Page 27 - Cyber Terrorism and Extremism as Threat to Critical Infrastructure Protection

DENIS ČALETA, SARA PERKOVIĆ: EXTREMISM AND RADICALIZATION IN THE EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENT – SECURITY CHALLENGES
OF RETURN FOREIGN FIGHTERS

flict. What to do with them when they use that right and actually return, is another question.
Politically, of course, it is easier to arrest them than to re-integrate them: a terrorist who acted
after security services had passed on a chance to arrest them would embarrass the service and
enrage the public (Byman and Shapiro, 2014, p 26). European countries are not willing to take
back foreign fighters.

The world had a strong reaction to this question from the American President, Donald Trump,
at the beginning of 2019. Hundreds of IS foreign fighters were imprisoned in areas controlled
by Kurdish forces. In one of his Twitter posts, Trump said that the USA was asking the UK,
France, Germany and all the other European allies to take on more than 800 IS fighters that
had been captured in Syria and put them to trial. What had a negative echo around the Europe-
an continent was the fact that Trump said that if they did not take their citizens back, the USA
would set them free. This was also confirmed by Kurdish forces: the SDF – Kurdish-led forces
that control north-east Syria with the backing of the USA – were holding 800-1,000 foreign
fighters in prison, including Britons, Americans, French and Germans, according to a senior
Kurdish official. Ilham Ahmed, co-chair of the Syrian Democratic Council, the political wing
of the SDF, told the Financial Times that about 4,000 of their relatives, mainly women and
children, were in camps. Ahmed said that the SDF had been urging Western countries to take
back their nationals captured in Syria, warning that it could not put them on trial and process
them. But the Kurdish-led authorities had not received responses (Peel at al.,2019, e-source).
Until these responses from President Trump and the Kurdish forces, many European officials
were able to ignore the situation of the return of their citizens who were part of this conflict,
but the warning from Trump forced them to think about it. However, it did not show them
what to do. “France will not fulfil the claim of American President Donald Trump to his Eu-
ropean allies to take back fighters from Syria, but will look at it case by case,” said France’s
Minister of Justice, Nicole Belloubet. Germany also remained cold towards Trump’s claim,
with the note that is hard at the moment to organize the return of foreign fighters of IS from
Syria to Europe (Al Jazeera, 2019, e-source). European countries do not want the return of
their foreign fighter. They expect that judgements will be made in criminal courts of countries
where criminal acts were committed. This is not illogical, because their courts will investigate
and prosecute crimes that have been committed based on the principle of territoriality. This is
something that governments of European countries want, and is also in correlation with the
intention of Barham Salih, the Iraqi president, who said that people who were involved in
crimes that were committed in Iraq, should be prosecuted in Iraq: “Those who have engaged
in crimes against Iraq – we are seeking them and seeking their trial in Iraqi courts” (Cornish
and England, 2019, e-source).

However, it is hard to believe that courts in Syria and Iraq can fulfil this commitment in a satis-
factory way. The courts have been working overtime and have in place very poor legal protec-
tion. So far, trials in Iraqi courts for people that were involved in Islamic State have been 10
minutes long, with a verdict in just a few minutes. “It is estimated that around 3,000 suspected
members or supporters of IS are awaiting prosecution by Iraqi courts, the majority of whom
will be prosecuted by a specialized criminal court of the first instance in Qaraqosh on terrorism
charges. The court hears up to 50 cases a day in brief sessions, mostly male fighters that were
picked up as the military defeated IS strongholds in the north... From Europe alone, around 100
foreign fighters are being held by Iraqi courts, most of whom face the death penalty based on
the Anti-Terrorism Law no. 13” (Mehra, 2017, p 2). Besides this, “suspects are tried under a
law that makes no distinction between a person who “assists terrorists” and one who commits

27