New report paints the clearest picture yet of Westerners who fight for terrorist groups

New video surfaced online this week from an al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group called the Turkistan Islamic Party or TIP. It features a man, who says he is from Canada, as a member of group. He introduces himself as Abu Mansour al Muhajir  

He is one of several men in the video who claim they've traveled to Syria from France, Morocco and Mauritius to join the group. In Canada, there's a growing debate around how to deal with people who went overseas to fight and have since returned.

Amarnath Amarasingam, a senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, spotted the TIP video when it was posted on the group's Telegram channel. Amarasingam, who also co-directs a study of Western foreign fighters at the University of Waterloo, published a report this week that provides a clearer picture of the lives of Western foreign fighters.

Amarasingam told Day 6 host Brent Bambury about his report, and why some foreign fighters are ditiching ISIS for "old-school" jihadist groups.

What Is the Turkistan Islamic Party?

It's a kind of militant jihadist group, mostly Uygur, that grew out of China and now has spread into other parts of the world like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Central Asia and most recently in Syria. This movement began, the Chinese government says, in the late 1990s but I think early evidence shows [it started] maybe [in] early 2000s.

What do you know about this man who says he's from Canada in the video?

Not much, actually. I was kind of surprised to see him because we've been tracking Canadian fighters since 2013.

We know about 100 who have left to join al-Qaeda-linked groups or joined ISIS. And so we know them either by their real name or by the jihadist name that they chose while they're active. But I have never seen this nickname before ... and I've never heard his accent before. It was a bit confusing for me to see this guy who was involved in a fairly obscure, or somewhat obscure, organization in Syria because we're often accustomed to seeing people join ISIS and so on. 

Is this the first time that a Canadian has been associated with TIP?

It's the first time that they've publicly acknowledged there is a Canadian in their midst. But they have been known, particularly the Syrian branch, for inviting foreign fighters and accepting some foreign fighters as well.

In this particular video where this Canadian shows up, French fighters were also interviewed and they speak in French while he speaks in English. So it's not unheard of that there are foreign fighters in the organization, but it's the first time that I've ever seen a Canadian mentioned publicly.

What would be the appeal of a group like the Turkistan Islamic Party? Why do you think it's attractive for foreign fighters?

I think what we're seeing now, or at least fairly recently, is that a lot of people who wanted to go fight in Syria against the Assad regime are growing quite disillusioned with the Islamic State. They didn't like the fact that these guys were killing other Muslims, that they were killing other jihadists or fighting other jihadist organizations.

So some foreign fighters wanted to be a part of ... I guess, what you can call a kind of classical organization, or a more puritan jihadist group — a more old-school jihadist group. And so they migrated to al-Qaeda-linked ones, which they saw as kind of more legitimate organizations engaged in legitimate jihad, as opposed to ISIS. 

You published a report this week containing stories about these fighters from their families and friends. What surprised you about what their families and friends told you?

What's surprising of course is that they noticed various changes over time, in terms of what they thought, what they believed and how they dressed. But they didn't see it as problematic in the beginning because if you're a Muslim young man and you're in school and you're partying and drinking and smoking, the parents are going to see a kind of shift to piety or a shift to more a religious life as a good thing. 

But I think that eventually led to a trajectory where they either met a certain person — a charismatic leader of sorts, a recruiter —  or met another group of friends who were also thinking along these lines [and they] became politicized for a variety of reasons. 

I've noticed of course that the close friends of these fighters know a lot more about what happened in the later stages, right before they left Canada or right before they left the Western country, than their parents do because — surprise, surprise — people lie to their parents.

You mentioned [in the report] the fighters that are coming from Quebec. Is that a disproportionate number when you look at the total?

The vast majority of Canadians have left from Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. Quebec does have a slightly higher number compared to the rest of the country. It's tough to say why that's the case.

I think they all leave for very different reasons. Why a Somali refugee would leave from Edmonton is very different than why a white convert from Toronto would leave or why an Algerian young man from Montreal would leave. These local factors are quite important, and their life histories and their backgrounds are quite important.

But I do think there is something to be said in terms of the broader conversation that Quebec is having with religious identity, with secularism, with inclusion, with immigration that these youth often cite as one of the reasons they felt like they didn't belong or couldn't belong. [They say] they were kind of scapegoated for the sake of whatever political debates were being had at the time whether it's the niqab or the charter values. 

Let's talk about that because you reference a female medical student from Quebec who left. What did she say about the charter and the debate around the charter?

She basically said that it made her feel like she would never belong in Quebec and that she could never really get ahead in Quebec. Although she wanted to be a doctor and contribute to society, [she felt] that she eventually would come to a position where that couldn't happen or that Canadians would not allow that to happen. And that I think is a shame. We should take [it] seriously because I think a lot Muslim youth in Quebec do feel like they're kind of on the outside of what it means to be a Quebecer.

You've said groups like the Turkistan Islamic Party might be more attractive to fighters, more so than ISIS, because they're seen as performing classical jihad. How concerned are you that they will continue to grow in popularity?

I wouldn't say they're more popular than ISIS. ISIS has recruited quite a bit more foreign fighters than groups like this. But I do think with ISIS losing ground ... it is very likely that a lot of these other organizations like Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham and the Turkistan Islamic Party will carry on the fight against the Assad regime in whatever pockets of land that they control in Syria.

And they will start to be seen as the ones that are actually winning and keeping up the fight. So there is a danger on that front. But I do think the attempt to leave today is very difficult. A lot of these guys that we know left in 2012, 2013, right up until about 2015. But there hasn't been a whole lot who left or who managed to leave in 2016 or 2017. Everyone who tried was arrested and sent home. They were either arrested in Turkey and sent home, or stopped at the airport here.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. To hear the full interview with Amarnath Amarasingam, download our podcast or click the 'Listen' button at the top of this page.