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Abstract
What role does rebel governance play on the level of civilian casualties stemming from foreign fighters (FF)? I focus on the connection between rebel group governance and the amount of civilian victimization that FF conduct. I argue that inclusive governing structures can decrease the amount of disembeddedness that FF experience, which decreases their propensity for violence against civilians. To make my argument, I use a process tracing model to analyze the evolution of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)’s governing structure in Yemen and what impact that has on the violence that is experienced by civilians. I use primary literature and sources along with secondary literature gathered from the NEXIS database to detail the two phases of AQAP: (2008–2011) and (2012–2016). The analysis is largely supportive of the argument that rebel governance can have a positive impact on FF civilian victimization.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Pauline Moore, “When Do Ties Bind? Foreign Fighters, Social Embeddedness, and Violence Against Civilians,” Journal of Peace Research 56, no. 2 (2019): 279–94.
2 Lindsay Heger, Danielle Jung, and Wendy H. Wong, “Organizing for Resistance: How Group Structure Impacts the Character of Violence,” Terrorism and Political Violence 24, no. 5 (2012): 743–68; Macartan Humphreys and Jeremy M. Weinstein, “Handling and Manhandling Civilians in Civil War,” American Political Science Review 100, no. 3 (2006): 429–47; Amelia Hoover Green, The Commander’s Dilemma: Violence and Restraint in Wartime (Cornell University Press, 2018).
3 Moore, “When Do Ties Bind?”
4 Ana Arjona, Nelson Kasfir, and Zachariah Cherian Mampilly, eds. Rebel Governance in Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2015).
5 “Human Rights Division: Second Quarterly Report April-June 2003,” United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI), 2003; “Côte d’Ivoire: The War Economy,” International Crisis Group, 2003; “Ivory Coast: Civilians Pay the Price of War,” Amnesty International, 2003.
6 “Human Rights Division: First Quarterly Report January-March 2004,” United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI), 2004; “Ivory Coast: No Peace Without Justice,” Human Rights Watch, 2005.
7 Moore, “When Do Ties Bind?”
8 Thomas Hegghammer, “The Rise of Muslim Foreign Fighters: Islam and the Globalization of Jihad,” International Security 35, no. 3 (2010): 53–94.
9 Jelena Beslin and Marija Ignjatijevic, Balkan Foreign Fighters: From Syria to Ukraine (European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), 2022).
10 Austin C. Doctor, “Foreign Fighters and Conflict-Related Sexual Violence,” International Studies Quarterly 65, no. 1 (2021): 69–81.
11 Kristin M. Bakke, “Help Wanted? The Mixed Record of Foreign Fighters in Domestic Insurgencies,” International Security 38, no. 4 (2014): 150–87; Maud Beelman, “‘Mujahedeen’ Volunteers Cause Problems for Bosnia,” Associated Press Worldstream (1994); Ben Rich and Dara Conduit, “The Impact of Jihadist Foreign Fighters on Indigenous Secular-Nationalist Causes: Contrasting Chechnya and Syria,” in Networked Insurgencies and Foreign Fighters in Eurasia (Routledge, 2018), 74–92; Austin C. Doctor, “Foreign Fighters and Conflict-Related Sexual Violence,” International Studies Quarterly 65, no. 1 (2021): 69–81; Tricia Bacon and Daisy Muibu, “The Domestication of Al-Shabaab,” The Journal of the Middle East and Africa 10, no. 3 (2019): 279–305.
12 Macartan Humphreys and Jeremy M. Weinstein, “Handling and Manhandling Civilians in Civil War,” American Political Science Review 100, no. 3 (2006): 429–47.
13 Sebastian Schutte, “Geography, Outcome, and Casualties: A Unified Model of Insurgency,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 59, no. 6 (2015): 1101–28; Macartan Humphreys and Jeremy M. Weinstein, “Handling and Manhandling Civilians in Civil War,” American Political Science Review 100, no. 3 (2006): 429–47; Virginia Page Fortna, Nicholas J. Lotito, and Michael A. Rubin, “Don’t Bite the Hand That Feeds: Rebel Funding Sources and the Use of Terrorism in Civil Wars,” International Studies Quarterly 62, no. 4 (2018): 782–94.
14 Jessica A. Stanton, “Regulating Militias: Governments, Militias, and Civilian Targeting in Civil War,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 59, no. 5 (2015): 899–923; Moore, “When Do Ties Bind?”; Hanne Fjelde and Lisa Hultman, “Weakening the Enemy: A Disaggregated Study of Violence Against Civilians in Africa,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 58, no. 7 (2014): 1230–57.
15 Jack Schwartz, “The False Promise of Foreign Fighters: The Effect of Somali Foreign Fighters on Civilian Victimization,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism (2023): 1–20.
16 Humphreys and Weinstein, “Handling and Manhandling Civilians in Civil War.”
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Austin C. Doctor and John D. Willingham, “Foreign Fighters, Rebel Command Structure, and Civilian Targeting in Civil War,” Terrorism and Political Violence 34, no. 6 (2022): 1125–43.
20 Nelson Kasfir, Rebel Governance–Constructing a Field of Inquiry: Definitions, Scope, Patterns, Order, Causes. Vol. 2 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Till Förster, “Dialogue Direct: Rebel Governance and Civil Order in Northern Côte d’Ivoire,” Rebel Governance in Civil War (2015): 203–25.
21 Kasper Hoffmann, “Myths Set in Motion: The Moral Economy of Mai Mai Governance,” Rebel Governance in Civil War 158 (2015).
22 Moore, “When Do Ties Bind?”
23 Humphreys and Weinstein, “Handling and Manhandling Civilians in Civil War”; Mampilly, Rebel Rulers: Insurgent Governance and Civilian Life during War (Cornell University Press, 2017); Kasfir, Rebel Governance–Constructing a Field of Inquiry.
24 Fjelde and Hultman, “Weakening the Enemy”; Stanton, “Regulating Militias.”
25 Herman Wieselgren, “The Ties That Bind Commanders: A Study of Sexual Violence and Restraint by Rebel Groups in Africa” (2020).
26 Moore, “When Do Ties Bind?”
27 Ibid.
28 Ralph Sundberg, Kristine Eck, and Joakim Kreutz, “Introducing the UCDP Non-State Conflict Dataset,” Journal of Peace Research 49, no. 2 (2012): 351–62.
29 Austin C. Doctor and John D. Willingham, “Foreign Fighters, Rebel Command Structure.”
30 Arjona, Kasfir, and Mampilly, eds., Rebel Governance in Civil War.
31 Yemen Humanitarian Fund. “Annual Monitoring Report” (UN OCHA, 2020). https://yemen.un.org/sites/default/files/2021-06/YHF_2020_Monitoring%20Report_for%20publication.pdf
32 Alexander J. Daley, “Why Rebels Govern: Explaining Islamist Militant Governance and Public Goods Provision” (PhD diss., Naval Postgraduate School, 2018).
33 Max Taylor, “Analysis: Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) Expansion in Yemen,” Intelligence Fusion, May 27, 2021, https://www.intelligencefusion.co.uk/insights/resources/intelligence-reports/analysis-al-qaeda-in-the-arabian-peninsula-aqap-expansion-in-yemen/.
34 “Somali Rebel Group Vows to Send Fighters to Yemen,” Xinhua General News Service, January 1, 2010, https://advance-lexis-com.utk.idm.oclc.org/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:7XFY-2470-Y958-C4X6-00000-00&context=1516831.
35 Clint Watts, “What If There Is No Al-Qaeda? Preparing for Future Terrorism,” Foreign Policy Research Institute, E-Notes (2012).
36 Stephen Day, “Yemen: On the Brink,” Middle East Program 108 (2010); “Shabaab Moves Troop Contingent to Yemen,” Investigative Project on Terrorism, https://advance-lexis-com.utk.idm.oclc.org/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:536J-BS61-F03R-N2N2-00000-00&context=1516831; “U.S. Turns Up Heat on Internet Imam Awlaki,” NPR Morning Edition, July 29, 2010, https://advance-lexis-com.utk.idm.oclc.org/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:8025-MVC0-Y8Y1-H20G-00000-00&context=1516831; Nenad Taneski and Atanas Kozarev, “Foreign Fighters-Perception of Threat,” Economy and Globalization, the Rule of Law and Media in the Conditions of Digitalization in the Western Balkan Countries 9, no. 20 (2019); Joana Lee Irene Cook, ““Their Fate Is Tied to Ours”: Assessing AQAP Governance and Implications for Security in Yemen” (2019).
37 “Shabaab Moves Troop Contingent to Yemen”; Christopher Swift, “Arc of Convergence: AQAP, Ansar al-Sharia and the Struggle for Yemen,” CTC Sentinel 5, no. 6 (2012): 1–6.
38 Gabriel Koehler-Derrick and Daniel James Milton, “Choose Your Weapon: The Impact of Strategic Considerations and Resource Constraints on Terrorist Group Weapon Selection,” Terrorism and Political Violence 31, no. 5 (2019): 909–28.
39 “Shabaab Moves Troop Contingent to Yemen”; Christopher Boucek, Gregory Johnsen, and Shari Villarosa, “Al-Qaeda in Yemen,” Carnegie Endowment, July 7, 2009; Window Exploiting A, “HSPI Issue Brief Series Yemen and Al Qarda in the Arabian Peninsula” (2011).
40 Window Exploiting A, “HSPI Issue Brief Series Yemen and Al Qarda in the Arabian Peninsula”; Elisabeth Kendall, “Contemporary Jihadi Militancy in Yemen,” Policy (2018).
41 Koehler-Derrick and Milton, “Choose Your Weapon.”
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid.
44 Brian O’Neill, “AQAP a Rising Threat in Yemen,” Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, November 16, 2017, https://ctc.westpoint.edu/aqap-a-rising-threat-in-yemen/.
45 Tim Lister, “Somali Terror Suspect Brought to US after Being Detained Overseas,” CNN.com, July 5, 2011, https://advance-lexis-com.utk.idm.oclc.org/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:5380-46Y1-DY60-M082-00000-00&context=1516831.
46 Daily Star Staff, “Somali Premier Vows Rebel Rout from Capital This Month,” The Daily Star, January 5, 2010, https://advance-lexis-com.utk.idm.oclc.org/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:7XGB-GPB1-2SDX-225R-00000-00&context=1516831.
47 Swift, “Arc of Convergence.”
48 Koehler-Derrick and Milton, “Choose Your Weapon.”
49 Swift, “Arc of Convergence.”
50 Christopher Boucek, Yemen on the Brink, Carnegie Endowment, 2010.
51 Ibid.
52 Ibid.
53 Noonan, “The Foreign Fighters Problem, Recent Trends and Case Studies: Selected Essays” (2011).
54 Sahara Reporters. “UPDATED: American Drone ‘Kill’ Cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.” September 30, 2011. https://advance-lexis-com.utk.idm.oclc.org/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:5501-91N1-DXHW-M300-00000-00&context=1516831.
55 “US Embassy in Yemen Closed after Qaeda Threat,” AlArabiya.net, January 2, 2010, https://advance-lexis-com.utk.idm.oclc.org/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:7XG0-DP60-YBWY-S35R-00000-00&context=1516831.
56 Boucek, Yemen on the Brink.
57 Ibid; “Tentacles of Terror,” The Pioneer India, December 31, 2009, https://advance-lexis-com.utk.idm.oclc.org/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:7XF9-9PY0-YBXP-9267-00000-00&context=1516831.
58 Boucek, Yemen on the Brink.
59 Ibid.
60 Ibid.
61 Ibid.
62 CFR Staff, “Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP),” Council on Foreign Relations, June 19, 2015, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/al-qaeda-arabian-peninsula-aqap.
63 Christopher Boucek, “House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence Hearing; on "Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland – Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)",” Congressional Documents and Publications, March 2, 2011, https://advance-lexis-com.utk.idm.oclc.org/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:529C-5MJ1-JCCP-0023-00000-00&context=1516831.
64 Hugh Macleod, “UK Ambassador in Yemen Escapes Assassination Attempt,” The Guardian – Final Edition, April 27, 2010, https://advance-lexis-com.utk.idm.oclc.org/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:7YB9-W680-Y9M5-S210-00000-00&context=1516831.
65 Boucek, “House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence Hearing”; Mohammed Jamjoom and Hakim Almasmari, “Fighting Erupts in Southern Yemeni Towns,” CNN.com, June 16, 2011, https://advance-lexis-com.utk.idm.oclc.org/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:533X-NP81-DY60-M4HD-00000-00&context=1516831.
66 “Al-Qaida in Yemen Claims Failed Attempt to Shoot Down Saudi Plane in Sanaa Airport,” Xinhua General News Service, October 5, 2010, https://advance-lexis-com.utk.idm.oclc.org/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:515S-3621-DY91-H386-00000-00&context=1516831.
67 Swift, “Arc of Convergence.”
68 A. Carboni and M. Sulz, “The Wartime Transformation of AQAP in Yemen,” ACLED, December 14, 2020.
69 Swift, “Arc of Convergence”; Daley, “Why Rebels Govern.”
70 Kendall, “Contemporary Jihadi Militancy in Yemen.”
71 Daley, “Why Rebels Govern.”
72 Kendall, “Contemporary Jihadi Militancy in Yemen.”
73 Swift, “Arc of Convergence.”
74 Ahmed Al-Tars Al-Arami, “The Emir and the Sheikh: Al-Qaeda’s Attempts to Integrate into the Yemeni Tribal System” (2021).
75 Kendall, “Contemporary Jihadi Militancy in Yemen.”
76 Daley, “Why Rebels Govern.”
77 Swift, “Arc of Convergence.”
78 Ibid.
79 “Political Chaos in Yemen Could Give AQAP a Haven,” The White House Bulletin, January 26, 2015, https://advance-lexis-com.utk.idm.oclc.org/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:5F59-10R1-JBSJ-800K-00000-00&context=1516831.
80 Kendall, “Contemporary Jihadi Militancy in Yemen.”
81 Daley, “Why Rebels Govern.”
82 Ibid.
83 Kendall, “Contemporary Jihadi Militancy in Yemen.”
84 Ibid.
85 Ibid.
86 Ibid.
87 Carboni and Sulz, “The Wartime Transformation of AQAP in Yemen.”
88 Kendall, “Contemporary Jihadi Militancy in Yemen.”
89 Daley, “Why Rebels Govern.”
90 Kendall, “Contemporary Jihadi Militancy in Yemen.”
91 Swift, “Arc of Convergence.”
92 Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2006); Boucek, Yemen on the Brink.
93 Nikola Skladanová, “Violent Non-State Actors: The Case of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” (2019).
94 “Iraq Ablaze as Several Killed in Baghdad Car Bomb,” Agence France Presse – English, May 12, 2005, https://advance-lexis-com.utk.idm.oclc.org/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:4G57-JTS0-TWMD-6320-00000-00&context=1516831.
95 CFR Staff, “Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).”
96 Ibid.
97 “Al-Qaeda in Yemen Releases ‘About Us’ Book,” BBC Monitoring Middle East – Political Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring, October 1, 2021, https://advance-lexis-com.utk.idm.oclc.org/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:63RJ-NY01-JC8S-C2BN-00000-00&context=1516831.
98 Ibid.
99 Skladanová, “Violent Non-State Actors.”
100 Reed M. Wood, “Rebel Capability and Strategic Violence Against Civilians,” Journal of Peace Research 47, no. 5 (2010): 601–14; Humphreys and Weinstein, “Handling and Manhandling Civilians in Civil War”; Reed M. Wood, Jacob D. Kathman, and Stephen E. Gent, “Armed Intervention and Civilian Victimization in Intrastate Conflicts,” Journal of Peace Research 49, no. 5 (2012): 647–60; Reed M. Wood, “Opportunities to Kill or Incentives for Restraint? Rebel Capabilities, the Origins of Support, and Civilian Victimization in Civil War,” Conflict Management and Peace Science 31, no. 5 (2014): 461–80.
101 Kyle Beardsley and Brian McQuinn, “Rebel Groups as Predatory Organizations: The Political Effects of the 2004 Tsunami in Indonesia and Sri Lanka,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 53, no. 4 (2009): 624–45; Wood, “Opportunities to Kill or Incentives for Restraint?”; Idean Salehyan, David Siroky, and Reed M. Wood, “External Rebel Sponsorship and Civilian Abuse: A Principal-Agent Analysis of Wartime Atrocities,” International Organization 68, no. 3 (2014): 633–61; Monica Duffy Toft and Yuri M. Zhukov, “Islamists and Nationalists: Rebel Motivation and Counterinsurgency in Russia’s North Caucasus,” American Political Science Review 109, no. 2 (2015): 222–38; Fortna, Lotito, and Rubin, “Don’t Bite the Hand That Feeds.”
102 Victor Asal and R. Karl Rethemeyer, “The Nature of the Beast: Organizational Structures and the Lethality of Terrorist Attacks,” The Journal of Politics 70, no. 2 (2008): 437–49; Per Baltzer Overgaard, “The Scale of Terrorist Attacks as a Signal of Resources,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 38, no. 3 (1994): 452–78.
103 Fortna, Lotito, and Rubin, “Don’t Bite the Hand That Feeds.”
104 Wood, “Rebel Capability and Strategic Violence Against Civilians”; Halvard Buhaug, “Relative Capability and Rebel Objective in Civil War,” Journal of Peace Research 43, no. 6 (2006): 691–708.
105 Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham, Reyko Huang, and Katherine M. Sawyer, “Voting for Militants: Rebel Elections in Civil War,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 65, no. 1 (2021): 81–107; CFR Staff, “Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).”
106 CFR Staff, “Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).”
107 “AQAP in Yemen: A Timeline,” Agence France Presse – English, April 25, 2016. https://advance-lexis-com.utk.idm.oclc.org/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:5JMD-XMC1-JBV1-X1W2-00000-00&context=1516831.
108 Carboni and Sulz, “The Wartime Transformation of AQAP in Yemen.”
109 Jon B. Alterman and Rick “Ozzie” Nelson, “AQAP in Yemen,” CSIS, 2010, https://www.csis.org/analysis/aqap-yemen.
110 CFR Staff. “Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).”
111 “Yemeni Officials under Ex-President Saleh “Worked with al-Qaeda,” Middle East Eye, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/yemeni-officials-under-ex-president-saleh-worked-al-qaeda (accessed February 5, 2023).
112 Kate Brannen, “U.S.-Supported Government in Yemen Has Ties to Al-Qaeda,” Just Security, April 24, 2017. https://www.justsecurity.org/40200/yemens-complex-battlefield-includes-al-qaeda-links-allies/.
113 Ibid.
114 Ibid.
115 Ibid.
116 Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War.
117 Andrew England, “Terror Alert Puts Focus on Yemen,” FT.com, December 28, 2009, https://advance-lexis-com.utk.idm.oclc.org/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:7XDR-S591-2RGG-B0M1-00000-00&context=1516831.
118 Laura Kasinof, “A New Base? Al Qaeda Rises in Yemen,” Christian Science Monitor, June 18, 2009, https://advance-lexis-com.utk.idm.oclc.org/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:7VYK-D0R1-2R4S-G2HT-00000-00&context=1516831; “Yemen Condemns Failed al-Qaeda Attack on Airliner,” Deutsche Presse-Agentur, December 29, 2009, https://advance-lexis-com.utk.idm.oclc.org/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:7XF3-5CR0-Y9XW-418N-00000-00&context=1516831.
119 “Yemen Control Map & Report,” Political Geography Now, 2018, https://www.polgeonow.com/search/label/yemen?updated-max=2018-12-08T03:07:00-08:00&max-results=20&start=20&by-date=false.
120 “Constructing Place Identity: ISIS and Al-Qaeda’s Branding Competition over the Caliphate,” Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, November 2019, https://advance-lexis-com.utk.idm.oclc.org/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:671W-P2V1-F0C0-32SC-00000-00&context=1516831.
121 “MMP: Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,” University of Stanford, 2020, https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/al-qaeda-arabian-peninsula#highlight_text_11575.
122 “Qasim al-Raymi,” Counter Extremism Project, March 31, 2015, https://www.counterextremism.com/extremists/qasim-al-raymi.
123 “MMP: Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula”; “Qasim al-Raymi,” Counter Extremism Project.
124 Humphreys and Weinstein, “Handling and Manhandling Civilians in Civil War.”
125 Taylor Cox, “Do Drones Drive Violence: How US Drone Strikes Impact Tehrik-i Taliban Attacks Against Civilians in Pakistan” (2021).
126 England, “Terror Alert Puts Focus on Yemen.”
127 Daley, “Why Rebels Govern.”
128 Moore, “When Do Ties Bind?”