The Roles of Foreign Fighters in Insurgencies: A Typology

• Název práce v češtině: Role zahraničních bojovníků v povstáních: typologie
• Název v anglickém jazyce: The Roles of Foreign Fighters in Insurgencies: A Typology
• Klíčová slova: džihádismus, povstání, role, typologie, zahraniční bojovníci
• Klíčová slova anglicky: Foreign Fighters, Insurgency, Jihadism, Roles, Typology
• Akademický rok vypsání: 2019/2020
• Typ práce: diplomová práce
• Jazyk práce: angličtina
• Ústav: Katedra bezpečnostních studií (23-KBS)
• Vedoucí / školitel: prof. PhDr. Emil Aslan, Ph.D.
• Řešitel: skrytý - zadáno a potvrzeno stud. odd.
• Datum přihlášení: 01.06.2021
• Datum zadání: 01.06.2021
• Datum a čas obhajoby: 22.06.2022 10:00
• Místo konání obhajoby: Pekařská 16, JPEK312, 312, Malá učebna, 3.patro
• Datum odevzdání elektronické podoby: 09.02.2022
• Datum proběhlé obhajoby: 22.06.2022
• Oponenti: Mgr. Martin Laryš, Ph.D.

Zásady pro vypracování

Even though the contemporary foreign fighter phenomenon has emerged in Afghanistan in the 1980s, foreign volunteers have been present on battlefields for centuries (Mendelsohn 2011, pp. 189-190). The ongoing conflict in Syria (and Iraq) has attracted an unprecedented number of foreign fighters, resulting in an increased security threat to the region of the Middle East but also Europe and North America (Briggs Obe, Silverman 2014, p. 8). In recent decades, foreign fighters are becoming more common as more insurgent groups in an increasing number of civil conflicts tend to recruit more foreign fighters. These transnational recruits hinder counterinsurgency and peacekeeping efforts. (Malet 2010, p. 97) Moreover, insurgent groups that recruit foreign fighters are more violent towards civilians than those without foreign fighters (Moore 2019, pp. 279-294; Doctor, Willingham 2020, pp. 1-19). As proven by the prominent scholar of foreign fighters, David Malet (2013, pp. 52-53), foreign fighters’ presence on battlefield matters - insurgencies that recruit from abroad are more likely to win against the state than locals-driven insurgencies.
Foreign fighters have been one of the most significant global security challenges of this century (Daymon, de Roy van Zuijdewijn, Malet 2020, p. 2). The issue rising the most concerns is the potential threat posed by returning and veteran foreign terrorist fighters. In his study on western jihadist foreign fighters, Thomas Hegghammer (2013, pp. 1-15) found that most foreign fighters do not return to their home country to perpetrate a terrorist attack. However, if they do, they are more effective operatives and increase the likelihood that a terrorist attack will be successful and deadly (Hegghammer 2013, p. 11). Although the probability of terrorist plots by Western foreign fighters upon their return from Syria and Iraq is small, the danger is nevertheless real and cannot be ignored (Byman, Shapiro 2014, p. 1). Recent research on veteran foreign fighters focuses on individuals who do not return home but continue fighting in new groups and even conflicts. These “career” foreign fighters gain skills and expertise and transmit them to new violent actors what makes them “a greater and broader security threat than returning, one-off foreign fighters.” (Daymon, de Roy van Zuijdewijn, Malet 2020, p. 2). Studying the skills and experience foreign fighters gain in conflict theatre while performing their operational roles is crucial in understanding the nature of the threat posed by foreign fighters in general and returning and veteran foreign fighters in particular.

Seznam odborné literatury

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Předběžná náplň práce

Research target and research question

The goal of the master’s thesis is to explore the activities of jihadist foreign fighters in a conflict zone by analysing the roles that foreign fighters take on in insurgencies. In his study of foreign fighters’ mobilisations from 1816 to 2005, David Malet (2013, pp. 43-52) revealed that the so-called “true believers” (primarily represented by Islamist mujahidin) are the prevalent type of foreign fighters nowadays. Malet’s findings are congruent with Hegghammer’s opinion, who views the contemporary foreign fighter phenomenon as inextricably linked to violent Sunni Islamism (or transnational jihad) (Hegghammer 2010, p. 53). Daymon, de Roy van Zuijdewijn, and Malet (2020, p. 12) confirmed this approach, claiming that “jihadists are prevalent across major modern conflicts both as a collective group and individuals.” The author will seek an answer to the following research question: What types of jihadist foreign fighters are there regarding their roles in a conflict zone (during the “in theatre phase”/ “the war stage” of the foreign fighter life cycle)?[1]

Not a single comprehensive study addressing the issue of the roles of jihadist foreign fighters has been created so far. In their paper titled The Psychology of Foreign Fighters, Borum and Fein (2017, p. 250) suggested four basic categories of actions in support of an insurgency: direct action, operational support, movement support, and logistical support. Despite briefly touching upon the issue, they acknowledged the need to pursue this strand of the research on foreign fighters further and examine their roles and functions in detail to “provide a much more textured view of the phenomenon and of participants’ involvement.” (Borum, Fein 2017, p. 262) In a more recent study on interactions between foreign fighters, rebel leaders, and civilians by Doctor and Willingham, the need to examine foreign fighters’ roles is reiterated: “Foreign fighter studies would greatly benefit from a rich assessment of the various roles that foreign fighters take on in insurgencies.” (Doctor, Willingham 2020, p. 15)

Literature review

The term foreign fighter describing a foreign insurgent was first used only in 1988 by journalist Edward Gorman (1988, p. 7) in his article titled Khost outpost falls to Mujahidin led by foreign fighters published in the Times of London (Malet 2013, p. 216). It took almost two more decades for the phenomenon of foreign fighters to attract the attention of academia. According to Malet (2015, p. 455), the first paper systematically studying foreign participation in rebel groups was written in 2005 by Reuven Paz, who noted that jihadist volunteers as a unique type of actors were present in the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Chechnya.[2] Up to date, no clear consensus has emerged regarding the definition of the term foreign fighter (Holman 2011; Fritz, Young 2020, pp. 450-453). However, most authors agree on critical aspects of the definition (Malet 2015, p. 456). The author of the master’s thesis will use the following literature to map out the concept of foreign fighters: Moore, Tumelty (2008, pp. 412-433); Malet (2009, pp. 1-322; 2013, pp. 1-13; 2015, pp. 454-473); Bryan (2010, pp. 115-129); Cilluffo, Cozzens, Ranstorp (2010, pp. 1-38); Hegghammer (2010, pp. 53-94; 2013, pp. 1-15); Mendelsohn (2011, pp. 189-202); Bakke (2013, pp. 31-62).

As stated above, there is a gap in the research on foreign fighters. So far, nobody has attempted to analyse the roles of jihadist foreign fighters in insurgencies generally, using the evidence from multiple cases of jihadist foreign fighter mobilisation. Nor is there a typology that would classify foreign fighters regarding their experience and activities in the conflict theatre. The only partial exemption is a study by Mark Sexton (2017, pp. 34-43). Sexton proposes a new definition of foreign fighters and prefers the term “radical travellers to a conflict zone” to refer to these individuals. Stressing the importance of studying experiences and activities of radical travellers to a conflict zone, Sexton defines them as “individuals who are motivated by ideology and a desire to play an active role in securing social, political or economic change to leave their country of residence, citizenship or nationality to travel to an area in which political violence is prevalent and join or align themselves with a party to that violence.” (Sexton 2017, p. 37) Without any further analysis, he proceeds with “expanding” the definition into a somewhat arbitrary typology of “participants.” Sexton identifies five categories of radical travellers to conflict zones: violent radicals, terrorist trainees, radical affiliates and supporters, radical followers, and radical provocateurs (Sexton 2017, pp. 37-38).

The lack of provided evidence decreases the analytical value of the introduced types of foreign fighters. Sexton, speaking about the foreign fighter phenomenon generally, draws his conclusions on the evidence from the conflict in Syria and Iraq using almost exclusively the examples of foreign fighters from the West who joined the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Moreover, the categories overlap, and some appear redundant. Including the type “terrorist trainees” characterised as “radical travellers who receive training and then return to their home country or a third country to engage in political violence” might be considered problematic by some scholars. (Sexton 2017, p. 37) Marc Sageman, for instance, suggested that these “foreign-trained fighters” should be treated as a phenomenon distinct from “traditional” foreign fighters (Foreign Policy Research Institute 2016).[3]

Nascent research on activities and roles of (jihadist) foreign fighters is somewhat incoherent and usually case-specific. Most of the literature focuses on the ongoing conflict in Syria and Iraq. Many authors refer to the subject of roles and activities just briefly in a few sentences or paragraphs within broader studies on the foreign fighter phenomenon and motivations of these individuals to travel to conflict zones. Bakker and de Bont (2016, pp. 848-850) discussed the roles of Belgian and Dutch jihadist foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq from 2012 to 2015. In their research on European female foreign fighters in Syria, Bakker and de Leede (2015, 1-13) explored the roles of women who joined jihadist groups. Marone and Vidino (2019, p. 28) briefly examined the roles of foreign fighters with ties to Italy who travelled to Syria, Iraq, and Libya between 2011 and 2017. Donnelly, Sanderson and Fellman (2017, pp. 1-30) studied historical foreign fighters’ mobilisations in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Syria, and Iraq. However, their joint concluding section on roles and motivations is based entirely on the examples of ISIL foreign fighters, thus providing only limited general insight. In his paper titled Foreign Fighters—Recent Trends, Barak Mendelsohn (2011, pp. 189-202) focused on jihadist foreign fighters on a more general level. He noted that although inevitably evolving, the foreign fighter phenomenon is historically relatively stable and “foreign fighters engage in numerous activities ranging from guerrilla fighting, planning and carrying out terrorist attacks, media and propaganda campaigns, training and recruitment.” (Mendelsohn 2011, p. 195) In their analysis of over 50 jihadist foreign fighters who served in multiple civil wars and rebel groups from 1980 to 2020, Daymon, de Roy van Zuijdewijn and Malet (2020, pp. 1-31) discovered that many of them were able to progress from rank-and-file combatants to top leadership.

There are relatively few studies pertaining specifically to the activities and roles of jihadist foreign fighters. Anne Stenersen (2011, pp. 171-198) studied the activities of 120 foreign fighters who were killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan between 2002 and 2006 based on their biographies. Cerwyn Moore (2015, pp. 395-415) analysed the roles of foreign fighters in the North Caucasus and produced a unique dataset containing information on 164 individuals participating in conflicts in the North Caucasus between 1992 and 2013. Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman (2007, pp. 1-30) were the first researchers who analysed the Sinjar records seized by coalition forces in 2007 in Iraq. This primary source contained information on the intended roles of 389 foreign fighters who entered Iraq via Syria from August 2006 to August 2007. Brian Dodwell, Daniel Milton, and Don Rassler (2016, pp. 1-37) studied personnel records of more than 4,000 foreign fighters produced by the Islamic State between early 2013 and late 2014 - the largest cache of primary open-source documents of this kind available so far. The forms also contained questions on the preferred fighting role and “specialty.” Arie Perliger and Daniel Milton (2016, pp. i-51) collected and analysed data on the organisational roles of 530 jihadist foreign fighters (primarily from the West) who joined rebel groups in Iraq and Syria between 2012 and 2015. Further information on the roles of ISIL foreign fighters can be found in Evans, Milton and Young (2021, pp. 509-531).

The cases of jihadist foreign fighter mobilisations are not very well documented regarding the roles and activities the jihadist foreign fighter performed. In the cases where specific studies are missing or when the existing data needs to be put in context, the author will draw on generally oriented complementary literature and try to extract the relevant information. For example, Williams (2007, pp. 156-178) provided further information on foreign fighters in Chechnya. Williams (2011, pp. 216-239) also researched foreign fighters in Afghanistan and Pakistan from 1980 to 2010. Kohlmann (2004, pp. 1-239) and Mustapha (2013, pp. 742-755) wrote about jihadist foreign fighters in Bosnia. Bacon and Muibu (2018, pp. 413-423) and Kruber and Carver (2021, pp. 1-18) explored the jihadist foreign fighter contingent in Somalia.

Conceptual and theoretical framework

The master’s thesis will work with the concept of foreign fighters. The author will use the interpretation of the concept by David Malet as a baseline. Malet defines foreign fighters as “noncitizens of conflict states who join insurgencies during civil conflicts.” (Malet 2013, p. 9) “This definition excludes terrorists, and also regular military forces, foreign legions, and private contractors operating abroad on behalf of a state because they still enjoy legal status as combatants. It also excludes rebel groups in safehavens, rather than fighting in a civil war, in the host country.” (Malet 2015, p. 456) In his earlier study, Malet (2013, p. 9) stated that the terms foreign fighter and transnational insurgent are interchangeable. Later, however, he refined the definition and came up with new delineations of the foreign fighter phenomenon. The term foreign fighter is used exclusively to describe “[a] non-citizen of a state experiencing civil conflict who arrives from an external state to join an insurgency (e.g., International Brigades, ISIS).” (Malet 2015, p. 459) The term transnational insurgent, on the other hand, is reserved for “[n]on-state (i.e., rebel) groups that extend operations across borders into states external to the civil conflict (e.g., Nicaraguan groups operating in Honduras).” (Malet 2015, p. 458)

It is beyond the scope of this document to discuss the evolution of the concept and its key aspects in detail – this will be done within a separate chapter of the thesis using the literature cited in the literature review. As argued in the section on the research question, the master’s thesis will be limited to Sunni jihadist foreign fighters. Furthermore, the individuals performing non-combatant roles will be regarded as foreign fighters “because individuals who join regular armies are classified as military personnel regardless of whether they perform combat duties.” (Daymon, de Roy van Zuijdewijn, Malet 2020, p. 13)

Empirical data and analytical technique

Regarding the methodology, the master’s thesis will be a unidimensional typology – “[a] form of typology in which cell types are created based on a single categorical variable.” (Collier, LaPorte, Seawright 2012, p. 2). On the other hand, multidimensional typologies form analytic types through the crosstabulation of two or more dimensions (Collier, LaPorte, Seawright 2008, p.153). The author will form the types of jihadist foreign fighters organized around a single dimension/categorical variable – their role/activity in an insurgency. A certain level of semantic confusion exists in the literature on typologies. Some authors refrain from referring to unidimensional typologies as to typologies, calling them classification schemes (Marradi 1990, pp. 129-157) or generic classifications (Bailey 1994, pp. 1-89) instead. According to these authors, the term typology should be used only regarding multidimensional typologies. Notwithstanding the semantic differences, the analytical technique connected to typologies/classifications is called typological analysis. “Typological analysis is a strategy for descriptive qualitative (or quantitative) data analysis whose goal is the development of a set of related but distinct categories within a phenomenon that discriminate across the phenomenon.” (Ayres, Knafl 2008, p. 900) This intellectual operation can also be called classification, division, or categorization (Marradi 1990, pp. 131-132). The classes formed by the researcher must be exhaustive and mutually exclusive (Marradi 1990, p. 129; Bailey 1994, p. 3).

The author will analyse the information on the roles of jihadist foreign fighters in the most significant cases of jihadist foreign-fighter mobilisation in modern history: Afghanistan (1980-1992), Bosnia (1992-1995), Somalia (1993-present), Chechnya (1994-2009), Afghanistan (2001-present), Iraq (2003-present), and Syria (2011-present) (Duyvesteyn, Peeters 2015, p. 4). This will be done through an extensive review of the available literature on foreign fighters’ activities and roles listed in the literature review section of this document to identify the patterns of similarity and difference. Subsequently, the individual types will be extracted and titled. Once the types of jihadist foreign fighters regarding their roles in conflict zones are established, the author will collect and summarise the empirical evidence of individuals’ participation across the most significant cases of jihadist foreign fighter mobilisation, drawing on newspaper articles, published intelligence services’ reports etc.

Planned thesis outline

The preliminary thesis outline is as follows:

Introduction
1. The concept of foreign fighters
2. Literature review
3. Research question
4. Data and methods
5. Typology
Conclusion
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[1] The research question refers to the foreign fighter life cycle comprising of the pre-war phase, the war phase, and the post-war phase as first described by Stephanie Kaplan (Helfont 2010, p. 3). Mendelsohn (2011, p. 194) later expanded on Kaplan’s ideas and argued that the questions regarding the operational roles of foreign fighters and their training are related to the second, war phase. Similarly, Perliger and Milton (2016, iv) divided the foreign fighter life cycle into three stages: pre-departure, in theatre, and return.

[2] See Arab volunteers killed in Iraq: An Analysis (Paz 2005, pp. 1-7).

[3] Comments made by Marc Sageman during The Foreign Fighter Problem: Recent Trends and Case Studies conference held in Washington, DC, on 27th of September 2010.