Leaving Islamic State harder than joining
BY LORI HINNANT AND PAUL SCHEMM, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
In Tunis, Ghaith stands furtively on a street corner, his face masked by a hoodie, his tense eyes scanning the crowd for any hint of Islamic State militants.
He chain-smokes as he describes the indiscriminate killing, the abuse of female recruits, the discomfort of a life where meals were little more than bread and cheese or oil. He recounts the knife held to his throat by fellow fighters who demanded he recite a particular verse from the Qur’an on Islamic warfare to prove himself.
“It was totally different from what they said jihad would be like,” said Ghaith, who asked to be identified by his first name only for fear of being killed. Ghaith eventually surrendered to Syrian soldiers.
While foreigners from across the world have joined the Islamic State militant group, some find day-to-day life in Iraq or Syria much more austere and violent than they had expected. These disillusioned new recruits also soon discover that it is a lot harder to leave than to join. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says Islamic State has killed 120 of its own members in the past six months, most of them foreign fighters hoping to return home.
Even if they manage to get out, former fighters are considered terrorists and security risks in their own countries. Thousands are under surveillance or in jail in North Africa and Europe, where former militants massacred 17 people last month in terror attacks in Paris.
“Not everyone who returns is a budding criminal. Not everyone is going to kill – far from it,” said France’s top anti-terror judge, Marc Trevidic. “But it’s probable that there is a small fringe that is capable of just about anything.”
The number of French returnees has recently increased, their enthusiasm dented by the reality of militant life and by the allied bombing campaign, according to a top French security official who spoke anonymously because the issue is sensitive. Some foreign recruits have written home to say they are being held against their will, the official said.
The Associated Press talked to more than a dozen former fighters, their families and lawyers about life in and escape from Islamic State, many of whom spoke only on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
Youssef Akkari used to spend hours in his room in Tunisia listening to religious chants and reading, according to his brother, Mehdi Akkari. One day the family received a message that he was going to Syria. But he lost his glasses and couldn’t fight, his brother said, so he was put in charge of preaching jihad to new recruits instead.
After seven months he began to plot his escape, along with two brothers.
The brothers were discovered and killed. Youssef turned himself in to Kurdish fighters and made his way back to Tunisia, where he felt trapped between police harassment and his terror of the vengeful militants. He returned to Syria and died in an airstrike in October.
Islamic State works to prevent recruits from leaving from the time they join.
The first step is removing their passports and identity documents. Hamad Abdul-Rahman, an 18-year-old Saudi, said he was met at the Syrian border last summer by militants who escorted him to a training camp in Tabaqa, Syria.
“They took all my documents and asked me if I wanted to be a fighter or a suicide bomber,” Abdul-Rahman said from prison in Baghdad, where he was shackled, handcuffed and hooded.
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