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A soft approach to returning British fighters
ISIL combatants seeking an 'exit strategy' from Mideast conflict need positive reinforcement back home, analysts say.

Samira Shackle Last updated: 12 Oct 2014 13:40 AJ

London, United Kingdom - What do you do when you don't want to be an extremist anymore? This is a question many foreign fighters in Syria - and their home governments - are wrangling with.

About 500 British citizens are thought to have travelled to Syria and Iraq to join the group calling itself Islamic State (ISIL) and other rebel groups since the Syrian civil war began in 2011. The figure increased drastically after ISIL declared a new caliphate on land it controls along the Iraq-Syria border.

But some British fighters are losing faith and want to come back and reintegrate in Britain.

In recent months, Prime Minister David Cameron gave police additional powers to confiscate passports and place travel restrictions on those suspected of planning to join the fight. He has also announced moves to ban British citizens who pose a threat to national security from returning to the United Kingdom.

London's Mayor Boris Johnson has suggested that returnees from Iraq and Syria should be presumed guilty of terrorism offences unless they can prove their innocence.

We know that there are people in Syria right now who are not happy to be there and who regret having become involved in the first place. - Peter Neumann, King's College London


It appears that public opinion is behind such punitive measures. A recent poll by YouGov found that three quarters of Londoners believe anyone who has fought with groups in Iraq or Syria should be banned from returning to the UK. But analysts warn that focusing only on crackdowns is an over-simplistic strategy that could exacerbate the problem.

"Foreign fighters are not a monolithic group," says Peter Neumann, director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) at King's College London.

"We know that there are people in Syria right now who are not happy to be there and who regret having become involved in the first place. If you don't give people an option to return, the idea of these fighters in Syria becoming dangerous international terrorists becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."

(Part of the AJ Article) (FULL)