Quora Answer: What Do You Think of Former ISIS Members Returning Home, to the West?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “What do you think of former ISIS members returning home, to the West?  How big is the scale of this?  Is it possible to stop them at all?”

It is estimated that there are several thousand such returning foreign fighters.  These numbers are in addition to hundreds more that are trying to blend into genuine refugees.  They are not only returning to the West, but to countries all over the world.  In Southeast Asia, where Singapore is, it is estimated that there are around 5,000 returning jihadists.

From a security perspective, this is a major threat to stability and the cohesion of the state.  This threat, if not adequately addressed, has the potential to grow because of their propensity to recruit from the disenfranchised sections of society, and radicalise them.  Whilst we cannot outright stop terrorism, any more than we can stop crime, we can put in place measures to mitigate their effects, and bring down incidences to almost negligible numbers.  I am quoting from the Singapore experience, and how we address radicalism in a multicultural secular state that cannot close its borders, because we are an international trade and finance hub.

Firstly, to address Muslim extremism, we have to understand exactly what we are dealing with from a doctrinal and historical perspective.  Almost every major Muslim terrorist group, from ISIS to Al-Qaeda, to Boko Haram to every other local group with pledged allegiance to one or the other is based on the exclusivist teachings of Wahhabism, a heretical sect that arose in Arabia 300 years ago.  The founder was Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab.  The descendants of this genocidal mad man are not the foremost clergy in Saudi Arabia.  We can thank the British for the current state of things.

As long as Wahhabis were killing other Muslims, Sunnis and Shi’ah, the rest of the world was unconcerned.  When Wahhabism, or Salafism, as they are also called, spread amongst Muslim minorities in the West, and in secular states such as Singapore, it created that critical mass of potential adherents that could be pushed over the age to wage war against the “infidels”, anyone, especially Muslims, who did not share that ideology.

To address groups such as ISIS at the roots is to attack their ideology and discredit it.  Not every Wahhabi is a rabid radical, but every Wahhabi subscribes to some form of exclusivism.  They ban celebrations of secular holidays, even birthdays.  They are against music and singing.  They demand their “rights” and seek to create ghettos, cutting off interactions with the wider population.  This makes them difficult to police, and severs the relationship between this community and wider society.  That is what makes it easier for them to attack their fellow citizens, their neighbours and their community.  They have been indoctrinated to see them as the other.  The state must never give in and allow them their creeping Islamism, whether it is something as innocuous as their demand for the hijab, to their demand for separate eating places.  In our experience, these people eventually start to demand that others, including non-Muslims, adhere to their limited, literalist interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence.

It is important for the state to have Islamic scholars and experts they can trust.  This can be a challenge.  Sometimes the very Muslims tasked with monitoring the spread of religious extremism are themselves party to it.  In one Southeast Asian country, which I will not name, the mufti became associated with the Muslim Brotherhood whilst studying in Egypt.  The person tasked with the registrar of approved scholars, and sitting on the fatwa committee, is himself a Wahhabi.  These people, once ensconced, are difficult to root out due to political sensitivities pertaining to the Muslim minority.

Pertaining to returning fighters, or radicalised individuals attempting to join them, there has to be a deradicalisation programme.  We have to absolutely certain that these people are weaned off their ideological drug before releasing them into the population, after serving their time, if their crime is mere association.  Even then, they are monitored for a period of time thereafter to prevent reoffence.

If they are actual jihadist guilty of war crimes and genocide, the last thing the state should do is strip them of citizenship, even if that is an option in international law.  Stripping them of citizenship may also mean renouncing the state’s legal jurisdiction over them.  We do not need these criminals and terrorists overseas, beyond the immediate reach of our security forces, recruiting new terrorists and planning attacks.  What the state needs to do is take custody of them, and detain them according to the instruments of law.  They should be tried, and subjected to the severest penalties.  If the death penalty is an option, execute them, and dispose of the bodies.  Their graves should not be allowed to be a place of homage by those who would make them martyrs to the cause.

When it comes to religious inspired violence and terrorism, we should treat them as an existential threat.  The worst of these people cannot be reasoned with.  We do not expect any quarter.  We should give none.  There are no half measures in seeking to eradicate them, down to their sympathisers and enablers.  This means banning preachers or detaining them, shutting down organisations and businesses, banning publications and multimedia, and using the full force of the law to seize their assets.  We must remember that these jihadists only need one lucky break, and we have mass casualties.  We could make thousands of arrests, and execute dozens of them, but they only need one 9/11, one Bali Bombing, one London Bridge Attack.  In that light, I can live with harsh measures against them.