so some group members will adjust their positions in the direction of the dominant view. A disturbing implication is that if group members listen only to one another, and if most of them have extremist tendencies, the whole group might well march toward greater radicalism and even brutality.

Writing in 1998, Russell Hardin, a political scientist at New York University, drew attention to the “crippled epistemology of extremism,” by which he meant to emphasize how little extremists know. Focused on Islamic fundamentalists, Hardin was concerned about what happens “when the fanatic is in a group of like-minded people, and especially when the group isolates itself from others.”

In the years ahead, the international effort to combat violent extremism will sometimes require force, and it will sometimes require economic pressure. But it will succeed only if it disrupts recruitment and radicalization by enclaves of like-minded people.

Bloomberg’s Cass R. Sunstein (pay wall)

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