Recrudescence Project
Summary
Today, ISIS’s self-proclaimed Caliphate has been defeated and the U.S. homeland and that of our European allies has been made more secure from externally planned terror attacks than at any point since before 9/11. However, the root causes of the previous wave of terrorism remain in place and most have been exacerbated in recent years — a new wave, pursued by a more diverse, flexible, and technologically potent array of jihadist enemies appears all but inevitable.
The Recrudescence Project was a policy-focused initiative that was conducted jointly by the Middle East Institute’s Countering Terrorism and Extremism Program, the Center for National Security at Fordham Law, and the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point and launched in order to research the next wave of jihadist terrorism and to devise more effective strategies to prevent or mitigate it.
Products
Cash Camps: Financing Detainee Activities in Al-Hol and Roj Camps
Over two years since the fall of Baghouz, entities managing the detention facilities holding Islamic State-affiliated adults and minors in northeastern Syria face overwhelming challenges in securing this population, particularly alongside people displaced by conflict in the region. Camps like Al-Hol actually serve as a valuable hub for the region’s violent extremists and criminal networks. To explore this phenomenon and inform how stakeholders in the counterterrorism community mitigate the issue, this report uses publicly available information and social media monitoring to trace how funds 1) move into, 2) move around, and 3) move out of two camps holding Islamic State detainees in northeastern Syria.
The Challenge of Foreign Fighters: Repatriating and Prosecuting ISIS Detainees.
From the U.S. and the U.K. to Iraq and Syria, the way countries are handling the repatriation and prosecution of accused ISIS members echoes the policies that drove their citizens to seek a utopian Islamic State in the first place. Not only are the policies that pushed people to start joining the group in 2013 continuing, but in many cases they have increased in both scale and scope. While the current repatriation and prosecution policies are arguably counterproductive, they may also be fueling future terrorist activity and support for radical anti-government groups. To reduce the chances of such negative consequences, foreign governments must switch gears and adopt an entirely different approach before it is too late.
Jannah or Jahannam: Options for Dealing with ISIS Detainees
Thousands of former ISIS fighters and tens of thousands of civilians indoctrinated in the group’s extremist ideology currently sit in prisons and refugee camps across Iraq and Syria. Leaving the detainees there is dangerous, but transitioning them will require some type of accountability for the crimes committed. This paper explores options for international action to deal with the detention of ISIS members from Iraq and Syria and the foreign terrorist fighters who joined the group from around the globe.
This paper examines the prospects of jihadist expansion in the region and its implications for security actors and civilian populations alike. More specifically, the report investigates the role of propaganda and public discourse narratives in bolstering jihadist group legitimacy and advancing attempts by groups seeking to generate local embeddedness and mass support. In doing so, the article offers a nuanced perspective of inter-jihadist contestation, one that goes beyond mere focusing on security operations and clashes and delves more deeply into group framing and identity.