Foreign Fighters: preventative action (UK mainly)

[davidbfpo]

Some official context:

The number of people travelling to Syria from the UK is judged to be in the low hundreds and available information shows that the number of Syria-related arrests increased substantially in 2014. The figure for the whole of 2013 was approximately 25 yet for the first three months of 2014 alone it is approximately 40.

Since January five people from Birmingham have been charged with Syrian-related offences and are currently awaiting trial.

Link:http://www.west-midlands.police.uk/l...ws.aspx?id=729

The main, eight page publication:http://www.west-midlands.police.uk/d...t_04.04.14.pdf

[davidbfpo]

A BBC reporter, Catrin Nye, who specialises in reporting on the UK Asian scene, tweeted today:

Just spoke to Brit Muslim currently fighting in Syria, he says family didn't know he was going, not even his mother could have stopped him.

[davidbfpo]

A "lurker" has responded, based on their "hands on" experience in IW and knowledge of Syria:

Opportunities:

- Syria is not a Western occupation, and it is difficult to paint it as such. The most convincing way of directing ire towards the west in relation to the situation in Syria is to accuse Washington, London etc of "doing nothing"
- Syrians dont like ISIS. This means potential volunteers, find it difficult to avoid the reality that the Muslim v. West narrative is overly simplistic
- The sectarian nature of the Syrian war is unavoidable, so it is difficult for extremists to maintain traction for the "Muslims vs West" narrative. or, at least harder than it is when it comes to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq etc


Challenges:


- Scant knowledge amongst volunteers of Syria's political, social or cultural context. ie. it is easier to paint the conflict as whatever you want - for a period of time, at least
- The rise of "doomsday prophecies" around the conflict. (ie that its part of a long foretold religious prediction about the coming of the mehdi/jesus) and heralds the end of the world. Both the Iranians and AQ are using this according to their (slightly) differing religious traditions.
- Fighting in Syria can be seen by volunteers as a duty that does not contradict their loyalty to the UK. This means that UK government efforts to stop them then become seen as a sinister plot to stop them helping Syrians. (Such conspiracies already exist amongst Syrians who believe the only explanation for the lack of military support is due to the West's desire to keep a weak dictator in place so that Israel is not challenged as the regional power)
- Extremely limited trust in HMG following Iraq (and domestic trust scandals)

[davidbfpo]

A taster for this Calgary, Canada mother's journey

His mother, Christianne Boudreau, noticed the change as well. The year before her son left, he became secretive and argumentative. He peddled 9/11 conspiracy theories and said the media weren’t telling the truth about what was happening to Muslims around the world. “He would get pretty worked up about it and conversations could get pretty heated,” she said. He started working out at the gym and would go on hikes with his prayer group. But Mrs. Boudreau thought it was just his nature to immerse himself in his interests. “Certain things, he’d get really zestful about,” she said. “And then he’d get bored and move on to the next thing."


When her son told her he would be travelling to Egypt to study Arabic, Mrs. Boudreau never thought he’d actually go through with it. He was always a big talker. The night before he was supposed to leave, in November 2012, the family went out for dinner and he came back to her townhouse and played video games with his little brother. He seemed relaxed and happy-go-lucky. Only when he called from the plane in the morning did she realize he was actually going to do it...I had no idea,” Mrs. Boudreau said.

Link:http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/04...dead-in-syria/

[davidbfpo]

A column by a British Muslim activist:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/wom...-early-on.html

[davidbfpo]

Which led to a CT investigation, with two young B'ham men being charged with terrorism in Syria; in part:

Yusuf Sarwar .. and Nahin Ahmed ... both aged 22 - pleaded guilty to preparing for acts of terrorism, at Woolwich Crown Court today.

In May last year the men purchased one-way tickets to Turkey and later went on to cross the Syrian border. When they returned to the UK after eight months away, officers from the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit were waiting at Heathrow to arrest them.

Traces of military grade explosives were found on their clothing and pictures on their camera showed them brandishing weapons. Detectives used satellite imaging to establish from the photographs that the men had been in and around Aleppo - one of the main conflict zones.

Link:http://www.west-midlands.police.uk/l...s.aspx?id=1214

[davidbfpo]

Rachel Briggs of the London-based think tank, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), has studied counter-radicalisation for a long time and blogs occassionally.

Her blog 'Foreign fighters in Syria: the rise of women and the challenge of prevention' appears to be UK-orientated, but has a wider application in Europe and maybe beyond. Especially over the absence of a counter-narrative:http://rachelbriggs.wordpress.com/20...of-prevention/

Readers will be familiar with my viewpoint that there is no counter-narrative, so now here is Rachel, with my emphasis:

There is also an urgent need to compete with violent extremists for the attention of our young people. Extensive social media analysis conducted by my team at ISD reveals that there is almost no counter-narrative activity occurring online. There is no shortage of talk at expensive international conferences about the need for counter-narratives, but there is very little action. Governments are on safe and familiar ground funding meetings, but struggle to get effective counter-messaging campaigns signed off by risk-averse Ministers.

She cites some private work, have a peek - it is for a young Muslim audience:http://www.youtube.com/user/abdullahx