Foreign fighters: Fighting for their faith
In the following excerpt from Road Warriors: Foreign Fighters in the Armies of Jihad, author Daniel Byman illustrates the phenomenon of fighters coming in ever-growing numbers from distant lands to defend Islam.
Foreign fighters are heroes who take up arms in the name of God — or at least that’s how they see themselves. Some believe they are defending innocent Muslim women and children from rape and murder at the hands of American, Russian, and other infidel soldiers. Sometimes they see the enemy as even more dangerous, composed of apostate Muslims who themselves have turned away from God and are corrupting Islam from within. For others they are advancing their faith and helping to build an Islamic society, defend it from its enemies, and expand it to new lands. Few have a detailed knowledge of Islam, but all would say that they are fighting for their faith and God smiles on their actions.
Historically, expelling foreign (non-Muslim) occupiers from Muslim lands was the most salient narrative for foreign fighters. Abdallah Azzam, a Palestinian-born preacher and writer who was the prime mover in the foreign fighter universe, articulated the duty of Muslims to remove foreign occupiers during the anti- Soviet struggle in the 1980s. This cry continued in Bosnia, Chechnya, Iraq, and other conflicts.
In contrast, fighting against so-called apostate governments (e.g., fights in the 1990s against the government of Egypt or after 2003 in Saudi Arabia) attracted little support from new foreign fighters but led some existing group members to travel abroad, often to train or enjoy the benefits of a safe haven. Syria upended this generalization. Muslim-on-Muslim sectarian fighting proved an important pull for foreign fighters in 2012 and 2013.
In 2014, a new narrative began: fighters flocked to Syria once the Islamic State declared a caliphate because they wanted to live in a land ruled according to God’s law.
This declaration complemented the call to defend the community from unbelievers. For jihadists, Muslims had finally established a true Islamic state, and naturally, Islam’s enemies would try to destroy it.
On a more individual level, conflicts initially tend to attract the most idealistic. Over time, the recruits change to include more individuals frustrated with aspects of their lives and who seek the power, legitimacy, community, and opportunity the foreign fighter life affords. And, on a more basic level, some foreign fighters simply want to kill people. Not surprisingly, many recruits for the more popular jihads had criminal records or were otherwise known to law enforcement before taking up arms. In Europe and several other parts of the world, many recruits often interacted with ostensibly peaceful, but politically militant, Salafi groups that promoted radical ideas, extolled war, and helped individuals network with foreign jihadists.
Perceived success bred actual success. Foreign fighters used particular battles or limited achievements to highlight their prowess, and this “winning” narrative attracted additional recruits.
When the mujahedin movement scored real successes against the Soviets in Afghanistan, its popularity skyrocketed, but when it became overconfident and simply sent volunteers to be slaughtered, its prestige withered. Similarly, the competence of the Islamic State’s government — it collected taxes, imposed its version of law and order, and delivered some social services — demonstrated the group’s strength and bolstered its appeal, but when the Caliphate began to collapse in 2016 under the U.S.-led military campaign, foreign fighter flows dried up.
Finally, wars drive foreign fighter flows. The foreign fighters never begin the conflicts they participate in and only later play a prominent part. In most cases, they joined civil wars born from nationalist revolts against foreign occupiers or divisions within the country. The foreign fighters usually entered in the middle of the conflict and, even in cases when they participated in the early stages, less radical groups usually dominated at the outset. As the conflict progressed, however, their role would grow. At times groups recruited them, and in other cases they showed up largely on their own. Groups such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State exploit new wars wherever they can, establishing bases and using the cause to lure new recruits and conduct operations farther afield.
Three factors have changed the scope and scale of foreign fighter flows: a network effect, an expanded technological reach, and ease of travel.
Groups’ ability to harness technology greatly influenced their capacity to reach potential recruits. As these factors suggest, foreign fighters are products of an age of globalization. Photos of foreign fighters often resemble a recruitment brochure from an American college, with racially diverse individuals all smiling happily with their arms around one another. Their identities cross borders, they can travel far from their homelands, and they disseminate multimedia propaganda around the world.
Daniel Byman is a Professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of A High Price, The Five Front War, and Al Qaeda, The Islamic State, and the Global Jihadist Movement: What Everyone Needs to Know.
