Balkan Fighters in the Syrian War

Tanja Dramac Jiries

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780367633813
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000436495
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book analyses the process of the recruitment of foreign fighters from the Western Balkans, specifically Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, to Syria and Iraq from 2012 to 2015.

Utilizing in-depth, semi-structured interviews with foreign fighters and their families, as well as a number of relevant stakeholders it answers the question of what were the processes and circumstances leading up to the departure of foreign fighters from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo and what informed their agency? The author draws on the theories of social movement approaches, more specifically, contentious politics literature and utilizes the specific concepts of triggering mechanisms, which refer to the enabling circumstances that make the radicalization and departure possible, and pleasure in agency, to elaborate on individual motivation. The book also shows how a wider state- fragility within the context of the post-Yugoslav wars and the transitional period that never ended, aided radicalization and how an incomplete process of post-war transition can fuel the process of political and religious radicalization creating a wider enabling web for recruitment.

It will be of interest to students and scholars of Southeast European politics and foreign policy, post-war democratic transition, security policy and radicalization more broadly.

1 Unpacking radicalization

DOI: 10.4324/9781003118930-1

Peter Neumann and Scott Kleinmann warned, drawing on a sample of 260 publications that make claims for empirical research and were published between 1980 and 2010, that when it comes to radicalization literature, qualitative approaches dominate and that a significant number of publications relies on secondary sources – not primary research – to support their conclusions.¹ The authors conclude this situation may have resulted from an overreliance on (poorly controlled) government money, the nature of the subject itself, and the absence of a unified academic “field” through which tougher academic standards could be enforced.² Peter Neumann, however, opted to further vaguely describe radicalization as “what goes on before the bomb goes off.”³

As with any terminology debate, the term radicalization has been a source of tension from the start.⁴ Among the first to express concern, the scholar Mark Sedgwick warned that, simply put, the term radicalization itself is a source of confusion. Therefore, the best solution for researchers is to abandon the idea that radical or radicalization are absolute concepts, recognize the essentially relative nature of the term radical, and be careful always to specify both the continuum being referred to and the location of what is seen as “moderate” on that continuum.⁵ Sedgwick further claims that even though the term is a part of the mainstream literature, it is misused by differing security, minority integration, and foreign policy agendas. In addition, it should be observed that the term radicalization is contentious, as it carries a normative assessment and is a loaded term to begin with. In addition, the terms radicalization and fundamentalism overlap in many studies and are very frequently used interchangeably, which further contributes to the confusion over the usage. Additionally, a major debate is whether “religion is simply a tool for mobilization or … a primary motive.”⁶ Many leading critical terrorism studies scholars, including Hermione Toros, Jeroen Gunning, and Richard Jackson, maintain that this question and the differing answers laying out a clear distinction are critical, and claim that the religious label is in fact a political tool attached to certain groups to immediately discredit their claims.⁷ Recently, the argument has been put forward by Bosnian scholar Edina Becirevic that it is absolutely necessary to differ radicalization linked to violent extremism and terrorism and radicalization aimed at initiating societal changes via non-violent means.⁸

Scholars like Sivan Hirsch-Hoefler, Daphna Canetti, and Ehud Eiran have observed that, contrary to the dominant belief that religious identity alone is enough to trigger violence, it is actually the role of organizational membership that links religious identity with radical action. The authors have attempted to fill the gap of the related literature of a causal relationship between radicalization and actual violence by claiming that organizational support is absolutely necessary to trigger violence. Similarly, Hoffman writes that “religious identity is a motivating factor for radical action, but it is the sense of belonging which serves as the trigger for radical action.”⁹ This claim is in apparent contrast to studies advocating the theory of lone-wolf terrorists and how they operate on their own and are not endorsed by any network or organization. It further adds to the discussion about the complexity and multiplicity of factors to take into account when studying radicalization.

As with the definition of terrorism, the term radicalization encompasses a wide range of concepts, from being used as a tool for marginalization by discrediting and sidelining certain groups of people to embodying a dangerous path toward violent actions. The important difference talked about very often is whether all types of radicalization result in violent actions or not, and if not, why. According to Bartlett and Miller, it is the first step of all studies on radicalization to distinguish “radicalization that leads to violence (‘violent radicalization’) and radicalization that does not lead to violence (‘non-violent radicalization’).”¹⁰ The authors conclude that only after distinguishing these two types of radicalization can we engage all economic and social as well as emotional (psychological reasons) reasons for radicalization.¹¹ However, some very pessimistic views had been raised that treated perpetual radicalization as a vicious circle from which there is no escape. As Kamel Daoud said: “Jihadists will be killed, only to be reborn again in future generations and raised on the same books.”¹²

Within the larger exploration of the foreign fighter phenomenon, there has been a proliferation of research that focuses on the radicalization of these fighters – that is, on the process itself that led to violent extremism. Jason Burke highlighted the role of foreign military interventions in the Middle East as the precondition for and the sustaining factor of terrorism in general: “every use of force is another victory for Bin Laden … thus, creating a whole new cadre of terrorists.”¹³ The growth of “radicalized individuals” after 9/11 has been the subject of study for many authors, predominantly those in the West objecting to interventionism.¹⁴ The leading liberal scholar Noam Chomsky quotes a Saudi intelligence agency and an Israeli think tank that similarly concludes that the “vast majority” of foreign fighters in Iraq “are not former terrorists,” but “became radicalized by the war itself, stimulated by the invasion.”¹⁵ In a similar vein, there are seemingly two important effects that foreign military intervention has. One is a backlash as demonstrated in an increase in political violence and the other is that the form of intervention affects what the output (of terrorism) looks like, according to Tom Pettinger.¹⁶ The main point of Pettinger’s study is that an individual’s propensity to engage in extremism is based on his or her level of de-pluralization – the developing perception that there exists only one solution, extreme violence, which determines the extent of radicalization.¹⁷

Edwin Bakker and Kris Christmann maintain that the role of family, kinships, and exposure to networks are crucial for investigation of organizational approaches to radicalization.¹⁸ Many authors, including Bakker, claim that the roles of family and family ties are crucial for investigating organizational approaches to radicalization. Other scholars have also explored the role of social networks and resource-driven mobilization in the radicalization process, one that connects structural processes with individual motivations. Anja Dalgaard-Nielsen has greatly contributed to the debate about radicalization from a social movement theory point of view to a socio-psychological approach. She maintains that it is the imperative of all future research to generate solid empirical evidence.¹⁹ Sophia Moskalenko and Clark McCauley argue that strong group identification is connected with peaceful activism as well as radical action. Furthermore, group identity is indeed the common denominator to all collective actions and the reason why group empathy is a successful path to excluding others and further embracing group members.²⁰ “This is the emotionally laden sense of belonging to a distinctive, bounded group, involving both a felt solidarity or oneness with fellow group members and a felt difference from or even antipathy to specified outsiders.”²¹ Other authors, such as Bertjan Doosje, Annemarie Loseman, and Kees Van Den Bos, argue that personal uncertainty, perceived injustice, and perceived intergroup threats are the main reasons radicalization appears among youth in the Western world. In attempting to explain the alienation of the predominantly second and third generation of immigrants in Western Europe, they believe that the withdrawal of multiculturalism as a value system is at the core of explaining support for a radical belief system.²² Similarly, a study about segregated communities in the U.S. and the high level of gang participation highlights the profound correlation between the process of isolating and offering alternatives as the driving factor of the success rate of mobilization.²³

There is no established correlation between online radicalizations and “de-territorializing” propaganda, which are undeniably proven tools of reaching mass audiences, to somebody becoming a violent extremist. Prior to the Internet and the World Wide Web, information was spread through very prescribed and predetermined channels. The people in power often tried to censor and control ideas via restrictions, the banning of the books and marginalization of alternative voices. Although this remains true for a good part of the world, the Internet has been able to break through to the loneliest and most isolated corners. This interconnectivity has created a multitude of opportunities to exchange, debate, and become exposed to ideas and thoughts. The Internet has made national borders more permeable and weakened the prescribed identity that was determined merely by the geographical coordinates into which one was born.

Due to this new situation, many ideologies now can easily spread and take root in a number of culturally unrelated areas, linking diverse individuals from all over the world with common views and agendas in a matter of seconds. Such is the case with the far-right white nationalism that connects continents, for example. A number of studies have argued that the Internet played a prominent role in the radicalization process of violent extremists and terrorists. This is not only because it provided access to certain materials, but also allowed them to filter content to the extent that, at a certain point, only self-selected propaganda was on the literature menu. Some authors like Daniel Koehler have argued that offline social activities are less influential when compared to the possibilities of online radicalization.²⁴ Globalization as the driving consequence and precondition for interconnectivity continues to shape other possible byproducts of the global age. Some authors like Benjamin Barter, for example, have gone so far as to claim that an extremist, or any other isolated individual with antipathy against globalization (whatever its larger implications), who is on his or her path to shying away from modernity, identifies the self by contrasting it with an alien “other” and makes politics an exercise in exclusion and resentment.²⁵ For the same reason, Barber holds that Jihad is at war with McWorld,²⁶ meaning that in sum violent extremists simply reject globalization, which is seen as a Western concept. Recruiters for radical movements, although in theory oppose globalization and its sister trend modernization, did not fail to utilize the very first herald of the technological advancement – Facebook, Twitter, Snapchats, and other social media platforms. Using it as it is – a powerful communication tool – recruiters were quick to utilize this tool and its many channels to reach out to the potential recruits and prey on their insecurities.

Although there had been some attempts by the major social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, to limit hate speech, fake news, and propaganda, the effects of the seemingly arbitrary decision-making processes by corporate giants and the real effects of this censorship remain to be seen. One questionable example is the recent Facebook decision to remove posts from pages in the original news feed in six selected markets (countries), which limits the hope of original organic reach and utterly changes the content for end users.²⁷ Other social media, such as YouTube, have almost replaced the pulpit to the extent in which young people are subscribed to channels that Google cannot or will not shut down, regardless of their effects. Knowing the favorable outcomes of online recruitment, recruiters have avidly utilized social media. Under the cover of freedom of speech, they are ultimately using online space for promoting hate and violence.

Individuals’ searching and striving for identity are even more exacerbated in an ever-globalizing world. Brian Michael Jenkins observes that individuals are the most vulnerable at a stage of life when they are seeking an identity and looking for approval and validation, which does not necessarily exclude older demographics: “They are searching for causes that can be religiously and culturally justified, that provide them a way to identify who they are, and that provide a clear call for action.”²⁸ Other authors, such as Susan Currie Sivek, have examined the very mechanics in which the online or offline tools are aiding the radicalization process. Sivek paid closer attention to the role of digital journals and the spread of ideas through writings that oppose Western liberal ideas.²⁹ There were a number of localized journals and online pages that served as platforms for spreading propaganda and targeting local populations. Designed to radicalize marginalized Muslims in the West and motivate them to initiate independent acts of terror, Inspire’s message aimed at inspiring action. The online propaganda journal Dabiq was published in multiple languages.³⁰ Such was the case with the Balkans as well, where there had been a number of pages that targeted Bosnian and Albanian recruits.³¹

What stands in contrast to Inspire and other local portals and digital journals is the extremely well-organized and sophisticated way in which Dabiq disseminated its message of radicalization in several language editions and received much attention and readership online. It appears as if the digital journal’s articles were aimed at assisting in the further indoctrination of already violence-prone individuals with an intention to join militants or those who had acted out of curiosity and perceived a future martyr’s role. Although it is very difficult to correlate exposure to the journal and violent action, the literature explaining the effect of the role of these and similar tools in recruitment and radicalization is limited. A curious phenomenon concerns cases in which a person was void of any connection to the region and lacked interpersonal association to or kinship with terrorist networks, yet decided to act on his or her beliefs based only on exposure to propaganda online.

To explain these individuals’ evolvement with prospective terrorists, Helfstein offers a model of the self-radicalization process with four stages: awareness, interest, acceptance, and implementation. In Helfstein’s model, awareness is a long-term process that occurs over time as an individual’s knowledge of radical ideology and tactics deepens. Interest in this model consists of more than just curiosity; it also ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Author
• A note on pronunciation and transliteration
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• 1 Unpacking radicalization
• 2 History of foreign fighters
• 3 Theory and practice
• 4 Collecting and treating sensitive data
• 5 Balkan recruits
• 6 Enabling networks and organization
• 7 Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index