Jihad and the West - Black Flag over Babylon Chapter Eight Podcast Nine

Welcome to an excerpt from Jihad and the West, Black Flag over Babylon by Mark Silinsky, with a foreword by Sebastian Gorka. It was published by Indiana University Press in Bloomington and Indianapolis. This reading is presented by Kensington Security Consulting, which brings education to national security. This excerpt comes from chapter eight and explores the mental health of Western Islamists.   The Caliphate               Before 2016, some of the Caliphate’s recruiting was loud, open, and unmasked. There was unfettered street proselytizing, and when young men traveled in packs, they were sometimes emboldened. For example, a group of seven men sang a war chant favored by the Islamic State and tried to recruit fellow passengers while riding on the Berlin U-Bahn railway. They were singing one of the Jihad nashids, mentioned earlier. Some of this was caught on video and posted on social media. This further tarnishes the image of the migrants, but it draws some troubled young German men to the ranks of Islamists, where they find camaraderie. According to the German military security service, twenty-nine former German soldiers have traveled to Syria and Iraq, and twenty-two soldiers were classified as Islamists, as of spring 2016.               In 2015 and 2016, German police arrested many suspects for terrorist-related activities. They expect more. Some security officials speculate that the Caliphate will plan a sustained attack using the Mumbai model. This was a sophisticated three-day attack, in Mumbai, India, in which simultaneous sites were struck, including a railway station, a Jewish institution, two hotels, and a restaurant. It garnered world media attention, and the Indian military and paramilitary forces appeared unprepared and incompetent. Some killers acted independently; others were more coordinated. German security is also concerned about Istanbul-style attacks, and so is the German public. One survey found that almost two-thirds of Germans expect an attack like those in Istanbul or Brussels to happen at a German airport.   Returning in Singles and Doubles               The Caliphate ordered its support base to kill at will and with fury. Its tactics of choice were shooting, stabbing or gutting with a knife, running over, hurling victims from a building, choking, or poisoning Western symbols of authority. Their followers responded with random, unexpected, and lethal attacks. This has caused great social anxiety, particularly for police officers who want to patrol the street but often cannot do so for fear of their safety.               German police units are facing something unprecedented. There are stabbing sprees of random pedestrians, similar to those committed by Palestinians in Israel. For example, in Hanover, a fifteen-year-old girl with a German passport and Moroccan ancestors, as well as suspected ties to the Caliphate, stabbed a police officer in the neck. The stab came as a bolt from the blue.               The Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack on board a train in Germany in mid-July 2016 that left three people seriously injured, according to the terrorist group’s news agency. The announcement came hours after an axe-wielding teenage Afghan refugee attacked passengers on a train. He was shot and killed by police. During an investigation, officials said they found a hand-painted flag of the Islamic State group in the attacker’s room. During the attack, he yelled “Allahu Akbar.”               German courts are ramping up to handle cases of residents and nationals returned from Middle East fighting. Germans are trickling home in singles and in pairs, hoping to reintegrate into the society they left. The Federal Criminal Police Office estimates that 820 people with German passports have left Europe to fight in Syria and Iraq with the Islamic State, and by January 2016, an estimated 250 fighters had returned. According to a former Jihadi who served the Caliphate, those who return are “treated like heroes” in the Muslim areas of Germany.               When German fighters return, they sometimes face the justice system. Referred to in the German press as “Jihadi tourists,” they chose to return to Germany because they were “disappointed” with the Islamic State. In 2014, a court sentenced a twenty-year-old man who had traveled to Syria to fight alongside a group associated with the Islamic State to three years and nine months in juvenile detention, marking the country’s first conviction of a returned Jihadist. Another Caliphate fighter who returned to Germany was sentenced to four and one-half years in prison for belonging to a terrorist organization. The twenty-five-year-old German national traveled to Syria in October 2013 and later swore allegiance to the Caliphate. He participated in interrogations and served as a prison guard. He may have killed people, and German authorities are determined to find out. He is Harry S., profiled below.   Profile Thirty-One: Harry S.—When They Return               The case of Harry S. illustrates the challenge Western societies face when Western Caliphate fighters return home. Harry S. was put on trial in Germany for belonging to a terrorist organization. Baptized as a Catholic, he grew up in a poor part of Bremen. His parents emigrated from Ghana to Germany and then London to build a better life. Harry S. certainly had above-average intelligence and studied engineering at university for a while. Something happened to him emotionally, he converted to Islam, and his religious Christian mother threw him out of her house. But London’s mosques welcomed him, and so, too, did minor criminal syndicates. Serving as a lookout for a robbery, he was arrested and imprisoned, where he was radicalized. Upon release, he returned to Bremen, married, and resolved to travel to Syria to fight the Jihad, which he did.               Harry reported that he underwent several arduous phases of commando training. There were 10 training levels. “Hardly anyone reaches the last; most die before that.” However, he wanted to leave because of the suffering he witnessed and the lack of compassion. “Humanity—that is of interest to nobody.” In Palmyra, his nerves were shattered, and his conscience jolted as he watched blindfolded prisoners standing in rows, riddled with bullets. A few weeks later, he fled to Turkey and then to Germany, where he was arrested at Bremen Airport.               German prosecutors are not convinced that Harry’s stories are truthful. His account of events has changed, and his sudden pangs of morality are dubious. Did he voluntarily leave the commando school, or did he wash out? In Palmyra, did he merely witness the killings, or did he take part? Is there evidence to support his claims? Certainly, other Westerners who return home will face similar questioning. Harry could face up to ten years in prison for belonging to a terrorist organization. Regarding the foreign fighters remaining with the Caliphate, Harry has greater respect for the French than for the Germans. The French rushed the enemy and blasted their weapons into their battle lines. The French had élan. The Germans were more reluctant. In Harry’s words, when it came to fighting, “the Germans always got cold feet.”