During the years of the Islamic State (IS) group’s self-declared caliphate over swathes of land in Iraq and Syria, beginning in 2014, it was relatively easy for jihadists to reach the outside world. That is, as long as they had what their hierarchy would consider to be a valid reason, and essentially this would be for the purpose of either committing a terrorist attack or to seek medical attention, such as undergoing surgery, in Turkey.
An emir would stamp a travel pass and the jihadist would make their way to the IS border where an iron door between lines of barbed wire would open. The Turkish border guards would look the other way and the jihadist was on his way. Once in Turkey, some IS bigwigs and terrorist agents were even taken charge by the organisation’s ‘Emigration and logistics committee’, a structure existing in Turkey but also in Jordan and Lebanon. This clandestine travel agency, of which Samir Youssef Zekraoui, a veteran Algerian jihadist, was part of, looked after the logistics (such as funding, transportation, travel documents and accommodation) and also the security of those travelling. It was through this infrastructure that the IS terrorists who took part in the November 13th 2015 attacks in and around Paris reached the gates of Europe.
But that was before, and now, except for a few enclaves, IS has lost most of the territory it controlled, which at its most spanned 60,000 square kilometres – the largest area ever ruled over by a terrorist organisation. Its last refuges in the valley of the Euphrates river have fallen and its fighters have gone into hiding, and the desert. Along with the rest, also gone is the organisation’s notorious prison on the banks of the Euphrates nicknamed ‘Guantanamo’, after the US military prison in Cuba, where those who tried to secretly escape the caliphate were detained and often executed. Now, IS can no longer control its members as before, nor prevent their defection.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
With the military collapse of IS, French and other European intelligence services expected – as outlined in various reports drawn up in 2016 and 2017 – considerable numbers of jihadists from the continent to return, despite the threat against them of subsequent prosecution. But in reality, the predicted wave of revenants never appeared, and concerning France there has even been a trend of fewer and fewer numbers of returnees over the past two years.
According to French police and judicial sources, a total of 33 male and female jihadists returned to France in 2016, dropping to a total of 24 in 2017, while so far this year the figure amounts to just seven. Over that two-and-a-half-year period, a total of 45 accompanied minors have returned. Which amounts to few when compared to the estimated number of around 700 adults and 500 minors who are believed to have made up the French contingent of IS in Syria and Iraq.
The number is also surprising given the many phone conversations tapped by French security services in which widows of jihadists, calling home from the Middle East while facing ever more precarious living conditions, spoke of their desire to return to France. A number of families attempted to flee overrun IS territory at the end of 2017 but were detained by anti-IS armed groups in the region. According to information gathered by Mediapart, about 60 French jihadists are currently detained in Syria and Iraq.
The jihadists seeking to return to France or another home country first face the challenge of escaping the net around them. As IS lost territory in Syria, its fighters and accompanying families were pushed east to the Euphrates river valley and the Iraqi border. Lebanon and Jordan, to the west, were now too far away to reach. Meanwhile, the Iraqi authorities have demonstrated their willingness to try, and in some cases subsequently execute, jihadists foreign to the region.
In this situation, Turkey is the only possible exit route for fleeing jihadists, but to reach it they must cross back into Syrian territory now in the hands of armed factions hostile to IS, and the ‘Emigration and logistics committee’ has, according to Israeli intelligence, virtually stopped functioning over recent months.
In order to escape the patrols of the regular Syrian army of Bachar al-Assad, and those of the Shiite militias, Kurdish forces and anti-al-Assad regime rebels, the fleeing IS combatants have turned to various groups of people smugglers. Several of them are needed, for example those with knowledge of navigating Kurd-controlled territory, and others for crossing the border zone with Turkey, all of which comes at a price.
Based on the accounts given by several returning French jihadists in 2017 during subsequent questioning by the police and judicial authorities, Mediapart has established a broad outline of the cost incurred in reaching Turkey. The sums cited here are non-exhaustive and an estimate only. For a couple and their children, the average is more than 10,000 euros.
The rates vary between 1,000 euros and 4,000 euros per person. A woman or a child pay less than a man who, as a potential IS combatant, would be wanted by the authorities of the zones they cross. Thus, one woman and her five children might be charged a total of 4,000 euros, while 10,000 euros can be demanded of a couple and their three children because of the presence of a man. The cost also varies according to the distance separating the area still controlled by IS and the Turkish border, and also the number of war zones that the journey will cross.
There are also extras, such as funds to bribe Turkish border guards, which the accounts of returning French jihadists estimated at 400 euros. False Syrian identity papers needed to get through road blocks and the like are estimated to cost 1,000 euros, while false Turkish ID cards can reach an asking price of 1,400 euros.
Altogether, the travel costs represent a significant amount. One jihadist revenant recounted how he had stolen a car in Syria which he then sold to the people smuggler who was to lead him out of the country. But most of them ask for help from their family or entourage in France, many of whom have seen their finances depleted by helping out as of the beginning of the rout of IS when jihadists began struggling to survive. But most among the known cases agreed to send funds in the hope of being reunited with those who are often their offspring, although some refuse either for fear of eventual prosecution or because they oppose jihadist ideology. Those who do provide assistance can encounter difficulties in finding the logistical means for sending the funds.
It is all a far cry from the triumphant days of IS. Back then, in the Syrian city of Raqqa, then the group’s bastion, and close to the residential district of Thakanah where numerous French jihadists lived, was a boutique run by a Turk who regularly made return trips to his country to pick up and deliver funds wired by families from France. According to the French finance ministry’s anti-money laundering agency Tracfin, such transfers accounted for much of an estimated total of 650,000 dollars that it found has been sent from France to jihadists by their families or entourage.
Meanwhile, two members of an IS external operations unit, which planned terrorist attacks in Europe, coordinated a fund-raising network which stretched from Lebanon to the Paris suburbs. That network was abruptly halted in December 2016 when an anti-IS coalition drone destroyed a vehicle carrying the two to Raqqa. After the finance-collection operations were dismantled one by one, the families sending funds to help jihadists escape to Turkey were left with little option other than to transfer sums, using pseudonyms, directly to the people smugglers – a risky practice given that some of these took the money and ran.
According to one account, a people smuggler paid to take a group of French jihadists out of Syria disappeared after pretending to momentarily leave them to buy food and drinks for the journey. Often placed in convoys, hidden inside commercial trucks, the jihadists run the risk of being of double-crossed and betrayed by smugglers.
Importantly, the situation of French jihadists in Syria can represent a future internal security problem in France over the medium term. Many, faced with the high costs and unreliability of people smugglers, are left to find a passage out of the zone by their own means. While this has so far proved of little success, those who attempt to travel outside of any structure render themselves invisible, and the French intelligence services have been unable to localise a large number of French jihadists who were in the IS ranks. They are out there somewhere, but just where is unknown.
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- The French version of this report can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse