Download or read book Foreign Fighters and Multinational Armies written by Steven O’Connor and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-05-11 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book showcases new historical research on foreign soldiers, including an overview of the early modern period and numerous case studies which cover the last 175 years and stretch over 5 continents. The last two decades have seen the term ‘foreign fighter’ enter our everyday vocabulary. The insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Syrian Civil War and the rise and fall of the Islamic State group have sparked public interest in the phenomenon of people choosing to leave their own country and fight in a foreign conflict. Foreign fighters, their origins, motives, activities and potential danger to their home countries have become subjects of debate, attracting contributions from politicians, military personnel, the media, political scientists, legal scholars but to a much lesser extent from historians. The ten essayss in this volume showcase new historical research on foreign military labour. The aim of the volume is to better understand the experiences and challenges faced by both the foreigners and the host country, particularly its armed forces, and to highlight the significance of these trends to the contemporary debate on foreign fighters. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal European Review of History.
Download or read book Road Warriors written by Daniel Byman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-02 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ever since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, fighters from abroad have journeyed in ever-greater numbers to conflict zones in the Muslim world to defend Islam from-in their view-infidels and apostates. The phenomenon recently reached its apogee in Syria, where the foreign fighter population quickly became larger and more diverse than in any previous conflict. In Road Warriors, Daniel Byman provides a sweeping history of the jihadist foreign fighter movement. He begins by chronicling the movement's birth in Afghanistan, its growing pains in Bosnia and Chechnya, and its emergence as a major source of terrorism in the West in the 1990s, culminating in the 9/11 attacks. Since that bloody day, the foreign fighter movement has seen major ups and downs. It rode high after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, when the ultra-violent Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) attracted thousands of foreign fighters. AQI overreached, however, and suffered a crushing defeat. Demonstrating the resilience of the movement, however, AQI reemerged anew during the Syrian civil war as the Islamic State, attracting tens of thousands of fighters from around the world and spawning the bloody 2015 attacks in Paris among hundreds of other strikes. Although casualty rates are usually high, the survivors of Afghanistan, Syria, and other fields of jihad often became skilled professional warriors, going from one war to the next. Still others returned to their home countries, some to peaceful retirement but a deadly few to conduct terrorist attacks. Over time, both the United States and Europe have learned to adapt. Before 9/11, volunteers went to and fro to Afghanistan and other hotspots with little interference. Today, the United States and its allies have developed a global program to identify, arrest, and kill foreign fighters. Much remains to be done, however-jihadist ideas and networks are by now deeply embedded, even as groups such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State rise and fall. And as Byman makes abundantly clear, the problem is not likely to go away any time soon.
Download or read book Foreign Fighters written by David Malet and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-30 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In conflict zones around the world, the phenomenon of foreign insurgents fighting on behalf of local rebel groups is a common occurrence. They have been an increasing source of concern because they engage in deadlier attacks than local fighters do. They also violate international laws and norms of citizenship. And because of their zeal, their adversaries - often the most powerful countries in the world - are frequently incapable of deterring them. Foreign fighters have made headlines in recent wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia, and the term is widely equated with militant Islamists. However, foreign fighters are not a new phenomenon. Throughout modern history, outside combatants have fought on behalf of causes ranging from international communism to aggrieved ethnic groups. Analyzing the long history of foreign fighters in the modern era helps us understand why they join insurgencies, what drives their behavior, and what policymakers can do in response. In Foreign Fighters, David Malet examines how insurgencies recruit individuals from abroad who would seem to have no direct connection to a distant war. Remarkably, the same recruiting strategies have been employed successfully in all foreign fighter cases, regardless of the particular circumstances of a conflict. Malet also catalogues foreign fighters in civil wars over the past two centuries, providing data indicating that they are disproportionately successful and growing in number. Detailed case histories constructed from archival material and original interviews demonstrate the same recruitment patterns in highly diverse conflicts including the Texas Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, the Israeli War of Independence, and the Afghanistan War. The results show that foreign fighters from Davy Crockett to George Orwell to Osama bin Laden create and respond to strategically crafted appeals to defend transnational communities under dire threat.
Download or read book Foreign Fighters under International Law and Beyond written by Andrea De Guttry and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-02-27 with total page 533 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers various perspectives, with an international legal focus, on an important and underexplored topic, which has recently gained momentum: the issue of foreign fighters. It provides an overview of challenges, pays considerable attention to the status of foreign fighters, and addresses numerous approaches, both at the supranational and national level, on how to tackle this problem. Outstanding experts in the field – lawyers, historians and political scientists – contributed to the present volume, providing the reader with a multitude of views concerning this multifaceted phenomenon. Particular attention is paid to its implications in light of the armed conflicts currently taking place in Syria and Iraq. Andrea de Guttry is a Full Professor of International Law at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy. Francesca Capone is a Research Fellow in Public International Law at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna. Christophe Paulussen is a Senior Researcher at the T.M.C. Asser Instituut in The Hague, the Netherlands, and a Research Fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague.
Download or read book Foreign Fighters written by David Malet and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2013-05-23 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Foreign Fighters is the comprehensive study of foreign fighters examines patterns of recruitment using original data sets and detailed diverse case studies, and how recruiters use frames of existential threat to strengthen rebel groups.
Download or read book Transnational Soldiers written by N. Arielli and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-11-28 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Warfare in the modern era has often been described in terms of national armies fighting national wars. This volume challenges the view by examining transnational aspects of military mobilization from the eighteenth century to the present. Truly global in scope, it offers an alternative way of reading the military history of the last 250 years.
Download or read book From Byron to Bin Laden written by Nir Arielli and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-08 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What makes people fight for countries other than their own? Nir Arielli offers a wide-ranging history of foreign-war volunteers, from the French Revolution to Syria. Challenging notions of foreign fighters as a security problem, Arielli explores motivations, ideology, gender, international law, military significance, and the memory of war.
Download or read book Not Only Syria The Phenomenon of Foreign Fighters in a Comparative Perspective written by K. Rekawek and published by IOS Press. This book was released on 2017-05-30 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The term ‘foreign fighters’ describes nationals of one state who – for whatever variety of reasons and motives – travel abroad to take part in a conflict in another state without the promise of financial reward. The majority of attention has so far been focused on the nationals of Western European states who have gone to fight for the so-called Islamic State in Syria. There exist, however, other examples of contemporary European foreign fighters whose travails, motivations and returns have been largely unnoticed and underappreciated. This books attempts to balance this state of affairs by bringing to the fore some lesser known cases of non-terrorist but foreign fighters related to the conflict in Ukraine, and situating them against the backdrop of the larger mobilization for the war in Syria. This book presents edited versions of the 12 papers presented at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) ‘Not Only Syria? Foreign Fighters: A Threat to NATO Allies and Their Neighbours’. The workshop was held in Chisinau, Moldova, in May 2016, and brought together researchers and experts in the field to discuss the differences, similarities and parallels between different groups of foreign fighters engaged in the conflicts in Syria and the Ukraine. The papers include contributions from the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Poland among others, and examine cases of foreign fighters from these and other countries. The book will provide an interesting context to researchers who have, up to now, looked only at a single set of such fighters, and will lead to tangible recommendations on how to develop policies to address the threat posed by returnees from any conflict.
Download or read book Classifying Foreign Fighters The Case of YPG written by Mehmet Furkan ERGÜL and published by Adalet. This book was released on with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Foreign fighters and returning foreign fighters are among the most important security issues that the Middle East and Europe is facing today. Although this topic has gained more attention in recent years, most of the academic studies on foreign fighters do not focus on the issue of classification. This book is based on a master's thesis and focuses on this somewhat neglected area of research by analyzing the discourse of foreign YPG fighters and finally proposing a classification for foreign YPG fighters based on their narratives. David Malet's PhD dissertation, which categorizes foreign fighters into four different types is particularly important and this study is based on Malet's classification. However, unlike Malet's thesis, this study focuses on one armed organization, the YPG, instead of a general categorization.
Download or read book Western Foreign Fighters written by Phil Gurski and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-12-08 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A number of recent terrorist attacks were committed by young men and women who had radicalized, went to train with IS in the Middle East, then returned to their home country to commit acts of violence. In this text, Phil Gurski examines why some people decide to abandon their homeland to join terrorist groups, and whether they pose a significant threat to their societies if they survive and return. The focus is on Canadians and other Westerners who see violent Jihad as divine obligation, with the intention to challenge the view that foreign fighters are all brainwashed. The book first looks at state motivation for resorting to conflict and the nature of war, including Jihad. It then discusses why Westerners volunteered to join the military in past wars to offer points of comparison before focusing on why some are now going to Iraq and Syria to fight along groups such as Islamic State. This includes a thorough discussion of the increasing participation of women and the debates among extremists on whether they can engage in warfare. Lastly, the threat posed by radicalized fighters when they return home after either training or waging war abroad is examined in detail along with what is done to prevent and counter it. Written in an accessible manner by a reputed expert on terrorism and radicalization, the text will appeal to anyone seeking to understand why people join terrorist groups and the threats they represent to their homeland.
Download or read book Networked Insurgencies and Foreign Fighters in Eurasia written by Jean-Francois Ratelle and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-10-19 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent wars in Eurasia have foregrounded the flows of foreign fighters between distinct insurgent battlefronts. Since 2011 thousands of individuals have travelled from the Caucasus and Central Asia to fight in Syria and Iraq. Caucasians have also appeared in the fighting that followed Ukraine’s Euromaidan Revolution in 2014. Resolutions of these conflicts promise further movements as foreign fighters return home. This collection of articles presents for the first time in one volume a cross-regional comparative perspective on the trajectories of foreign fighters between the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Middle East and Ukraine. Drawing on extensive primary sources, contributors theorize the life cycles of foreign fighter waves and the respective roles played by pre-existing insurgent networks, transnational ideologies such as "global jihad" and "Eurasianism", and propaganda framing by insurgent groups such as the Islamic State. They examine regional state responses to the security threat posed by foreign fighters, showing how current security governance regimes can reinforce insurgent ideologies attracting violent militants. Finally they investigate the motivations for foreign fighters to return to their home states in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Arguing for the networked character of insurgencies in Eurasia, this book offers a unique overview of the foreign fighter phenomenon across the continent. It was originally published as various special issues of Caucasus Survey, Terrorism and Political Violence and Studies in Conflict & Terrorism.
Download or read book Western Foreign Fighters in Syria written by U. S. Military and published by . This book was released on 2017-09-19 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique study examines Western foreign fighters in Syria during the Civil War through 2015. Syria has become a beacon for foreign fighters. Estimates in 2015 indicate that over 20,000 men and women have gone there to fight for various insurgent groups. This conflict is unique due to the unprecedented number of Westerners fighting. The central purpose of this study is to better understand recruitment and mobilization mechanisms as they pertain to fighters from Western nations. Why are these men and women leaving the relative safety of the West to enter a violent internecine conflict? What will happen if they decide to return home? To answer these questions, this thesis constructs 20 Western foreign fighter profiles from open source demographic, biographical, and motivational information, and then presents the findings. In particular, three variables--networks, anchoring, and group dynamics--are evaluated as critical drivers of recruitment and mobilization. The findings of this research show that traditional social networks, such as kinship, occupational, and religious groups, are most effective at recruiting and mobilizing prospective foreign fighters. Also, the data shows anchored individuals rarely mobilize. Furthermore, group dynamics appear critical to the mobilization of foreign fighters into Syria. Finally, the findings do not support social media efficacy in recruitment or mobilization.CHAPTER I * INTRODUCTION * A. MAJOR RESEARCH QUESTION * B. SIGNIFICANCE * C. LITERATURE REVIEW * D. POTENTIAL EXPLANATIONS AND HYPOTHESES * E. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY * F. THESIS OVERVIEW * CHAPTER II * THE SYRIAN CIVIL WAR AND THE RISE OF FOREIGN FIGHTERS * A. THE SYRIAN CONFLICT (2011-2015) * B. FOREIGN FIGHTERS IN SYRIA AND IRAQ * 1. EMERGENCE * 2. GROWTH * 3. FOREIGN FIGHTERS IN 2015 * C. CONCLUSION * CHAPTER III * WESTERN FOREIGN FIGHTERS IN SYRIA * A. INTRODUCTION * B. WESTERN FOREIGN FIGHTER DATA * 1. METHODOLOGY * 2. ASSESSED VARIABLES * a. Networks * b. Anchoring * c. Group Dynamics * 3. DATA RESULTS AND ANALYSIS * a. Demographics and Biographical Data * b. Networks, Anchoring, and Group Dynamics * C. WESTERN FOREIGN FIGHTERS: EXISTING STUDIES * D. CONCLUSION * CHAPTER IV * CONCLUSION * A. INTRODUCTION * B. HYPOTHESIS EVALUATION * 1. H1: IDEOLOGY * 2. H2: TRADITIONAL SOCIAL NETWORKS (TSN) * 3. H3: ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORKS (OSN) * 4. H4: GROUP DYNAMICS * C. IMPLICATIONS * D. FOLLOW-ON RESEARCH * LIST OF REFERENCES
Download or read book The Foreign Fighters Problem Recent Trends and Case Studies written by Michael P. Noonan and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines have confronted third-party national combatants. Known as “foreign fighters,” these individuals have gained deadly skills and connections that can be exported or exploited to devastating effect in other locations. Over the past two decades, the foreign fighters phenomenon has grown after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979—to the ethnically cleansed fields of the Balkans to Chechnya and beyond. But this is not a new problem. This report is the second volume of findings from an important series of FPRI conferences on the so-called foreign fighter problem. These conferences have brought together leading experts in the field to examine and discuss this phenomenon from different ideational and disciplinary perspectives. While the first volume dealt primarily with functional areas of the phenomenon, this edition focuses primarily on the case studies of al Qaeda franchises or allied affiliates in Somalia, the Maghreb, Yemen, and Afghanistan/Pakistan. Today, the outcomes of the geopolitical revolution unfolding across North Africa and the Middle East are far from clear, the problems associated with al Qaeda and its affiliated movement are likely to breed havoc for the foreseeable future across the region. Furthermore, the veterans spawned by such conflicts undoubtedly will present problems for international security writ large, too. The cases and phenomenon analyzed here may well provide important lessons for both those interested in the regions under examination here, but also for others who examine international challenges far removed from the study of radical extremism of the al Qaeda variety.
Download or read book Foreign Fighters written by and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Foreign Fighters' is the comprehensive study of foreign fighters examines patterns of recruitment using original data sets and detailed diverse case studies, and how recruiters use frames of existential threat to strengthen rebel groups.
Download or read book The Return of Foreign Fighters to Central Asia written by Thomas Lynch and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-02-03 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Central Asia is the third largest point of origin for Salafi jihadist foreign fighters in the conflagration in Syria and Iraq, with more than 4,000 total fighters joining the conflict since 2012 and 2,500 reportedly arriving in the 2014-2015 timeframe alone. As the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) continues to lose territory under duress from U.S.-led anti-ISIL coalition activities, some predict that many may return home bent on jihad and generating terror and instability across Central Asia. Yet several factors indicate that such an ominous foreign fighter return may not materialize. Among these factors are that a majority of Central Asians fighting for ISIL and the al-Nusra Front in Syria and Iraq are recruited while working abroad in Russia, often from low-wage jobs under poor conditions making the recruits ripe for radicalization. In addition, many of those heading for jihad in Syria and the Levant expect that they are on a "one way journey," some to martyrdom but most for a completely new life, and do not plan a return. Most Central Asian states face their greatest risk of domestic instability and violent extremism as a reaction to political repression and counterterrorism (CT) policies that counterproductively conflate political opposition and the open practice of Islam with a domestic jihadist threat. If improperly calibrated, greater U.S. CT assistance to address foreign fighter returns may strengthen illiberal regime short-term focus on political power consolidation, overplay the limited risks of foreign fighter returns, and increase the risks of domestic unrest and future instability. The United States has few means to pressure Central Asian regimes into policies that address the main drivers of domestic radicalization, such as political inclusion and religious freedom. Although an imperfect instrument, U.S. security assistance-and the specific subset of CT assistance-is a significant lever. U.S. CT assistance for Central Asia should eschew additional general lethal assistance and instead scope security attention toward border security intelligence and physical capacity enhancements. This CT aid should be paired with important, complementary socioeconomic programs that help with countering violent extremism, including greater religious and political openness along with support for the Central Asian diaspora.
Download or read book Foreign Fighters and International Peace written by Cholpon Orozobekova and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-09-19 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book sheds light on the emergence, roots and gradual change of jihadism and exposes its detrimental impact on human lives. The author collected insightful interviews with ISIS fighters and also with women who joined ISIS. The book analyzes root causes and motivations of people based on the firsthand information and proposes the non-enigma cycles radicalization theory, and argues that two main cycles- grievances and resentment, and the radical ideology are the most significant. The book addresses the current situation with 70,000 women and children, who were family members of ISIS fighters, trapped in the desert following the defeat of the terrorist group in Syria and Iraq. The work also analyzes incentives of those who joined ISIS, nature of the jihadist ideology, emergence of a family jihad, roles of women and children within a so-called caliphate, and state policies to deal with captured ISIS fighters and their family members. The author gives detailed information on post-ISIS lives of women and children, who were family members of ISIS fighters who currently held in the desert in Northeast Syria. Detailed and vivid depiction of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in these camps presents the readers a clear understanding of the extent, intensity, and importance of the issue at hand and is what makes this book such a compelling and eye-catching one. The book also gives compelling accounts of state policies toward ISIS fighters that being discussed by international community such as establishing ad hoc tribunal, stripping citizenship, transferring to Iraqi prisons etc. It also gives detailed insights into rehabilitation and reintegration programs in several countries that repatriated their citizens from Syria and Iraq. The author`s research is unique due to her direct access to repatriated foreign fighters in several countries, which brought back their citizens from Iraq and Syria. “We will depart to Jihad if the God calls us,” such are the imprints that are left on the minds of young children born and raised in ISIS-controlled territories. The book contains many human stories which makes the book interesting not only to scholars and policy makers but to general audience too.
Download or read book The Routledge Handbook on Radicalisation and Countering Radicalisation written by Joel Busher and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-11-28 with total page 602 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook provides a theoretical and methodological exploration of the research on radicalisation and counter-radicalisation, one of the most influential concepts in Security Studies, International Relations, and Peace and Conflict Studies. Sitting at the heart of high-profile research and policy agendas on preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE), radicalisation as a concept has transformed the way researchers, policymakers, and societies think about how to counter terrorism and political violence. Deliberations about radicalisation and countering radicalisation have become further embedded as efforts to prevent and counter violent extremism have been ‘mainstreamed’ into other areas of public policy and practice, such as education, gender relations, health, peacebuilding, aid, and development. Theoretically and methodologically pluralistic, this handbook addresses radicalisation and countering radicalisation as they relate to a wide range of groups and milieus, articulating diverse ideological positions, drawing together insight and experience from multiple geographic and institutional settings, integrating global perspectives, and including scholarship focused on a range of policy fields. This book will be an essential reference point for anybody working on radicalisation, countering radicalisation, or terrorism and political violence more broadly. The insight that it provides will be relevant for both academics and members of relevant policy and practitioner communities.
