Quora Answer: Should European & UK Citizens Who Joined ISIS be Allowed to Return?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Why should European and UK citizens who have joined ISIS be allowed to return now it is defeated?”

ISIS is not defeated.  ISIS has lost contiguous territory in Syria and Iraq, but it is not finished as a terror entity.  ISIS’ ability to wage war has been compromised, but its ability to inspire terror attacks around the world has not.

As for European and UK citizens, the question is not about allowing them to return but about the judicial and deradicalisation process.  In both areas, the EU is woefully under-equipped to deal with them, because they do not seem to understand the enemy they are fighting.  We are not dealing with people, but an ideology.  To destroy ISIS is to destroy its ideology.  This means we have to address not only these returning foreign fighters, but the underlying morass of sympathisers, supporters, and enablers.

The EU does seem to have either the mechanisms, or the political will to do the needful.  This means detention without trial until intelligence can be processed, followed by judicial action, including execution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  This includes banning books, deporting hate preachers, shutting down mosques and Islamic organisations that have been compromised.  This means setting up a European entity to accredit scholars, audit organisations and movements, manage their own mosques and curb foreign jihadi influence.

The fight against radicalisation is a lot more difficult.  To erase the underlying support base, means addressing disenfranchisement, wealth disparity and the lack of social mobility.  People who are part of the community framework have no reason to turn against it.