Returning fighters are a security concern but also an opportunity for Europe states to heal.


The case of Shamima Begum, who was married to a Daesh fighter, and her wish to return to the United Kingdom has taken up much of the coverage in the British media over the past week, as the nation debates whether she should be allowed to return home after four years living under Daesh’s rule. 
Similarly, other stories have emerged of regretful Americans and other European Muslim women looking to return home now that Daesh has lost most of its territory in both Iraq and Syria and the territorial “caliphate” is no more.
With more than 1,000 European Daesh prisoners detained in northern Syria by US-aligned PKK forces, and US President Donald Trump’s threat to release Daesh fighters if European powers did not take them back and put them on trial, there are questions about what to do with these unwanted spoils of victory. The radicalised vs active terrorists From the perspective of international law, there can be no doubt that European states cannot strip the citizenship of those that went and travelled to Syria and make them stateless, they have an obligation to deal with them. However, there are two categories of European Daesh fighters currently being held – radicalised but otherwise non-fighting members, and hardened fighters who actively participated in acts of terrorism.
In either case and purely from a national security and intelligence gathering perspective, there is a lot that can be gleaned by intelligence and security services interrogating Daesh prisoners. Those who actively participated in acts of violence in Iraq and Syria, or who were perhaps at one point sent to other countries to plan or help execute terrorist attacks before returning to the “caliphate” only to be captured could provide valuable tactical and operational intelligence. In case of a future threat based on the Daesh model – which is a high likelihood considering the root causes of Daesh’s rise have not been addressed – governments will know how to prepare better their forces and those of their allies to combat such a threat.
In terms of radicalised but otherwise passive people who were the wives and children of Daesh members who lived under Daesh’s rule, like Shamima, then useful social intelligence can be gathered on how Daesh enforced its reign. And more broadly how it organised its communities, and how it managed to effectively groom and brainwash children into leaving the West to join its ranks as housewives to terrorist fighters and mothers to their children. 
Shamima was quite clear in her interviews with The Times, Sky News and the BBC that she was not only attracted by Daesh’s violent propaganda videos – perhaps demonstrating a machismo that some feel has been missing since the glory days of Islam.  But she was also enamoured with Daesh videos of “the good life” under the self-proclaimed caliph’s rule.
Many such young girls and women were married off to Daesh militants and gave birth to their children. Quite apart from European states’ legal obligations, they have a humanitarian duty not to visit the sins of their fathers and mothers on innocent children who are entirely blameless. 
These children should be brought home and, if social services and judicial authorities deem it to be necessary, given to stable families so they can enjoy the life their parents so foolishly and carelessly threw away to live a utopic fantasy that turned into one of the worst dystopic nightmares in recent history. Changing values If European countries fail to deal with their citizens, then Daesh will have scored some kind of “moral” victory with its adherents and be given propaganda to use on Muslim communities in the West that it is attempting to reach and infiltrate.
As I said in an earlier article, we have all heard the arguments extremists use to attempt to get Western Muslims on their side, including how the West will never accept Muslims and is out to destroy the Islamic faith and way of life. 
Daesh will point to Islamophobic extremists like Tommy Robinson who are allowed to walk free and ask why women and children who lived under its rule and who were not actively involved in violence are not even allowed to return home. Those people, Daesh will argue, are better off staying on the run in a spiritual, if not territorial, caliphate rather than attempting to return to the West.
I am certainly not arguing that Daesh adherents should be allowed to roam free. On the contrary, they should be taken into custody, thoroughly interrogated and put on trial. They will then either be sent to prison or released, and even then, their involvement with such a group would warrant significant rehabilitation.
But isn’t that what the rule of law in European societies is all about? What separates the civilised from the uncivilised? If they are left in Iraq and Syria, European countries are effectively abandoning their duty of care towards their citizens by failing to bring those responsible for terrorism to justice and by showing that children born to these people will not be punished because of what their parents have done. In effect, they will be failing their societies by abandoning their principles that define their idealised way of life.
If, by flaunting international law and failing to deal with their wayward citizens, European governments inadvertently allow for hundreds of children they have abandoned to be truly radicalised and develop into the global security threat of the next generation, we will all look back on this moment where we could have done something and regret we allowed our fear and hatred to get the better of us.

Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, viewpoints and editorial policies of TRT World.We welcome all pitches and submissions to TRT World Opinion – please send them via email, to [email protected]Source: trtworld.com