Syria’s
“International Brigades” Could Sow Domestic Terror
A 22 year old Florida man sets off a suicide bomb
in Syria. Seven Dutch jihadis are killed in combat with Syrian
army units. A Frenchman, just returned
from Syria, kills four people at a Jewish museum in Brussels.
Those are some of the shocking stories which emerge from the
civil war in Syria which has now spilled over into Iraq, as radicalized Muslim
extremists leave the USA, Britain, and Europe to pursue a religious and
ideologically driven jihad in the
cauldron of the Middle East. The ranks
of these foreign fighters have grown to at least 7,000 according to U.S.
intelligence officials.
Many of these fighters have been inspired and loosely linked
by social media as well as many radical mosques, especially in Britain and
France.
At issue is not simply that these volunteers are fighting
abroad under dubious circumstances, but more troublesome, upon their return from
Syria, will many of them become ticking time bombs throughout American and European cities? We are not talking simply about political
radicalization, but specific military and terror skill sets which can lie
dormant or possibly be triggered by events or by design.
Britain’s MI 6 security agency says that as many as 300 of
these foreign fighters may have already returned to the United Kingdom from Middle
East warzones.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said the Syrian conflict
had “turned into a cradle of violent extremism,” that could threaten Western
countries when fighters return home.
Responding to the growing threat the French government has
proposed six-month travel bans on certain individuals going to Syria. It’s estimated that two or three French
citizens leave daily to join radical Islamist groups overseas.
Even Al-Qaida terrorists have been wary of the hyper-radical
Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a signature movement of choice for many
of the radicals.
Besides the ideological and religious magnetism of fighting
in the Middle East, the practical transport access is not too complicated. Most militants fly to Turkey along with a
huge tourist surge. The Turkish
Islamic/lite government in the meantime has played fast and loose with allowing
all sorts and stripes of rebels and dissidents slip over its porous border with
Syria. Among the “moderate” rebel groups staging from
Turkey, there’s also a pipeline for the fanatics.
But here’s the real problem.
Contrary to many hardline jihadis
from Afghanistan, Pakistan or Yemen, these militants don’t carry “red flagged”
passports but rather hold American, Belgian, British, French or German passports. Easy unhindered access inside the 28-member
European Union is guaranteed by the Schengen Agreements allowing for free movement
among member states. So once such a
citizen re-enters the European Union, he is then free to move and mingle
throughout the region without any passport controls, except for the United Kingdom.
Equally a EU passport holder from France, Belgium or Germany
has visa free access to the USA. While
the free movement is a boom for trade, tourism and commerce among countries, it
allows for the easier travel of many such foreign fighters.
EU Interior Ministries are keenly aware of this unlocked
back door. Equally U.S. Homeland
security is ramping up surveillance of many European origin flights to the USA
in light of this reality.
Evoking the “International Brigades” of the Spanish Civil
war (1936-1939), these foreign fighters are driven by ideological zeal, to
fight for the “cause.” The American
“Lincoln Brigade” was composed largely of leftists and communists. A similar political strand was true with many
of the British, French and German communists who fought in Spain. The International Brigades were powered by an
commitment to “fight fascism,”
supporting the Spanish Republic against General Franco’s insurgent nationalists, who were backed by fascist Germany and Italy.
Syria’s International Brigades are significantly different
in many ways; these are hardened religious zealots, many of them converted to
Islam, whose “cause” is to establish an Islamic Caliphate in the Middle
East. Syria’s secular regime is supported
by Russia. The cause here is both the
cult of violence and to spread radical Islam. According to the Syrian Observatory
for Human rights, over 170,000 people have been killed in the conflict thus
far. Of 45,000 rebels killed, 15,000 are foreign, mostly Arab fighters, but
many indeed are Western.
Lamentably, the unintended consequences of the so-called
Arab Spring, coupled with the Obama Administration’s strategic ineptitude, are
starkly obvious from Libya to the Levant and into Iraq.
The black flag of jihad
now flies over parts of Syria and Iraq. When
shall some of its foreign zealots return home?
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