What drives Europeans to Syria, and to IS? Insights from the Belgian case

The Royal Institute for International Relations is an independent think-tank based in Brussels. Its interdisciplinary research is conducted in a spirit of total academic freedom. Drawing on the expertise of its own research fellows, as well as that of external specialists, both Belgian and foreign, it provides analysis and policy options that are meant to be as operational as possible.According to CIA estimates at the end of 2014, Islamic State (a.k.a. ISIL a.k.a. ISIS) in Syria and Iraq mustered between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters, more than half of them foreign fighters. Fighters from Middle Eastern countries made up the largest contingent, but Europeans were well represented too. The UK Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) estimated nearly 4,000 had signed up since 2012. Later American estimates of Western fighters were somewhat lower (3,400), whereas Gilles de Kerchove, the EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, put the number of Europeans who had had military training in Syria or Iraq, at 4 to 5,000.

The first European to depart for Syria was probably a 28-year-old Frenchman who joined the Free Syrian Army in March 2012. A month earlier, the Syrian city of Homs had been shelled by the Syrian army. Other Europeans soon followed suit. In the summer of that year, the first Belgians arrived in Syria. The topic became a media frenzy. The theme thus also reached the political agenda. After the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January 2015 and the subsequent raid on a terrorist cell in Verviers (near Liège), all levels of government, from local to regional to national, hastily started to devise deradicalisation programmes – without a great deal of coordination. As of early 2015, nearly 200 Belgians were still active in Syria or Iraq. The figures indicated an order of magnitude, and no absolute certainty. Comparisons with other countries were risky, since definitions of what constitutes a foreign fighter and counting methods differed, even among EU Member States.

• Primary Source

ESO: Background information: Brussels shooting raises fears over European fighters returning from Syria http://www.europeansources.info/record/brussels-shooting-raises-fears-over-european-fighters-returning-from-syria/

Council of the European Union: EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator: Foreign fighters and returnees from a counter-terrorism perspective, in particular with regard to Syria: state of play and proposals for future work, 28.05.14 http://www.statewatch.org/news/2014/jul/eu-council-syrian-fighters-9280-rev1-14.pdf

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