From Freedom Fighters to Jihadists

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vera Mironova
Keyword(s):  
Human Resource ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
Market Theory ◽  
Special Operations ◽  
Internal Organization ◽  
Freedom Fighters ◽  
Survey Interviews ◽  
Foreign Fighters

This book examines the internal organization of armed groups, particularly their human resource practices. The authors look at the rebel armed groups through the prism of a labor market theory. In the Syrian civil war, extreme Islamist groups were able to siphon fighters off from moderate groups because they had better internal organization, took better care of fighters (physically and monetarily), and experienced less internal corruption. This book is based on more than six hundred survey-interviews with local civilians and fighters on the frontline in Syria (including members of al-Nusra and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [ISIS]) and a dataset of human resource policies from forty armed groups based on qualitative interviews with group leaders. In addition, active and former foreign fighters with ISIS and Jubhat al-Nusra were interviewed in Syria, Turkey, Ukraine, and Central Asia (where many former ISIS foreign fighters were hiding). In search of deeper answers on ideological issues, the author also penetrated an ultra-radical sect of former ISIS fighters known as chain takfiris who had abandoned ISIS because its ideology was not religiously radical enough. The author interviewed members of this extreme sect and studied their books, lectures, forums, and closed channels on social media. The author also conducted extensive ethnographic research in 2016 and 2017 while embedded with Iraqi Special Operations Forces during the Mosul operation. This allowed her to observe the behavior of ISIS members in the field and collect valuable information from the group’s internal documentation and from fighters’ personal notebooks.

Armed Groups Human Resource Manual

2019 ◽  
pp. 25-46
Author(s):  
Vera Mironova
Keyword(s):  
Human Resource ◽  
Side Effect ◽  
Major Part ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
Power Struggles ◽  
Resource Manual ◽  
Internal Organization ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Central Factor ◽  
Extreme Groups

Using criteria that she developed and elaborates, the author classifies rebel groups on a continuum from extreme to moderate. She shows that extreme Islamist groups were able to attract fighters away from initial moderate groups because they had better internal organization, took better care of fighters (physically and monetarily), and experienced less internal corruption. The author explains how extreme groups benefited from Islamist ideology, which helped ensure, among other things, that only the most dedicated fighters joined their ranks. However, one unforeseen side effect of using ideology as a central factor was attracting fighters more interested in Islamic ideology than fighting. With time, such individuals wasted group resources and caused internal splits and power struggles over the goals of the conflict. For ISIS, handling these issues became a major part of their decline.

Love and Jihad. Female Trajectories from North Caucasus to the Islamic State

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-151
Author(s):  
Denis Sokolov
Keyword(s):  
Muslim Women ◽  
Al Qaeda ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
North Caucasus ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
The North ◽  
Caucasian Women

In the 2000s, Al-Qaeda, represented by the Caucasus Emirate, took over the first Chechen resistance, as well as local Islamist armed groups in Dagestan and other republics of the North Caucasus. However, a decade later, the Islamic State won the competition with Al-Qaeda, by including the involvement of women in its project. Hundreds of Russian-speaking Muslim women followed men to live by the rules of Islam. Some joined their husbands or children. Others travelled to the Islamic State in pursuit of love and romance with future husbands they had met on the internet. Based on exclusive interviews done with women detained in the Roj detention camp in the Kurdish territories in northeastern Syria near the Iraqi border, this article analyzes some of the trajectories that has pushed young North Caucasian women to the Syrian war theater in the name of love.

DERADICALIZATION OF RETURNING FOREIGN FIGHTERS AND HOMEGROWN TERORRISTS

2021 ◽  
pp. 87-100
Author(s):  
DANILO VUJOVIĆ ◽  
NEDELJKO CVETKOVIĆ
Keyword(s):  
Focal Point ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Security Risk ◽  
European Security ◽  
Preventive Work ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Foreign Fighters

In the last couple of years, with the prolification of the Migrant Crisis and the defeat of the Islamic State, the return of the foreign fighters, who went form Europe to the Caliphate and joined the local conflict, as well as the problem of the homegrown terrorism have become the focal point of almost all national security strategies of European countries. The situation that followed drove the authors to set the possible approaches to solving this challenge to European security as a goal for their research. The subject of this article encompasses the process of deradicalization, as the only humane way to deal with the problem at hand, as well as the process of radicalization, as necessary for understanding the formation of the individuals that pose a threat to the security of Europe. The article also tackles the preventive work directed at those social groups that are deemed susceptible to radicalization, as well as the use of individualized and holistic approach to the radicalized individuals. Special consideration is given to the programs of deradicalization as a form of institutionalized way of dealing with this type of a security risk. In the conclusion the authors give their own view of what is the most adeqaute approach when working with radicalized individuals and the role of certain elements of society in it.

Understanding the Islamic State—A Review Essay

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 127-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Byman
Keyword(s):  
Review Essay ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
The West ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Terrorist Threat ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Raison D’État ◽  
Foreign Fighters

This article reviews several recent books on the Islamic State in order to understand its goals, motivations, strategy, and vulnerabilities. It argues that the Islamic State's ideology is powerful but also highly instrumental, offering the group legitimacy and recruiting appeal. Raison d'etat often dominates its decisionmaking. The Islamic State's strength is largely a consequence of the policies and weaknesses of its state adversaries. In addition, the group has many weaknesses of its own, notably its brutality, reliance on foreign fighters, and investment in a state as well as its tendency to seek out new enemies. The threat the Islamic State poses is most severe at the local and regional levels. The danger of terrorism to the West is real but mitigated by the Islamic State's continued prioritization of the Muslim world and the heightened focus of Western security forces on the terrorist threat. A high-quality military force could easily defeat Islamic State fighters, but there is no desire to deploy large numbers of Western ground troops, and local forces have repeatedly shown many weaknesses. In the end, containing the Islamic State and making modest rollback efforts may be the best local outcomes.

scholarly journals Jihadist war or a challenge of disintegration?

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 233-250
Author(s):  
Péter Balogh
Keyword(s):  
Developed Countries ◽  
Actual State ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Terrorist Organization ◽  
Socio Demographic Factors ◽  
The Developed Countries ◽  
The One ◽  
Foreign Fighters

In this paper we introduce some relevant research results about the role of social embeddedness and social resources in the sphere of social conflicts and violence. In accordance with the actual state of the investigation process the outcomes presented in this analysis are focusing on the activities of the so called ‘Islamic State’or ISIS – considered to be a rather effective terrorism exporter recently. After briefly outlining the broader – global – context of terrorist organizations, the particular characteristics of the activities of ISIS and some elements of the conceptual frame, the study highlights empirically two potential explaining factors of the success of the terrorist organization. On the one hand the influencing network – primarily linked to the cyber sphere – of the Islamic State is explored, demonstrating a notable focus on the developed countries of Europe. On the other hand the paper summarizes the main conclusions from a case study on the recruitment base of the militants in Brussels of the terrorist organization investigating the relationship between the territorial distribution of the ISIS foreign fighters in city and the extent of segregation of the Islamic population in the different districts, including also certain socio-demographic factors to shed light on the significance of the broader – unfavourable – social context.

scholarly journals FIGHTING FOR ISIS – THE CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Cieslar
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Easy Access ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Online Chat ◽  
Religious Motivation ◽  
Recruitment Methods ◽  
The Us ◽  
Common Purpose ◽  
Foreign Fighters ◽  
Short Time

Abstract: The purpose of this research paper is to examine the online recruitment processes and socio-economic factors that allow for the radicalisation of people in Great Britain. The paper will address the following questions: 1) what are ISIS recruitment methods? 2) what makes the recruitment successful? 3) is religious motivation the main factor why people decide to fight for the Islamic State? According to the US National Counterterrorism Centre, in the recent years Islamic State (ISIS) recruited an estimate of 3,400 Westerners ready to fight its cause around the globe. Islamic State has a far more successful rate in luring members from the West than Al-Qaeda. In a relatively short time ISIS went from being an unknown terror cell to threatening worldwide security. Great Britain experienced a number of terrorist attacks in the recent years and the responsibility for them had been claimed by ISIS. However, with the arrival of easy access to the internet the radicalisation of young Britons has been on the rise in the recent years. The studies suggest that there are different motivations for joining Islamic State. Foreign fighters are made to believe that the terrorist group offers values that western democracies seem to lack, namely a common purpose, good morals and sense of belonging. These values are attractive for Muslims and for the new converts alike. Additionally, ISIS recruiters run an online propaganda machine. The process of radicalisation moved from the mosques into more effective online chat-rooms and social media forums.

Handling Foreign Fighters

2019 ◽  
pp. 135-172
Author(s):  
Vera Mironova
Keyword(s):  
Local Population ◽  
Group Cohesion ◽  
The Other ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
Additional Source ◽  
Armed Group ◽  
Local Language ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
International War ◽  
Foreign Fighters

There are several major benefits foreign fighters, and only foreign fighters, can offer armed groups. They have knowledge and experience that the local population does not have and have connections in the international war industry. Usually they are more dedicated to their goals. Foreigners are better at raising funds in their home communities and thus provide armed groups with additional source of income. Finally, they can be successfully used by armed groups for propaganda purposes. On the other hand, it is much harder for the leaders of an armed group to manage foreigners versus locals. First, foreign fighters often do not speak the local language and are not familiar with the terrain. Second, they could have problems with the locals. Third, their presence in the group could decrease overall group cohesion. Fourth, they could be recruited as spies by foreign intelligence agencies more easily than locals. And finally, foreign fighters often joined the conflict with different motives than those of local fighters, which could lead to differences in combat strategy and tactics.

Woolsey’s Snakes

2020 ◽  
pp. 66-114
Author(s):  
David Kilcullen
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Fitness Landscape ◽  
Al Qaeda ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
Operating Environment ◽  
Evolutionary Processes ◽  
Evolutionary Concepts

This chapter applies the evolutionary concepts explained in Chapter 2 to a series of case studies of nonstate adversaries. It explores how specific nonstate adversaries have adapted and evolved since 1993; these include Al Qaeda, Islamic State, Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, and the Lebanese Shi’a group Hezbollah. The chapter shows that each of these irregular armed groups, despite differences of ideology, origin, operating environment and structure, are all responding in their own ways to a fitness landscape created by Western dominance of a particular, narrow, technology-centric form of warfare. Their patterns of adaptation indicate the ways in which evolutionary processes identified in the previous chapter have played out in practice.

Brothers in arms: Visual commonalities between US and IS recruitment strategies

2019 ◽  
pp. 175063521988777
Author(s):  
Lawrie Phillips ◽  
Maha Ghalwash
Keyword(s):  
Visual Image ◽  
Military Power ◽  
Recruitment Strategies ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
Multimodal Discourse Analysis ◽  
Multimodal Discourse ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
The Us

This article claims that the visual image contributes to, reflects and supports the dominant discourse of two powerful armed groups that have operated in Iraq and Syria: the US military and the Islamic State (IS). This research uses multimodal discourse analysis to explore two crucial insights into the ideological power of the visual image: the power of the image as spectatorship or spectacle and the sublime or transcendental nature of the visual image. The authors conclude that US and IS recruitment and propaganda videos share these two crucial ideological elements: pride in the spectacle of their military power, discipline and technologies, and sublime commitment to the act of killing and dying for the cause. In this sense, the US military and IS are brothers in arms.

Facilitating Efficiency and Flexibility Ambidexterity in Project-Based Organizations: An Exploratory Study of Organizational Antecedents

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (5) ◽  
pp. 556-572
Author(s):  
Xiuxia Sun ◽  
Fangwei Zhu ◽  
Mouxuan Sun ◽  
Ralf Müller ◽  
Miao Yu
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Human Resource ◽  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Multiple Case Study ◽  
Changing Environments ◽  
Human Resource Policies ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Multiple Case

Through an exploratory multiple-case study in the context of project-based organizations in China, this study aims to identify the antecedents that facilitate three prevalent types of ambidexterity, namely, structural, sequential, and contextual ambidexterity. To understand and theorize on this phenomenon, seven case studies with 76 qualitative interviews were held. The results show that unpredictable and changing environments set the enabling context for ambidexterity, whereas design choices involving dimensions of structure, processes, empowerment, rewards, and human resource policies serve as structural antecedents. The managers and employees who respectively behave in supportive and initiative ways ultimately trigger different types of ambidexterity.

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