ROME —Their home countries don’t want them back. Hundreds of foreign
fighters who enlisted with Islamic State to fight in Syria and Iraq are
being stripped of their citizenship and blocked from returning by
Western governments.
Returning fighters are seen as a grim threat, the deadly legacy of a
murderous movement being defeated and rolled back on the battlefield.
Western intelligence officials say they are already over-stretched
trying to monitor tens of thousands of suspected extremists who never
left their home countries.
British officials say they have stripped more than 100 British
fighters and brides of their citizenship, preventing them re-entering
the country legally, according to British news reports. All those who
have lost British citizenship are dual nationals. Under international
law, governments can’t revoke someone’s citizenship if it would render
them stateless.
According to Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper, 152 IS recruits have been stripped of British citizenship since 2016, 30 since March.
Of the estimated 850 Britons who joined IS or al-Qaida-linked groups
in Syria, 15 percent are thought to have been killed. A handful of
returnees have been jailed, but officials say many cannot be prosecuted
for lack of evidence. Some are thought to have become disillusioned with
jihadism, but many are thought to pose a significant terror risk.
Britain isn’t alone in fearing the havoc returnees could wreak or the
added burden they place on intelligence services already struggling to
maintain surveillance on thousands of suspects who never left to fight.
In June, following terrorist attacks in Manchester and London, British
authorities admitted 23,000 radical Islamists had been considered a
“person of interest” to the security services at any one time, more than
six times the previous figures made public by the government.
Of those, 3,000 are considered serious threats, including about 400
people who have returned to Britain after fighting for IS in Syria and
Iraq.
Other countries fearful
Since 2015, several Western governments have moved to amend their
laws to make it easier to revoke the citizenship of dual nationals
involved in terrorism. Even so, European governments have faced mounting
criticism that they have little in the way of comprehensive plans ready
for returnees, either in keeping tabs on them or requiring them to
enter rehabilitation and de-radicalization programs.
There is fierce debate also over the effectiveness of
de-radicalization programs on fighters who have not already become
disillusioned.
Critics include Alex Carlile, a former independent reviewer of
terrorism legislation, who has complained about the British government’s
inconsistency and has called for the reintroduction of tough "control
orders" that were banned in 2012 over human right fears. The control
orders allowed the authorities to restrict suspects’ movement and their
use of phones and computers.
He said in a television interview last month it was a “grave mistake”
to abolish the orders which “may have saved dozens of lives” between
2005 and 2011.
In February, the Australian government revoked the citizenship of
Khaled Sharrouf, who slipped out of Australia in 2013 after serving a
four-year jail term on terrorism-related charges.
He became internationally infamous after posting on the internet in
August 2014 a photograph of his seven-year-old son holding the severed
head of a Syrian soldier. In April a new video surfaced showing
Sharrouf’s youngest son wearing a suicide vest being prompted by his
father to issue threats to murder Australians.
At least 110 Australians are estimated to have joined terrorist
groups in Iraq and Syria. Seventy are thought to be dead, three were
captured in Lebanon and are in jail there. Australian officials are
considering revoking their citizenship.
It has been rare for Western fighters to be captured. In an interview
last week with VOA, Gen. Andrew Croft, who oversees the coalition air
campaign against IS in Iraq, said foreign fighters are certainly among
the IS forces.
“One of the dynamics you see is that foreign fighters can't just
blend in with civilians and go to an IDP camp. So the foreign fighters
often move around in groups, and they will often fight to the death,” he
said.
A move by then-president Francois Hollande to pass legislation to
make it easier to revoke French citizenship of terrorist suspects
holding dual nationality failed last year. Opinion polls suggested the
legislation had public backing, but political critics and rights groups
argued the measure would do little to prevent terror attacks and risked
worsening race relations by stigmatizing sections of the population,
notably Muslims of North African descent.
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