https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3343-6380
ABSTRACT
This article is a qualitative study of anti-IS fighters who have traveled from the West to join the military struggle in Syria and Iraq. while earlier studies have mainly analyzed open sources (i.e. social media or journalist’s reports), this article is based on an in-depth analysis of eight autobiographies written by individuals who traveled from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Germany and the U.S. to take part in the fight against IS. What motives do they give for doing so, how are they treated by the police and journalists after they return from the wars in Syria and Iraq, and do they express other motives than those given by Westerners who have joined IS?
Since the then leader of Islamic State (IS), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (1971–2019), declared an Islamic Caliphate in 2014, a growing number of studies have tried to understand why so many Westerners have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join IS and similar movements. Academics like Olivier Roy and Gilles Kepel have been engaged in vigorous arguments over how to explain the attraction of IS for young Westerners.Footnote1 Other scholars, like Thomas HegghammerFootnote2 and Peter R. Neumann,Footnote3 have tried to keep track of how many IS volunteers there are and where in the world they come from. Other studies, such as those by Lorne L. Dawson and Amarnath AmarasingamFootnote4 and by Scott Atran,Footnote5 are based on interviews with individuals who joined IS. Without giving further examples, different theoretical tools and methods have been used to document, describe, analyze and explain what has drawn people to this organization.
Whereas there are valid academic as well as security reasons for studying those who joined IS, there is another group of fighters in Syria and Iraq who are regularly left out of the equation, namely travelers from the West who have fought against, not with militant Islamism such as that pursued by IS. According to one estimate, anything from five hundred to two thousand individuals from the West have joined different groups fighting IS and similar groups.Footnote6 However, in the absence of reliable statistics, we do not know the exact number of anti-IS fighters who have traveled from Western countries.
Nevertheless, if we want to understand and explain why some individuals voluntarily choose to go to Syria and Iraq prepared to die for a specific cause, it is necessary to include those who fought against IS as much as those who fought alongside it. Many such “travelers” have received military training and gained weapons experience, making them “a more effective militant regardless of who they are fighting for.”Footnote7 While making this inference in their study of open sources such as the Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts of Western anti-IS fighters, Fritz and Young emphasize the importance of security researchers and first-line workers, bearing in mind that some of the worst terrorist attacks have been committed by former military personnel who have returned from the battlefield.Footnote8
Aims
This article presents a qualitative study of those relatively few published works and reports that have focused on anti-IS fighters from the West. As a complement to Fritz and Young, who analyzed open sources such as social media or journalists’ reports, I examine eight autobiographies written by individuals who traveled to the Middle East from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the U.S. to take part in the struggle against IS. From the outset it should be admitted that eight autobiographies is a small sample, making it paramount not to generalize from the findings. There are also valid reasons to believe that those who have written autobiographies about their time fighting IS in Syria and Iraq are not “true representatives” of the approximately five hundred to two thousand individuals from the West who did so. For instance, their exposure to the media might jeopardize the “virginity” and authenticity of their observations. How the eight biographers present their decisions to go to Syria and/or Iraq and the time they spent there are very much subsequent constructions. Nonetheless I would argue that it is valid to study these eight individuals’ explanations for how they ended up fighting IS and how they came to the decision to do so.
Accordingly, my first aim is to study how these eight individuals claim to have made the right decision to go and how they justify their decisions to a Western audience, whether of journalists or of general readers of the autobiographies. A second aim is to analyze how the eight individuals were treated by the police and journalists after they returned to Europe and the U.S. from Syria and Iraq.Footnote9 Thirdly, I compare their motives for joining the struggle against IS with earlier studies that have analyzed self-stated motives for joining the fight.Footnote10 To make my study comparative and test Fritz and Young’s hypotheses, I have used McCauley and Moskalenko’s typologies of mobilization pathways ().
The dataset
While most previous research uses social media and open sources (news reporting) to analyze those who fought against IS, I have utilized a different dataset, namely autobiographies printed by publishing houses. Compared to information posted in online forums and social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter), the autobiography gives the individual more space to describe the circumstances and time of his or her involvement in Syria and Iraq. As I discuss in the next section, as a genre the autobiography has both pros and cons and should be analyzed critically. The books included in my sample are the following:
Haller, Christian: Sie nannten mich “Held”: wie ich als Deutscher in Syrien gegen den Islamischen Staat kämpfte (München, Germany: Riva, 2016).
Kardari, Rafael (with Daniel Fridell): Med livet som insats i strid mot IS (Stockholm, Sweden: Fischer & Co., 2017).
Locks, Tim: Fighting ISIS. How One Civilian went to War: AGripping True Story (London, UK: Pan Books, 2016).
Mattos, Ephraim (with Scott McEwen): City of Death: Humanitarian Warriors in the Battle of Mosul (New York and Nashville, USA: Center Street, 2018)
Nash, Ed: Desert Sniper: How One Ordinary Brit went to War Against ISIS (London, UK: Little Brown, 2018).
Palani, Joanna: Freedom Fighter: My War against ISIS on the Frontlines of Syria (London, UK: Atlantic Books, 2019).
Pesmerganor, Mike: Blood Makes the Grass Grow: The Incredible True Story of a Young Norwegian who Put His Life on the Line to Fight the World’s Most Brutal Terrorist Organization (no publisher, 2018, translated from Norwegian by Bjarte Abildsnes).
Söder, Jesper (with Johan Fredriksson): När världen tittade bort: Svensken som kämpar mot Daesh i Syrien (Stockholm, Sweden: Forum, 2016).
Although it is difficult if not impossible to generate the same individual data from the eight autobiographies (for example, concerning the author’s year of birth, how long he spent in Syria and/or Iraq, etc.), contains some basic information concerning these eight anti-IS fighters.
Table 1. Basic information
Unlike Fritz and Young, I do not address the problem of how to define the individuals who were included in my dataset. The only criteria I have used is that they traveled from a Western country to join an armed resistance group fighting against IS and similar groups. In order to find autobiographies, I searched online bookstores and university libraries. The search for literature was conducted with the help of search words such as “fighting IS,” “fighting Islamic State,” “fighting Daesh,” and “against the Caliphate”; Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and German equivalents of these word combinations were also targeted, these being the non-English languages I am most comfortable reading. Having found one book, it was also easier to find other autobiographies of great relevance to my study, especially since several of the books contain references to other Western volunteers who had also fought against IS in Syria and Iraq. Cross references were common, and the same individuals were often mentioned or appeared in photos in several of the other books I had selected.Footnote11
Before I turn to the empirical findings and analyze the data, some potential limitations of the research should be mentioned. According to Jayakumar’s quantitative study of Westerners who had fought against IS in Syria and Iraq, more autobiographies (e.g. written in Italian and French) of anti-IS fighters can be found than those I deal with here.Footnote12 This is not an immediate problem, since my study is qualitative and not quantitative, but I do not know if my results would have been any different had I included more autobiographies. Nonetheless, even though it would be possible to find some more autobiographies, the number of books written by Westerners who fought IS in Syria and Iraq is still very small. This fact alone limits the possibility of adopting a more “deliberate approach”—for example, selecting a number of individuals from the same country or with a similar background—and I have therefore tried to include as many autobiographies as possible that were written in the languages I read best (to repeat, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, English and German). To a certain extent the sample is ad hoc, that is, this is what I found when looking for such autobiographies. This problem might have been remedied by including information posted on social media, but since Fritz and Young’s study covers these aspects, it is hoped that the selection of and focus on autobiographies still constitute a contribution to the field. However, future studies should include more sources (both printed and posted on social media platforms) and interviews with relevant individuals.
This study is part of a research project, From Gothenburg to paradise: how officials, relatives and “outgoing fighters” understand the decision to travel to the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, funded by the University of Gothenburg and the City of Gothenburg. The project has been approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (Etikprövningsmyndigheten). However, as the eight autobiographies I analyze in this study have already been published as printed books, and the information is already in the public domain, the rule to obtain informed consent from research informants does not apply here.
Methodology and theoretical approaches
When studying autobiographies as a literary genre, it is necessary to apply a critical gaze and, as a researcher, to be aware of the danger of taking all accounts at face value or as hard facts. Like all other autobiographies, those selected for my study could have explicit or implicit reasons for avoiding certain topics, and like all other humans their authors want to present themselves in a positive light. In particular they want to be seen as rational individuals, and as soldiers they could have personal reasons for not showing that they were scared or had not acted in accordance with their highest ideals. To put it differently, autobiographies can present the individual as he or she wants to be perceived, whereas other accounts of the same person, time period or incident (for example, a battle) could paint a different picture of that person. The gap between self (i.e. the ideal portrayal) and other (i.e. how a person is perceived by others) is also present in the eight autobiographies I have analyzed. Although all eight should be read and analyzed as individual reports, several of their subjects had some acquaintance with other Western fighters who fought IS and who have also written about their experiences in Syria or Iraq. These contacts, which were established before or during the time in Syria and Iraq, are mentioned either in the books themselves or the photo captions they contain. As a consequence, there are several cross-references between different “Westerners” mentioned in the published books. For example, infighting, personal grievances and different mentalities are clearly evident, and some of the individuals in my sample have fallen out with each other, potentially even being seen as enemies in some cases.Footnote13
Since these autobiographies have all been published, they probably all went through an editing process before being printed. For example, an editor might have encouraged a writer to change his or her story to make it fit with a dramaturgical structure proposed by the publishing house. Some of the books might also have been “censored” in order to protect the writer or individuals mentioned in the story for ethical or legal reasons. Those who wrote autobiographies should therefore not be seen as representative of all those individuals who left Western countries to fight IS. The great majority of the approximately five hundred to two thousand Westerners who fought IS or similar groups have not published books on their time in Syria and Iraq. Those who wrote books after returning have all become more or less public figures and have often been very active in social media and public discussions. Several have also been interviewed by the public media on their experiences. This exposure might have had an impact on their observations and ultimately their “authenticity.” They could exaggerate or under-emphasize their role and function in the struggle. This is a serious problem if you are interested in what happened in Syria and Iraq and what “really” made them join the fight against IS. Even though this potential problem should be kept in mind, this is not automatically a problem for my study, since my primary interest is how these authors present themselves and their motives to the potential reader of their books. My primary focus is on how these motives are presented, not to test if they are valid, true or representative of all Westerners who joined the fight against IS.
In order to make my study comparative and test Fritz and Young’s hypotheses concerning those who fought against IS, I have also used McCauley and Moskalenko’s typologies of mobilization pathways. However, as I read Fritz and Young, they have mainly used McCauley and Moskalenko to emphasize individual motives for radicalization; this is how I will use the suggested typologies as well. Also, it should be stressed that what McCauley and Moskalenko actually argue is that the social context, not the individual, should be the main focus if we want to understand why certain individuals become radicalized and willing to take up arms.
According to Fritz and Young, the great majority of anti-IS fighters were motivated by either personal motives (29 percent) or group grievance (44 percent).Footnote14 Bearing in mind that McCauley and Moskalenko’s focus is on the social context and not the individual, I will follow Fritz and Young’s use of the typology in and ask to what extent a similar pattern is found in the autobiographies I have studied.
Table 2. Mobilization pathways, modified from McCauley and Moskalenko (2011)
Backgrounds and motives for joining the fight against IS
The eight individuals I have included in my analysis have different backgrounds regarding education, connections with the region (i.e. Syria, Iraq, “Kurdistan”) and religious beliefs; some but not all had problematic upbringings as well. For example, Rafael Kardari from Sweden, who joined YPG (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel; “People’s Protection Units”), states that he was surrounded by “violence, threats and criminality” when he grew up.Footnote15 He had a loving family, but the wider environment was rough.
Tim Locks, a British civilian with no personal connection to the region but who joined a Christian militia group, Dwekh Nawsha (Syriac for “one who sacrifices”), tells us that he had been “quite badly bullied” at school and had dreamt of becoming “a soldier for as long as I can remember.”Footnote16 For Locks, as for Ed Nash, who joined the YPG, it is vital to stand up to any form of bullying, of which IS is the worst example yet seen. Thus, it is baffling when people ask why he went to the Middle East to fight IS. For Nash, the answer is easy: “How can any sane person not oppose such evil?”Footnote17
For Joanna Palani, a Danish-Kurd who joined the women fighters in YPJ and later the Peshmerga (“Those who face death”), the fight is not only against IS, it is also about women’s rights and equality. Her background was also difficult, and her account makes several references to domestic violence, bullying and sexual abuse. Her struggle is also against the patriarchal structures in both her original culture and Danish society that failed to defend her from either IS or her abusive family.Footnote18 For example, when she returned to Denmark after the battle of Kobani in September 2014, she did not find much support from her family: “Instead of being pleased that I wanted to fight for Kurdistan, my father called me a Mafia hooker, and my brother threw a teapot containing hot water at me. I was shocked; I was trying to talk seriously to my family, but they could only call me names. My father pushed me down on to the ground, and my brother slapped me in the face.”Footnote19
Another Swede, Jesper Söder, who joined YPG, reports that he had a “normal childhood,” but that his life has also been surrounded by problems. His father died before he turned five, and his brother and sister have both been accused of crimes. While his sister was cleared by the Supreme Court, his brother was sentenced to prison. Söder himself was also sentenced to community service after being found guilty of drinking and driving. But these problems do not take away the fact that he has received a lot of support and love, especially from his mother.Footnote20
As compared to Lock and Söder, another British citizen, Ed Nash, was born and raised in a stable and safe home, and his parents have been married for more than forty years. He went to a “good school and was a fair student,” and after school he studied history at a British university. He also traveled and worked in several countries in Asia and Africa. Both Nash and the American Ephraim Mattos found their way to Iraq via the Free Burma Rangers, an NGO that provides “medical aid to civilian populations, [and] assist[s] in documenting human rights abuses.”Footnote21 Like many of those who joined the fight against IS, both Mattos and Nash can best be described as adventurers driven by altruistic motives. One example is the following quote from Nash: “…I firmly believe that it is a moral duty to assist those who need aid if you are in a position to help.”Footnote22
Like the others, Mike Peshmerganor, a Kurdish-Norwegian who joined the Peshmerga, made the decision to join the fight against IS after following the news from the Middle East. Like many of the other autobiographers in my sample, he was shocked by the violence used by IS, and even more so by the fact that some Norwegian citizens had joined the movement.Footnote23 Reflecting on his decision to go from words to action, he says:
I hadn’t been to northern Iraq since my family fled in the ‘80s when I was an infant. I barely spoke the language and didn’t know the culture as well as I perhaps should. I’d never envisioned returning so I never bothered to learn the heritage. I had always felt more Norwegian than Kurd, but the Islamists’ ravages in the Kurdish areas woke something in me.Footnote24
For Söder it was important to find meaning in life, and participating in a campaign that could help innocent people suffering at the hands of IS was a justification for going to war. Söder states that he is not the kind of person who only supports a cause by giving some money to a volunteer organization like the Red Cross. He wants to make a difference. He writes: “I have missed something these last years. I told them that I could now feel my heart pounding again. I had a mission, a mission that meant something. A mission in a foreign land far away from the birches swaying by my father’s and grandfathers’ graveyards [my translation].”Footnote25
Even considering personal differences between the eight accounts, it is possible to see some common traits. For example, news and social media reporting about the horrors committed by IS played an important role in making up people’s minds to do something and finally go to Iraq. But this is not unique to my sample, as similar results are found in other studies of Westerners who fought IS. For example, Jayakumar reports that, “Of the 214 whose motivations have been stored in the database, 150 individuals fall within this category [i.e. ‘moral outrage’].”Footnote26 Söder can serve as an illustration of this tendency. He writes: “During November and December, 2014, I sit hour after hour in front of the computer and watch video after video where innocent people are decapitated, children executed and women are sold as slaves. This is sick. Is this happening now? [My translation].”Footnote27
Most of the individuals in my sample have used social media platforms and search engines to find out how to join the fight against IS and similar groups.Footnote28 For Söder it was online forums and communities associated with games like Counter-Strike and Call of Duty that gave him a way into the struggle against IS. It was one of his gaming friends, an American nicknamed SharkClaw who had joined the YPG, who gave Söder the necessary information and contacts to go to Syria.Footnote29 The German Christian Heller, who also lost his father at a young age, found his way to YPG and Syria via the Facebook site of the Lions of Rojava.Footnote30 A similar description is also given by Locks, who writes:
Over the next few months I began sending messages to a few people from the Facebook sites I was following, in particular Jordan Matson, an American ex-solider. He was one of the first Westerners to go out and fight against Daesh in Syria, as like me he had felt he could not sit at home and watch this mindless killing and destruction of the little peace that had been established in the Middle East.Footnote31
While some Westerners give religious motives for fighting IS,Footnote32 religious beliefs were not a common motive in the eight autobiographies. For example, unlike one of his fellow soldiers, who was constantly reading “his old battered Bible,” Locks emphasizes that the fight against IS has nothing to do with religion. He explains, “We are here to help protect innocent people from the evils of Daesh, it is not about religion.”Footnote33
Even though IS uses religion as an excuse for violence and to legitimize it, religion is not the driving factor according to Locks. This is demonstrated by the fact that IS uses religion as an “get out of jail free card” and that it could do anything as long as it claimed it was for a religious purpose.Footnote34 This conclusion is important for Locks, who believes that this is not a fight against Muslims or Islam, but only a battle against fanaticism.Footnote35 A similar analysis is provided by Haller, who argues that IS is not representative of the majority of Muslims. To him IS is a sadistic “Stone Age ideology” that discriminates and kills all those who do not accept its interpretation of Islam.Footnote36
However, for Peshmerganor it is radical Islam that is the real enemy. Without providing an explicit definition, he states that radical Islam “must be conquered by any means necessary.”Footnote37 For James, another British fighter who served in Dwekh Nawsha and who appears in Lock’s book, it was important to protect the West from Islam. In a news report for the International Business Times, James is presented as an admirer of Britain First, and he explains that he is afraid that Muslim extremists will “outbreed” Britain’s white population.Footnote38 Even though this shows that anti-Muslim sentiments may be a motivation for joining anti-IS groups, it is important to stress that Peshmerganor’s statement about radical Islam was made close to the terror attacks in Nice, France, on Bastille Day (14 July) 2016.
Even though some of the Westerners in my sample explicitly or implicitly admit that they had some kind of belief and that religion had been present in their homes (especially in the case of Mattos, who grew up in a family who were members of a “Independent Fundamental Baptist Church” in MilwaukeeFootnote39), it is hard to see religious convictions as a motive for fighting IS. Those who joined groups who fought against IS came from different religious backgrounds, and although some were Christians or Muslims, there were also agnostics and atheists among them.Footnote40 However, some other studies indicate that many Westerners who decided to travel to the Middle East to fight IS were motivated by religious beliefs as well as ideological reasons. Many of the volunteers were former American soldiers who had participated in the invasion of Iraq in 2003.Footnote41 In my sample, Mattos and Peshmerganor had a military background, but they had not participated in the war in Iraq.
Encounters with Western border controls, police and media
Several of the individuals in my sample report that they have had contact with border controls at Western airports, the intelligence services and journalists. While some have tried to avoid these contacts, others have actively tried to contact the police to inform them about IS activities. Most have also established contacts with journalists to report on the situation on the ground. Many have used social media (Twitter, Facebook or Instagram) to find followers in the West who would like to support the fight against IS. Some have tried to recruit new volunteers, and many have used social media for crowdfunding (i.e. to raise money for weapons and food).Footnote42 An extreme example is Pershmerganor, who was given riflescopes for free in order to promote and test them in action.Footnote43 When trying out this equipment, he used a helmet camera and broadcast the military operation live via a social media platform. Peshmerganor gives the following account of how he produced these videos:
I uploaded a video of the battle from my helmet camera. It caught the attention of foreign media and went viral. Before I knew it, I had tens of thousands of new Instagram followers. The American company that produced my rifle scope saw the video. That I used their scope in combat was a big deal for a company who sold products intended for sport shooting. They offered to send a few thousand dollars’ worth of scopes and other products.Footnote44
To go to Syria and Iraq to fight IS is a strong and dangerous move to make, and those who have written autobiographies are therefore keen to air their opinions publicly. For example, Kardari, who traveled with Turkish Airlines from Arlanda airport in Sweden to Sanliurfa via Istanbul, was dressed in a green military uniform when he embarked on the plane, and his luggage was filled with military equipment, such as body armor and boots.Footnote45 However, Kardari was not alone when he chose to travel in military uniform, as a similar account is also given by Söder. While Kardari and Söder were afraid of being stopped at the airport, they were still willing to take the risk of revealing themselves by traveling in military clothing. This could be read as an indication that they were convinced that they were doing the right thing.
On his first return to Sweden, Kardari describes a meeting he had with Swedish intelligence, and he recalls how they had called him and wanted to have a meeting with him. His overall impression was that they supported his decision to fight IS, but this was of course something they could not admit, says Kardari. The police were only interested in hearing if he had some information about any other Swedes who had fought for IS or similar movements.Footnote46 A similar account is given by Söder: like Kardari he says he was under the impression that the police were understanding and sympathetic of his decision to go to the Middle East to fight IS.Footnote47
A comparable description is also given by Ed Nash. Upon returning to the U.K. after months of service in the YPG, he was honest and admitted being in Syria to fight against IS. The immigration officer was surprised at first, but Nash was soon stamped through and greeted: “‘Welcome home,’ I was told. ‘And good on you.’”Footnote48
When Peshmerganor returns to Norway, he is approached by the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST). Like their Swedish and British colleagues, they are kind and sympathetic. After a lengthy chat, they suggest a “follow-up with a psychologist,” but this offer is turned down, Peshmerganor stating that does not want to waste taxpayers’ money. To his great disappointment, the Defense Security Department (FSA) do not want any information from him. This is something he has great problems with, as he finds it disturbing that they don’t want his information; after all, we are all trying to beat IS, he exclaims.Footnote49 A similar negative experience is recalled in Pelani’s description of the Danish legal system, and she even had her passport confiscated, as Danish citizens are forbidden to join armed groups. The disappointment is evident, and Pelani writes: “I know the intelligence agencies had been watching me for a while but I had some kind of relationship with them, having passed on intelligence related to the mosques that were recruiting fighters back in Copenhagen, so I was shocked and felt very betrayed by what they had done.”Footnote50
Unlike the cases of Peshmerganor and Pelani, the British Ministry of Defense have a very different reaction, as they welcome any information they can get from Nash on IS.Footnote51 A similar account is given by Locks. When he returns to the U.K. and lands at Heathrow Airport, he is at first nervous at how customs and immigration will respond. Even though he is sure that his decision to join the Dwekh Nawsha, rather than the YPG (who could be associated with the PKK, an organization listed as terrorists in the West), will not land him in any legal trouble,Footnote52 he is still nervous.
Sure enough, as I made my way through the security checks, I was pulled to one side and asked to follow a member of staff into a side room for questioning. For two hours a member of Special Branch asked me all sorts of questions about where I had been, what I had done, who I had spoken with, what my motives were, etc. It was clear he wanted to know that I hadn’t been radicalized in any way. … It was actually reassuring that they were keeping tabs on anyone who had gone out there to fight, and were making sure they were at least on the right side! He didn’t directly say it, but the impression he gave me was that he was thinking, “Good on you, glad to see someone is going out there to fight.”Footnote53
Since most of the eight autobiographers started Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts after arriving in Syria and Iraq, they became public figures.Footnote54 These accounts were used to win moral and economic support (and sometimes even to recruit other WesternersFootnote55), but they were also used as public windows. Because of this exposure, it was easy for Western media to get into contact with individuals who had joined the fight against IS. For example, Nash worked as a “press contact for external journalists,”Footnote56 and Pelani helped out as a translator for Western journalists. Apart from Denmark, most Western governments took the view that as it was not illegal to join groups like YPG, Peshmerga or Dwekh Nawsha (PKK being the only anti-IS group that is defined as a terrorist group by the EU), and there were no problems in participating in media interviews.Footnote57 While the men in my sample gained a lot of support, Palani received a lot of criticism, and she was even cyber-bullied after appearing in the media. As a young woman she was subject to a lot of sexism and was bullied by both IS supporters and those who were supportive of the fight against IS (not least by other Kurds, especially men).Footnote58 Potentially this illustrates that the struggle is gendered and that women and men are treated differently when they take part in the struggle against IS.
Analysis
In applying McCauley and Moskalenko’s typology (), it should be stressed that the boundaries between the different categories are often open and that any one individual could tick more than one box. Several motives for joining the fight against IS can therefore be found in one and the same individual. However, it is easy to see that “group grievance” (i.e. “threat or harm to a group or cause the individual cares about can move the individual to hostility and violence toward perpetrators”) and “risk and status” (i.e. “the attractions of risk-taking and status can move individuals, especially young males, to radical political action”) score high among the eight individuals included in my sample. An example of “group grievance” is contained in the following quote from Mattos: “In my heart, I decided I would no longer be just an American spectator and helper. I was now an Iraqi. I adopted these people as my people. They were my family now. I would give my life for them. I’ll stay. I’ll die with these guys.”Footnote59
Although Fritz and Young recorded both ideological (including political motives from both right and left) and religious motives among anti-IS fighters,Footnote60 there are few examples of this in these eight autobiographies. No neo-Nazis, bikers, criminals from gangs or individuals influenced by militant leftist ideologies are to be found in the eight autobiographies I have analyzed in this article.Footnote61 The only individual who explicitly expresses an ideological motive for joining the fight is Pelani, who stresses the fight for women’s rights and equality for both men and women.
According to Tucker, Silverman and Smalley’s analysis, disappointment with Western countries is one motivation for many Westerners who travel to the Middle East to fight IS.Footnote62 This conclusion is also found in the eight autobiographies, several of these voices invoking a belief that the West is filled with big words, but no action.Footnote63 To put it in Locks’ words, there is “no one standing up to stop the atrocities.”Footnote64 Politicians in the West are perceived as either cowards or naïve when they show a lack of understanding about the dangers posed by IS.Footnote65 For the Swedish volunteer Kardari, Swedish politicians are being foolish in failing to understand that IS and similar groups should not be treated softly. In his view, those who join IS should be arrested and lose their citizenship.Footnote66
Most if not all of the eight authors perceive that they are driven by altruistic causes, and because of personal traits they are individuals who want to do the right thing (e.g. to help vulnerable and helpless groups that are being bullied by a strong and evil force).Footnote67 Even though they might lose their own lives for the greater good, they are willing to make this ultimate sacrifice. To put it in the words of Scott Atran, they have uncompromisable sacred values, which they are ready to defend by any means and at any price. But contrary to Atran’s study, the sacred values expressed by the eight autobiographers are not tied to the “Kurdish cause” or to “Kurdish territory”;Footnote68 it is rather defending innocent victims who are suffering at the hands of IS that is the recurring sacred value. This difference might be explained by the fact that not all those who had traveled from the West to fight IS were Kurds or had a Kurdish cultural background, and all had been raised in the West. Altruistic motives may also be emphasized more and used as a motivation for joining the fight against IS. As Atran underlines, the self-stated motive should not be mixed up with driving or deeper causes or reasons, such as individual problems like depression and being a victim of violence and bullying, not by more general cognitive processes that are related to seeking meaning and belonging.Footnote69 In a printed book it is also easy to offer a post-facto explanation that legitimizes or explains why an individual acted the way he or she did. Even when the motive is rationalized, however, it should not automatically be seen as an explanation for why the individual actually behaved in a certain way.
That said, it is reasonable to argue that all of the autobiographies are written from the perspective that “we” (i.e. those who fight IS) are right and “they” (i.e. those who support IS or similar movements) are wrong. This way of putting the argument should not come as a great surprise, but it may contribute to the dehumanizing process that takes away the fact that the struggle includes humans. The following quote from Locks can illustrate this way of portraying IS as enemies:
I didn’t feel anything towards the people I was killing. I had long since stopped seeing Daesh as human, so as far as any empathy for them, I may as well have been shooting rubber ducks at the fairground. I hadn’t felt anything but hatred for them before I had arrived in the country, after seeing and hearing everything they were capable of, but my time with the Kurds, hearing their stories and seeing just a fraction of the damage these fanatics had done to the country, had solidified my feelings. Right at this moment, all I wanted was another go on the SPG-9 to see if I could take any more of them out.Footnote70
For Söder, to fight IS is legitimate, as it is a kind of self-defense. If he had not killed his enemies, they would have killed him.Footnote71
Even though Palani expresses strong resentment against IS fighters and killed them to protect the innocent (especially women and children), she presents a more nuanced analysis. Some of the problems that are highlighted by the rise of IS, like the abuse of women and children, sexual slavery, forced marriages, domestic slavery and the trafficking of girls, are not attributed only to IS: similar problems are also present in Middle Eastern society, including her own Kurdish culture. For example, following a military operation against a building that was housing a large number of young girls who had been raped by IS members, she writes with great pain: “This kind of trafficking of girls was not invented by Daesh in our region; others have done it before.”Footnote72 When one of the abused girls finally dies from her maltreatment, the many rapes and preeclampsia, Palani provides the following analysis:
The nurses had taken off the girl’s clothes and had changed her into a white gown, but she was still wearing the Hello Kitty bracelet around her wrist, and in the hours before she died it looked like she was sleeping. Looking at her, I thought of all the ways little girls get hurt by men, and of what I went through at the same age. Though I grew up far away, in a country where there is peace and stability, I recognized what we had in common: an awful experience of being a girl. It’s not something I talk about, but the pain of sexual abuse as a little girl is something I recognize.Footnote73
If the Middle East is to change for the better, says Palani, it is necessary to give women and children equality and justice, and the patriarchal order must be broken. Her fight is therefore not only against IS, it is against every form of misogyny and all patriarchal structures, no matter whether found in Syria, Iraq or Denmark. This gender perspective is a driving motive and is not present in the other autobiographies. Even when men express resentment at the abuses women and children suffer under the rule of IS, they do not connect these cruelties to the larger picture, that of women and children’s rights in the Middle East. The fight for women’s rights is a self-stated motive in Pelani’s account, but most likely this is not the factor that led her to engage in feminism and women’s rights; rather, it is her personal experiences with her family and her disappointment with Danish society that has made her interested in these topics. If this analysis is correct, it is a reminder that we should be careful and make a distinction between self-stated motives and driving factors.
As several of the eight books show, it is often hard to draw a clear line between those who traveled to the Middle East for the “right reasons” and those who did it for the “wrong reasons.” For example, after Locks returned to the U.K., he found out that one of his former battle comrades had been a convicted rapist who had left for the Middle East to escape his imprisonment.Footnote74 For Locks this showed that his priorities were not right and that his former comrade did not in fact have the high moral standards he had demonstrated while in Kurdistan. This and similar disappointments are present in most of the autobiographies I have analyzed.Footnote75 Though most of the Westerners were honest when they joined the fight against IS, Peshmerganor also admits that some were “debt slaves, former criminals, wanted rapists and scammers.”Footnote76 To join a fight and travel to a war zone is also a pathway from something to something else, such as to escape from a criminal lifestyle, to hide from the law or to obtain forgiveness. A similar motive has also been found among many of those who left Europe to join IS.Footnote77
A common trope reported in the autobiographies is that many Westerners were used as “poster boys” by various Kurdish units in order to attract support, including financial support, for the fight against IS. In order to protect this “asset,” they were seldom or never active at the front themselves. Some Westerners realized this and returned home, while others pretended that they were active on duty, but this was not always the case according to Peshmerganor.Footnote78 This criticism is an indication of infighting and that “trash talking and rumors thrived among volunteers,” according to Peshmerganor.Footnote79
However, to go to Syria and Iraq to fight IS could also be a way of changing how the individual sees him- or herself and is viewed and valued by the surrounding society. As indicated in the autobiographies, several of these individuals had difficult lives previously, having been bullied or suffered from violence in the family, etc., and by joining the fight they acquired the ability to present themselves as active and responsible citizens. The struggle against IS can therefore also be seen as a way of staging the individual. If this conclusion is correct, the fact that some were reduced to poster figures was not necessarily a problem. Just to be a part of something could be a way of gaining meaning and purpose in life. To what extent this inference is valid must be substantiated by interviews, as it is not possible to reach a definite conclusion on this matter from the published autobiographies.
Even though all the individuals included in my study show direct or indirect group grievance, reacted strongly to IS and wanted to do something to support those who were suffering in Syria and Iraq, it is certain that several also scored high on risk and status. For example, Locks states in his autobiography that he had dreamt his whole life of becoming a soldier. He writes:
I have wanted to be a solider for as long as I can remember. As a kid I was always the one wanting to play war games, and in my teens I had posters from the Gulf War on my walls. I would lie in bed imagining I was out fighting alongside these men, and think about the incredible bravery and strength each of them had. I’m not someone who spent a lot of time reading but I became obsessed with Bravo Two Zero by Andy McNab, reading it again and again, until I knew all the events off by heart.Footnote80
A similar urge and nostalgia for war and bravery is found in both Mattos’s and Pershmerganor’s accounts. Like Locks, Peshmerganor informs his readers that he dreamt of becoming like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Chuck Norris, the heroes of his youth, when he was young. It was action and war, not sports and pop stars that were on his mind.Footnote81 Mattos shared a similar dream. He writes, “When I was in junior high, my English class was tasked to write about our dream vacation. I didn’t take the assignment very seriously. I wrote about traveling to Iraq, driving a tank, and fighting terrorists.”Footnote82
However, when Peshmerganor overcame his fears—as a boy he was often scared, insecure, and rarely played with the other children in his neighborhoodFootnote83—he was still looking for the real action (i.e. war). Large sections of his book therefore deal with his time as a soldier in the Norwegian army. The following account is from his service as a Norwegian soldier in Afghanistan, and it illustrates how disappointed Peshermganor could be when there was no battle action: “I daydreamed about wielding this weapon against the Taliban, not because I hated the enemy, although I despised their ideology and their actions, but because the more we trained, the greater the wish to see combat. I wanted to be tested, and war was the ultimate test.”Footnote84
His disappointment with military missions that did not include shootings or the rush when the enemy was approaching is a recurring theme. For him; “There’s no greater rush than war.”Footnote85 His joy over being in action can be illustrated by his description of the battle of Sinjar:
I had been awake since the previous morning, but I had no problem staying alert during my two-hour shift in the face of potential danger lurking in the dark. Sporadic shooting interrupted the night, with tracers streaking across the sky. Aircraft and artillery cannon on the mountain bombed the town mercilessly and sent shockwaves I felt through my entire body. It was a beautiful sight. I had an orchestra seat at this concert of death.Footnote86
For Peshmerganor it is relaxing and appropriate to prepare his machine gun for battle. But besides the repetitive chore of taking care of his weapon, he “love[d] the machine gun’s rattle in operation.”Footnote87
Even though more comparative studies are required before we can make any general inferences, there seem to be several similarities between fighters who have traveled from the West to the Middle East, whether to join IS or anti-IS militias. Personal problems, like violence at home, problems at school or criminality,Footnote88 but also disappointment with the West, a need to do something about the situation in the Middle East (for example, to fight against Bashar Assad or to support the Syrian regime or oppressed minorities like Kurds or Christians) and a willingness to risk one’s own life for a greater cause are found among both those who joined IS and those who fought against it. Media reporting about the situation in the Middle East following the revolt against Assad in 2011 or after the declaration of the IS Caliphate in 2014 prompted individuals to take action and do something. Fighters from both “sides” found information about their respective groups and how to join the struggle via Internet sites and social media. Both “sides” have used information and communication technologies (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Telegraph, YouTube and PayPal) to spread their message, recruit fighters and mobilize support, including financial support, to fight the enemy.Footnote89
Adventurism and a willingness to take risks are also found among those who fought on both sides. Although the autobiographies included in this study do not provide much information about ideological or religious beliefs as motivational factors, other studies have shown that those who fought against IS may be motivated by ideological or religious beliefs as much as their IS opponents.Footnote90 However, the autobiographies I have studied for this article contain few if any references to ideological or religious motives for joining the fight against IS.
Conclusions
It is difficult to summarize the findings from the eight autobiographies, and the boundaries between the different categories used by, for instance, McCauley and Moskalenko (2011) are floating and flexible. However, some of the findings are summarized in the following table ().
Table 3. Summarizing some of the major results
In the above, I highlight some of the findings from my analysis of the eight autobiographies. The two categories “personal motivation” and “risk and status” are based on McCauley and Moskalenko’s typology. The category “Disappointment with the West” indicates that all eight believe that the West has failed the people of Syria and Iraq, this being a strong personal motive for joining the fight against IS. The eight who joined this struggle were informed about the conflicts in the Middle East via the media (including social media), and several of them have also been active on social media promoting their cause or spreading information about the military struggle against IS. Only one individual (Joanna Palani) had trouble with the authorities when she returned from the Middle East: unlike the other seven authors, she was imprisoned for a short time, and her passport was confiscated by the Danish authorities. Peshmerganor was also disappointed that the Norwegian security service was quite uninterested in the information he wanted to give them after his return, but he did not have any problems with the local authorities. Unlike Fritz and Young’s examples, the eight autobiographies did not contain any information about ideological or religious motives for joining the struggle. The only person who to some extent addressed the ideological motives for her involvement was Palani, who provides an informed and critical analysis based on her personal history and previous engagement with gender equality and the struggle against patriarchy in both Denmark and Kurdistan.
It is evident that the eight autobiographies who went to Syria and Iraq to fight against IS and similar groups received advanced military training, and some had even killed enemies in battle. Several state explicitly that they have been suffering from PTSD symptoms since their time in Syria and Iraq. Several have been in contact with the police since returning home, and they have all been more or less public figures in media reports, not least because they have written autobiographies on this topic. Some also suffered violence and torture after being caught by the Turkish police or military on their way back to their respective countries (most if not all the eight autobiographies I have examined view Turkey as an explicit or implicit supporter of IS).Footnote91 For example, Kardari from Sweden received help from the Swedish consulate in getting released from his imprisonment in Turkey.Footnote92 That these experiences can have an effect on the individual is made manifest by the following quotation from Kardari: “Everything that I had experienced during the journey, all fighting, shooting, torture and killings were still within me like an unexploded mine.”Footnote93
A similar experience is also reported by Söder, who, after his return from Syria in July 2015, felt depressed and suffered from several traumas. Söder had also been seriously wounded in battle and showed signs of PTSD. For example, after his return to Sweden he was very suspicious of his surroundings and felt insecure. However, it is also possible to experience a smooth transition from a life in a war zone to a normal life in the West. One such example is Peshmerganor, who writes the following about his life in Norway after several months of war: “I have been very lucky. I returned home without physical or emotional damage and that isn’t something I take for granted. I have learned to appreciate life and what I have in a totally new way. For better or worse, my fight against the Caliphate was two years I will never regret.”Footnote94
Resembling how IS recruits fighters, most of the eight autobiographers initially found information and the necessary help to travel to Syria and Iraq via online forums and Internet sites, like, for example, the European Solidarity Front for Syria (ESFS) or the Lions of Rojava.Footnote95 While the first is pro-Assad, the second is a support network for the Kurdish cause, especially for the YPG. According to Koch, these and similar sites have attracted a vast number of different fighters, and some have found support among right-wing Greek extremists, Serb mercenaries and Norwegian neo-fascists, as well as supporters of Russia, Iran or the Syrian regime. It has also been documented that Iran has “recruited Shiite combatants from Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan to fight for the Syrian regime.”Footnote96 A similar development is also found among anarchists and extreme-leftist groups in the West. However, in my sample, it is not possible to see any explicit references to either right-wing/neo-Nazi groups or extreme leftist groups, though as stated earlier some autobiographers talked about other anti-IS fighters as belonging to right-wing groups, such as Britain First. The lack of political motives in the autobiographies I have studied might be explained by the fact that those who are more politically motivated are more cautious and do not want to attract attention to themselves by writing a book about their experiences. However, future studies should test whether and to what extent this inference is also supported by interviews and information posted on social media platforms by those who joined the fight against IS.
Although I think Fritz and Young are partly right in arguing that those who fought IS have to a large extent been disregarded or neglected by the police,Footnote97 not least due to the fact that it was not illegal to travel to Syria and Iraq to fight IS under most Western legal systems, it is also likely that they have received different treatment from both academia and the media because they have been seen as righteous and ethically sound. However, to substantiate this observation (or rather hypothesis) we need to conduct more systematic media studies that, for example, document, analyze and compare how both IS fighters and their opponents are given space and whether they are presented and explained differently in public media.
Finally, it should be stressed that it is not only those who fought for IS who return to the West, but just as much those who fought against it. To what extent individuals who have fought on either side as fighters might be suffering from PTSD or similar damage remains to be studied, but it is likely that many of them feel strong hatred for both sides in these wars. The fact that so-called returnees might live in the same town or area as potential representatives of the enemy is in itself a security risk, the physical presence of one’s opponent potentially keeping the conflict alive and nourishing hate, fear and revenge. This observation is also found in the eight autobiographies I have analyzed. However, it is necessary to be cautious and to stress that my sample should not automatically be seen as representative of those who traveled from the West to fight IS. Further studies are required, and more comparative studies should be conducted with those who fought on either side. To improve our knowledge and find more robust explanations, we should therefore conduct interviews and studies of both online and offline media, as well as talk to first-line workers (e.g. teachers, social workers, the police) about their own knowledge and experience of fighters in more general terms and about how different individuals may relate differently to the wars in Syria and Iraq.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Göran Larsson
Göran Larsson is professor in Religious Studies at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. His research covers Islam and Muslims in Europe in both past and present, but also the nexus between global and local conflicts. He can be contacted at [email protected].
Notes
1. See Olivier Roy, Jihad and Death: The Global Appeal of Islamic State (London, UK: C. Hurst & Co. Publishers Ltd, 2017); Gilles Kepel, Terror in France: The Rise of Jihad in the West (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017).
2. Thomas Hegghammer, “Should I Stay or Should I Go? Explaining Variation in Western Jihadists’ Choice between Domestic and Foreign Fighting,” American Political Science Review 107, no. 1 (2013): 1–15.
3. Peter R. Neumann, “Foreign Fighter Total in Syria/Iraq Now Exceeds 20,000; Surpasses Afghanistan Conflict in the 1980s,” International Center for the study of Radicalization and Political Violence (ICSR), King’s College London, https://icsr.info/2015/01/26/foreign-fighter-total-syriairaq-now-exceeds-20000-surpasses-afghanistan-conflict-1980s/ (accessed December 12, 2019).
4. Lorne L. Dawson and Amarnath Amarasingam, “Talking to Foreign Fighters: Insights into the Motivations for Hijrah to Syria and Iraq,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 40, no. 3 (2017): 191–210.
5. Scott Atran, “The Devoted Actor: Unconditional Commitment and Intractable Conflict across Cultures,” Current Anthropology 57, no. Supplement 13, June (2016), 192–203.
6. Shashi Jayakumar, “Transnational Volunteers Against ISIS,” International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence (ICSR), King’s College London, https://icsr.info/2019/08/22/transnational-volunteers-against-isis/ (accessed December 1, 2019), 3; See also Ariel Koch, “The Non Jihadi Foreign Fighters Western Right Wing and Left Wing Extremists in Syria,” Terrorism and Political Violence 33, no. 4 (2021): 669-696 https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2019.1581614; Cf., Jesper Söder (with Johan Fredriksson), När världen tittade bort. Svensken som kämpar mot Daesh i Syrien (Stockholm, Sweden: Forum, 2016), 210, who estimates the number of Western foreign fighters against ISIS and similar groups at approximately four individuals.
7. Jason Fritz and Joseph K. Young, “Transnational Volunteers: American Foreign Fighters Combating the Islamic State,” Terrorism and Political Violence 32, no. 3 (2020): 449-468.
8. One well-known example are the so-called Oklahoma bombers in the United States, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who killed 168 and injured more than five hundred with a car bomb in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. See, for example, Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, 3rd ed. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003), 129–30, 192.
9. These autobiographies also describe encounters with border controls and police in the Kurdish areas of Iraq and Syria and in Turkey, but these episodes have been left out here since my focus is on the departure and return to Western countries. On the nexus between how a problem is understood and how it should be solved, see, for example, Katrine Fangen and Åshild Kolås, “The ‘Syrian Traveler’: Reintegration Or Legal Sanctioning?” Critical Studies on Terrorism 9, no. 3 (2016): 1–19.
10. See, for example, Edwin Bakker and Roel De Bont, “Belgian and Dutch Jihadist Foreign Fighters (2012–2015): Characteristics, Motivations, and Roles in the War in Syria and Iraq,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 27, no. 5 (2016): 837–57; Lorne L. Dawson and Amarnath Amarasingam (2017) and Lasse Lindekild, Preben Bertelsen and Michael Stohl, “Who Goes, Why, and With What Effects: The Problem of Foreign Fighters from Europe,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 27, no. 5 (2016): 858–77.
11. Several of the individuals mentioned in Tim Locks, Fighting ISIS: How One Civilian Went to War. A Gripping True Story (London, UK: Pan Books, 2016), are also included in Florian Neuhof, “Anti-Isis Foreign Legion: Ex-skinheads and Angry White Men Swell Ranks of Christian Militia Fighting Islamic State.” International Business Times, July 13, 2015, https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/anti-isis-foreign-legion-ex-skinheads-angry-white-men-swell-ranks-christian-militia-fighting-1510550 (accessed November 28, 2019).
12. For more examples, see Jayakumar, “Transnational Volunteers Against ISIS,” 17; Rafael Kardari (with Daniel Fridell), Med livet som insats i strid mot IS (Stockholm, Sweden: Fischer & Co, 2017), 9.
13. See, for example, Joanna Palani, Freedom Fighter: My War Against ISIS on the Frontlines of Syria (London, UK: Atlantic Books, 2019), 262.
14. Fritz and Young, “Transnational Volunteers,” 12.
15. Kardari, Med livet som insats i strid mot IS, 23–29.
16. Locks, Fighting ISIS, 7–9.
17. Ed Nash, Desert Sniper: How One Ordinary Brit Went to War against ISIS (London, UK: Little Brown, 2018), 6.
18. Cf. Palani, Freedom Fighter, Chapter Seven.
19. Pelani, Freedom Fighter, 184.
20. Söder, När världen tittade bort, 16–17.
21. Ephraim Mattson (with Scott McEwen), City of Death: Humanitarian warriors in the Battle of Mosul (New York and Nashville: Center Street, 2018), 40.
22. Nash, Desert Sniper, 13.
23. On Muslim violent extremists in Norway, see Hvilken bakgrunn har personer som frekventerer ekstreme islamistiske miljøer i Norge før de blir radikalisert? https://www.pst.no/globalassets/artikler/utgivelser/norsk_radikaliseringsprosjektets-rapport_ugradert.pdf (accessed April 1, 2020).
24. Mike Pesmerganor, Blood Makes the Grass Grow: The Incredible True Story of a Young Norwegian Who Put His Life on the Line to Fight the World’s Most Brutal Terrorist Organization, trans. Bjarte Abildsnes (Norwegian, Germany: No publisher, 2018), 16.
25. Söder, När världen tittade bort, 60.
26. Jayakumar, “Transnational Volunteers Against ISIS,” 22–25.
27. Söder, När världen tittade bort, 85.
28. Koch, “The Non Jihadi,” 14.
29. Söder, När världen tittade bort, 22.
30. Christian Haller, Sie nannten mich “Held.” Wie ich als deutscher in Syrien gegen den Islamischen Statt kämpfte (München, Germany: Riva, 2016), 33.
31. Locks, Fighting ISIS, 14.
32. See, for example, the studies of Jayakumar and Koch.
33. Locks, Fighting ISIS, 37–38.
34. Ibid., 127–129.
35. Ibid., 38, 58–59.
36. Haller, Sie nannten mich “Held,” 28.
37. Peshmerganor, Bood Makes, 133-34.
38. Neuhof, “Anti-Isis Foreign Legion.”
39. Mattos, City of Death, 5.
40. Jayakumar, “Transnational Volunteers Against ISIS,” 23.
41. A well-documented study of the nexus between left-wing and right-wing ideologies and religion is that by Koch. See also Jayakumar, “Transnational Volunteers Against ISIS,” 26–27.
42. Peshmerganor, Blood makes, 95.
43. Ibid., 79.
44. Ibid., 110.
45. Kardari, Med livet som insats i strid mot IS, 23–29.
46. Ibid., 128.
47. Söder, När världen tittade bort, 260.
48. Nash, Desert Sniper, 109.
49. Peshmerganor, Blood makes, 75–77.
50. Pelani, Freedom Fighters, 253.
51. Nash, Desert Sniper, 111, 136–37.
52. This conclusion is also supported by Koch, who stresses that those who have fought ISIS seldom had problems with the police or security services.
53. Locks, Fighting ISIS, 175.
54. For example, Locks, Fighting ISIS, 55–56, 112–15; Peshmerganor, Blood makes.
55. See Kardari, Med livet som insats i strid mot IS, 139, 199.
56. Nash, Desert Sniper, 32.
57. Locks, Fighting ISIS, 56–58; Söder, När världen tittade bort, 174–75.
58. See, for example, Palani, Freedom Fighter, 184 and 261–62.
59. Mattos, City of Death, 154.
60. Jayakumar, “Transnational” and Koch, “The Non Jihadi.”
61. Peshmerganor, Blood Makes, 142. See also Florian Neuhof, “Anti-Isis Foreign Legion.”
62. Henry Tuck, Tanya Silverman, and Candace Smalley, “Shooting in the Right Direction”: Anti-ISIS Foreign Fighters in Syria (Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2016), iii. https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/ISD-Report-Shooting-in-the-right-direction-Anti-ISIS-Fighters.pdf (accessed December 2, 2019).
63. Cf. Locks, Fighting ISIS, 161.
64. Locks, Fighting ISIS, 12.
65. Cf., for example, Söder, När världen tittade bort, 100.
66. Kardari, Med livet som insats i strid mot IS, 130–31, 195.
67. Koch, “The Non Jihadi Foreign Fighters,” 7. Cf., for example, Locks, Fighting ISIS, 7–9.
68. Atran, “The Devoted,” 199–200.
69. On these questions see, Scott Atran, Talking to the Enemy: Violent Extremism, Sacred Values and What it Means to be Human (London, UK: Penguin Books, 2010).
70. Locks, Fighting ISIS, 246.
71. Söder, När världen tittade bort, 100.
72. Palani, Freedom Fighter, 232.
73. Ibid., 237.
74. Locks, Fighting ISIS, 290. Cf. Peshmerganor, 98.
75. Cf. Jayakumar, “Transnational Volunteers Against ISIS,” 30–32.
76. Peshmerganor, Blood makes, 69. Cf. Locks, Fighting ISIS, 290; Nash, Desert Sniper, 3–5; Jayakumar, “Transnational Volunteers Against ISIS,” 30–32.
77. Cf. Bakker and Roel De Bont, “Belgian and Dutch Jihadist Foreign Fighters (2012–2015),” 846.
78. Peshmerganor, Blood makes, 68–69.
79. Ibid., 69.
80. Locks, Fighting ISIS, 7.
81. Peshmerganor, Blood makes, 18.
82. Mattos, City of Death, 87.
83. Peshmerganor, Blood makes, 18.
84. Ibid., 24.
85. Ibid., 12.
86. Ibid., 84.
87. Ibid., 90.
88. On these problems among ISIS fighters, see, for example, Daan Weggemans, Edwin Bakker, and Peter Grol, “Who Are They and Why Do They Go? The Radicalization and Prepatory Process of Dutch Jihadist Foreign Fighters,” Perspectives on Terrorism 8, no. 4 (2014): 104.
89. See, for example, Jytte Klausen, “Tweeting the Jihad: Social Media Networks of Western Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 28, no. 1: 1–22.
90. See, for example, Koch, “The Non Jihadi Foreign Fighters.”
91. See, for example, Peshmerganor, 46; Söder, När världen tittade bort, 15; Nash, Desert Sniper, 66, 68, 172, 177–78.
92. Kardari, Med livet som insats i strid mot IS, 112. The claim that Turkey arrested and tortured other western volunteers who fought against ISIS on their way back home to Europe is also discussed in Nash, Desert Sniper, 106.
93. Kardari, Med livet som insats i strid mot IS, 118 (my translation from Swedish).
94. Peshmerganor, Blood makes, 164.
95. Koch, “The Non Jihadi Foreign Fighters,” 11–12; Tuck, Silverman, and Smalley, Shooting in the right direction, iv. Cf., for example, Nash, Desert Sniper, 14.
96. Koch, “The Non Jihadi Foreign Fighters,” 2.
97. Fritz and Young, “Transnational Volunteers,” 1–2.