MOSCOW, September 5 (RIA Novosti) – Thirty fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), have appealed to the British authorities, stating that they want to return home to Britain, and asking for leniency from the authorities.
In a conversation via social media with researchers from the International Center for the Study of Radicalization (ICSR) at King’s College in London, an unidentified fighter speaking on behalf of the group noted that he was disillusioned with ISIS, saying that “we came to fight the regime and instead we are involved in gang warfare. It’s not what we came for, but if we go back [to Britain] we will go to jail,” reported The Times.
The fighter told Peter Neumann, the head of the ICSR, that they would be willing to undergo a “de-radicalization course,” and to be put under state surveillance. Neumann told The Times that “the people we have been talking to…want to quit but feel trapped because all the government is talking about is locking them up for 30 years.”
Neumann estimates that up to a fifth of all the fighters from Britain, estimated to number about 500, are disillusioned from their experiences, and are trying to find a way back home. Neumann believes that working with returning ex-fighters in a constructive manner could be a good way to combat IS internet propaganda and demonstrate to other potential fighters that it’s not worth it, and that the reality of the battlefield doesn’t match ISIS propaganda.
Professor Greg Barton of the Global Terrorism Research Center told Daily Mail Australia that the decision of the radicalized youth to go off to fight is a sign of the “fairly juvenile mentality,” of “young men doing foolish things, driven by peer pressure and a desire for affirmation.”
The idea of having the militants undergo a ‘deradicalization program’ echoes the proposal put forth by British Labour Party leader Ed Miliband back in August to create such a program for young British Muslims that had been drawn in by Islamic extremism.
So far, the British authorities’ attitudes toward returning fighters have taken a harsher tone: Scotland Yard chief Bernard Hogan-Howe argues that former fighters should have their British citizenship revoked, and told LBC radio that “if you’re going to start fighting in another country on behalf of another state…it seems to me that you’ve made a choice about where you want to be.”
So far, 40 of the 250+ British nationals who have returned from fighting in the Middle East have been arrested and face terrorism charges, reports the Daily Mail.
The British government suspects that since 2011 up to 500 British nationals have gone to Syria and Iraq to fight. They include Syrians, Kurds, and other Muslims, including converts, who have been swayed by the influence of radical preachers. At least 20 are presumed to have been killed in battles in Syria; six of them allegedly died in fighting between rebel factions.
