Why jihadist foreign fighter leave local battlefields: Evidence from Chechnya

ABSTRACT

Why do jihadi foreign fighters leave local insurgencies? While the literature on jihadi foreign fighters has mushroomed over the last decade, it has largely covered the perspective of individual motivations to join jihadi foreign fighter groups. The critical question of why individual jihadi foreign fighters leave local insurgencies, de facto recognizing the failure of their initial motives to join a distant armed conflict, has remained understudied. Drawing on the case study of Russo-Chechen wars, this article shows that a combination of popular hostility, loss of status, and poor living conditions urged jihadi foreign fighters to abandon local armed conflict.

KEYWORDS:

• Foreign fighters
• individual disengagement
• jihadi groups
• Chechnya

Acknowledgements

I want to thank Jasper Schwampe and Sofie Bedford for their contribution to the research on earlier drafts of this article. Research on this article was supported by a grant provided by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic entitled Fratricidal Defection: How Blood Revenge Shaped Anti-Jihadist Mobilization (21-14872S).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Following Malet, I define foreign fighters as ‘noncitizens of conflict states who join insurgencies during civil conflicts.’ David Malet, Foreign Fighters: Transnational Identity in Civil Conflicts (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2013), 9.

² Malet, Foreign Fighters,136–140.

³ Emil Souleimanov and Huseyn Aliyev, Individual Disengagement in Chechnya and Dagestan: The Individual Disengagement of Avengers, Nationalists, and Jihadists (London: Palgrave Pivot 2014), 60–85; Angel Rabasa, Stacie L. Pettyjohn, Jeremy J. Ghez, and Christopher Boucek, ‘Deradicalizing Islamist Extremists’ (Report 0704–0188,.(Arlington, VA, 2010); Julie Chernov Hwang, ‘The Disengagement of Indonesian Jihadists: Understanding the Pathways’, Terrorism and Political Violence 29/2 (2017), 277–295; Vera Mironova, From Freedom Fighters to Jihadists: Human Resources of Non-State Armed Groups (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2019).

⁴ Jason Seawright, Multi-method Social Science: Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Tools (New York: Cambridge University Press 2016), 75.

⁵ Malet, Foreign Fighters: Transnational Identity in Civil Conflicts.

⁶ Elena Pokalova, ‘Driving Factors behind Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 42/9 (2019); Amir Rostami, Joakim Sturup, Hernan Mondani, Pia Thevselius, Jerzy Sarnecki, and Christofer Edling, ‘The Swedish Mujahideen: An Exploratory Study of 41 Swedish Foreign Fighters Deceased in Iraq and Syria’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 43/5 (2020), 382–395.; Edwin Bakker and Mark Singleton, ‘Foreign Fighters in the Syria and Iraq Conflict: Statistics and Characteristics of a Rapidly Growing Phenomenon’, in Andrea de Guttry, Francesca Capone, and Christophe Paulussen (ed.), Foreign Fighters under International Law and Beyond (The Hague: TMC Asser Press 2016), 9–25.

⁷ Gabriel Weimann, ‘The Emerging Role of Social Media in the Recruitment of Foreign Fighters’, in Andrea de Guttry, Francesca Capone, and Christophe Paulussen (ed.), Foreign Fighters under International Law and Beyond (The Hague: TMC Asser Press 2016), 77–95; Scott Gates, and Sukanya Podder, ‘Social Media, Recruitment, Allegiance and the Islamic State’, Perspectives on Terrorism 9/4 (2015), 107–116; Clinton Watts, ‘Foreign Fighters: How Are They Being Recruited? Two Imperfect Recruitment Models’, Small Wars Journal 22 (2008).

⁸ Lasse Lindekilde, Preben Bertelsen, and Michael Stohl, ‘Who Goes, Why, and With What Effects: The Problem of Foreign Fighters from Europe’, Small Wars & Insurgencies 27/5 (2016), 858–77; Randy Borum, and Robert Fein, ‘The Psychology of Foreign Fighters’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 40/3 (2017), 248–266. Thomas Hegghammer, ‘The Rise of Muslim foreign fighters’, International Security 35/3 (2010), 53–94.

⁹ Mironova, From Freedom Fighters to Jihadists: Human Resources of Non-State Armed Groups.

¹⁰ Tuncay Kardaş and Ömer Behram Özdemir, ‘The Making of European Foreign Fighters: Identity, Social Media and Virtual Radicalization’, in Murat Yesiltas, and Tuncay Kardas (ed.), Non-State Armed Actors in the Middle East (London: Palgrave Macmillan 2018), 213–35; Borum, and Fein, ‘The Psychology of Foreign Fighters’.

¹¹ Lorne L. Dawson, and Amarnath Amarasingam, ‘Talking to foreign fighters: Insights into the motivations for Hijrah to Syria and Iraq’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 40/3 (2017), 191–210.

¹² Edwin Bakker and Peter Grol, ‘Motives and Considerations of Potential Foreign Fighters from the Netherlands’ (ICCT, The Hague 2015); Meirav Mishali-Ram, ‘Foreign Fighters and Transnational Jihad in Syria’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 41/3 (2018), 169–90.

¹³ Efraim Benmelech, and Esteban F. Klor, ‘What Explains the Flow of Foreign Fighters to ISIS?’, Terrorism and Political Violence 32/7 (2020), 1458–81.

¹⁴ Mironova, From Freedom Fighters to Jihadists: Human Resources of Non-State Armed Groups, 135–44.

¹⁵ Daniel Byman, ‘The Homecomings: What Happens When Arab Foreign Fighters in Iraq and Syria Return?’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 38/8 (2015), 1–22; Edwin Bakker, Christoph Paulussen, and Eva Entenmann, ‘Returning Jihadist Foreign Fighters: Challenges Pertaining to Threat Assessment and Governance of this Pan-European Problem’, Security & Human Rights 25 (2014), 11–32; R. Kim Cragin, ‘The Challenge of Foreign Fighter Returnees’, Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 33/3 (2017), 292–312; Christopher J. Wright, ‘How Dangerous are Domestic Terror Plotters with Foreign Fighter Experience? The Case of Homegrown Jihadis in the US’, Perspectives on Terrorism 10/1 (2016), 32–40.

¹⁶ David Duriesmith, and Noor Huda Ismail, ‘Embodied Militarism and the Process of Disengagement from Foreign Fighter Networks’, Critical Military Studies (ahead-of-print 2019), 1–17; Georgia Holmer, and Adrian Shtuni, ‘Returning Foreign Fighters and the Reintegration Imperative’, Report 402, March. (Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace 2017).

¹⁷ Rik Coolsaet, ‘What Drives Europeans to Syria, and to IS? Insights from the Belgian Case’, Report 75, March. (Brussels: The Royal Institute for International Relations 2015), 1–24.

¹⁸ Sylvene See, ‘Returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters: A Catalyst for Recidivism Among Disengaged Terrorists’, Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses 10/6 (2018), 7–15.

¹⁹ Kristin M. Bakke, ‘Copying and Learning from Outsiders? Assessing Diffusion from Transnational Insurgents in the Chechen Wars’, in Jeffrey T. Checkel (ed.), Transnational Dynamics of Civil War, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2013), 31–62; Jytte Klausen, ‘Tweeting the Jihad: Social Media Networks of Western Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 38/1 (2015), 1–22.

²⁰ Thomas Hegghammer, ‘Should I Stay or Should I go? Explaining Variation in Western Jihadists’ Choice Between Domestic and Foreign Fighting’, American Political Science Review 107/1 (2013), 1–15.

²¹ Malet, Foreign Fighters.

²² Mishali-Ram, ‘Foreign Fighters and Transnational Jihad in Syria’.

²³ Vera Mironova, From Freedom Fighters to Jihadists: Human Resources of Non-State Armed Groups, 140.

²⁴ Barak Mendelsohn, ‘Foreign Fighters: Recent Trends’, Orbis 55/2 (2011).

²⁵ Emil A. Souleimanov, ‘Globalizing Jihad? North Caucasians in the Syrian Civil War’, Middle East Policy 21/3 (2014), 154–62.

²⁶ Coolsaet, ‘What Drives Europeans to Syria, and to IS? Insights from the Belgian Case’.

²⁷ Mendelson, Foreign Fighters, 195.

²⁸ Tiffany S. Chu, and Alex Braithwaite, ‘The Impact of Foreign Fighters on Civil Conflict Outcomes’, Research & Politics 4/3 (2017), 1–7; Alex Braithwaite, and Tiffany S. Chu ‘Civil Conflicts Abroad, Foreign Fighters, and Terrorism at Home’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 62/8 (2017), 1636–60.

²⁹ Pauline Moore, ‘When do Ties Bind? Foreign fighters, Social Embeddedness, and Violence Against Civilians’, Journal of Peace Research 56/2 (2019), 279–294.

³⁰ Kristin M. Bakke, ‘Help Wanted? The Mixed Record of Foreign Fighters in Domestic Insurgencies’, International Security 38/4 (2014), 150–187.

³¹ Ben Rich and Dara Conduit, ‘The Impact of Jihadist Foreign Fighters on Indigenous Secular-Nationalist Causes: Contrasting Chechnya and Syria’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 38/2 (2015), 113–31.

³² Rich and Conduit, ‘The Impact of Jihadist Foreign Fighters on Indigenous Secular-Nationalist Causes: Contrasting Chechnya and Syria’, 113–31.

³³ Jeni Mitchell, ‘War-Fighting: The Bosnia Precedent’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 31/9 (2008), 808–28; Jessica Stern, and J.M. Berger, ISIS: Inside the State of Terror, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers 2015).

³⁴ Mohammed M. Hafez, ‘Fratricidal Jihadists: Why Islamists Keep Losing their Civil Wars’, Middle East Policy Journal 25/2 (2018).

³⁵ Conduit and Rich, ‘The Impact of Jihadist Foreign Fighters on Indigenous Secular-Nationalist Causes: Contrasting Chechnya and Syria’.

³⁶ Emil A. Souleimanov, ‘Civil War and Religion: Salafi-Jihadist Groups’, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. (2018).

³⁷ Tiffany S. Chu and Alex Braithwate, ‘Civil Conflicts Abroad, Foreign Fighters, and Terrorism at Home’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 62/8 (2018), 1636–60.

³⁸ Currently, Europe’s Chechen diaspora numbers at least 120.000 and its roots date back to the early 2000s.

³⁹ Moira Maguire, and Brid Delahunt, ‘Doing a Thematic Analysis: A Practical, Step-by-Step Guide for Learning and Teaching Scholars’, AISHE-J 8/3 (2017).

⁴⁰ Ekaterina Sokirianskaia, ‘Families and Clans in Ingushetia and Chechnya. A fieldwork report’, Central Asian Survey 24/4 (2005), 453–467.

⁴¹ Amjad Jaimoukha, The Chechens: a Handbook (Abingdon: Routledge 2004).

⁴² Mairbek Vatchagaev, ‘Sufism in Chechnya: its Influence on Contemporary Society’, in Anne Le Huérou, Aude Merlin, Amandine Regamey, and Elisabeth Sieca-Kozlowski, (ed.), Chechnya at War and Beyond (Abingdon: Routledge 2014), 220–35.

⁴³ Ekaterina Sokirianskaia, ‘Ideology and Conflict: Chechen Political Nationalism Prior to, and During, Ten Years of War’, in Moshe Gammer (ed.), Ethno-Nationalism, Islam and the State in the Caucasus (New York: Routledge 2008), 120–156; Moshe Gammer, ‘Nationalism and history: rewriting the Chechen national past’, in Bruno Coppieters and Michel Huysseune (ed.), Secession, History and the Social Sciences (Brussels: VUB University Press 2002), 130–141.

⁴⁴ Eli Alshech, ‘The Doctrinal Crisis within the Salafi-Jihadi Ranks and the Emergence of Neo-Takfirism: A Historical and Doctrinal Analysis’, Islamic law and Society 21/4 (2014), 419–52.

⁴⁵ Jonh Turner, Religious Ideology and the Roots of the Global Jihad: Salafi Jihadism and International Order (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2014). For salient doctrinal inconsistencies in the Salafis’ comprehension of race and nationalism see, for example, Emil A. Souleimanov and Jasper Schwampe, ‘Devout Muslims or Tough Highlanders? Exploring Attitudes Toward Ethnic Nationalism and Racism in Europe’s Ethnic-Chechen Salafi Communities’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 43/15 (2017), 2616–33.

⁴⁶ John Barrett Dunlop, Russia Confronts Chechnya: Roots of a Separatist Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1998).

⁴⁷ Emil A. Souleimanov, ‘An Ethnography of Counterinsurgency: Kadyrovtsy and Russia’s Policy of Chechenization’, Post-Soviet Affairs 31/2 (2015), 91–114.

⁴⁸ Murad Batal al-Shishani, ‘The Rise and Fall of Arab Fighters in Chechnya’, in Glen E. Howard (ed.), Volatile Borderland: Russia and the North Caucasus (Washington DC: Jamestown Foundation 2006), 265–93.

⁴⁹ Emil A. Souleimanov, ‘Jihad or Security? Understanding the Jihadization of Chechen Insurgency Through Recruitment into Jihadist Units’, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 17/1 (2015), 86–105.

⁵⁰ Al-Shishani, ‘The Rise and Fall of Arab Fighters’.

⁵¹ Paul Tumelty, ‘The Rise and Fall of Foreign Fighters in Chechnya’, Terrorism Monitor 4/2 (2006). Aslan Maskhadov and his deputy put the number of jihadi foreign fighter during the First War at 80. Quoted in Cerwyn Moore, and Paul Tumelty, ‘Foreign Fighters and the Case of Chechnya: A Critical Assessment’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 31/5 (2008), 412–33. Interviews with high-ranked Chechen ex-insurgents put the number of ethnic-Arab foreign fighters in the Second Russian-Chechen War at below a hundred.

⁵² Still, respondents were capable of identifying certain jihadi foreign fighters, including the notorious warlord ibn-Khattab, who chose to stay away from criticizing local ways of life as un-Islamic.

⁵³ Vakhit Akaev, ‘Religious – Political Conflict in the Chechen Republic of Icheria’, in Lena Jonson and Murad Esenov (ed.), Political Islam and Conflicts in Russia and Central Asia (Stockholm: Swedish Institute of International Affairs 1999), 47–58.

⁵⁴ Dunlop, Russia Confronts Chechnya, 48–49, 148–9.

⁵⁵ Vakhit Akaev, ‘Religious – Political Conflict in the Chechen Republic of Icheria’, 51.

⁵⁶ Interview, May 2016.

⁵⁷ Paul J. Murphy, The Wolves of Islam: Russia and the Faces of Chechen Terror (Washington DC: Brassey’s 2004), 43.

⁵⁸ Igor Dobayev, Islamskiy radikalizm v mezhdunarodnoy politike (Rostov-na-Donu: Rostizdat 2000), 143.

⁵⁹ Emil A. Souleimanov and Huseyn Aliyev, How Socio-cultural Codes Shaped Violent Mobilization and Pro-Insurgent Support in the Chechen Wars (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2017).

⁶⁰ Interview, May 2015.

⁶¹ Lorenzo Vidino, ‘The Arab Foreign Fighters and the Sacralization of the Chechen Conflict’, al Nakhlah (2006), 2.

⁶² Brian Glyn Williams, ‘Jihad and Ethnicity in Post‐Communist Eurasia: on the Trail of Transnational Islamic Holy Warriors in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Chechnya and Kosovo’, The Global Review of Ethnopolitics 2/3-4 (2003), 3–24.

⁶³ Lorenzo Vidino, ‘How Chechnya Became a Breeding Ground for Terror’, Middle East Quarterly (2005).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Czech Science Foundation [21-14872S]. Grant title: entitled Fratricidal Defection: How Blood Revenge Shapes Anti-Jihadist Mobilization.

Notes on contributors

Emil A. Souleimanov

Emil A. Souleimanov has published widely on irregular conflict, insurgency, and civil war.