Mosque Networks Facilitating the Movement of Foreign Fighters Between the Balkans and Syria

Mosque Networks Facilitating the Movement of Foreign Fighters Between the Balkans and Syria

I will not be taking the second half of the course.

Background

Wahhabi ideology has taken root in the Sandzak region, which straddles the border between Serbia and Montenegro; in the official Islamic Communities (Islamska Zajednica, IZ) of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia;[1] and in other Muslim-majority enclaves in Macedonia, Kosovo, and Albania. This trend first began in the late-1990s in the later years of the wars in Yugoslavia. Wahhabis arrived in Sandzak from Bosnia, where Mujahedin and al-Qaeda have historically had a presence.[2] They were supported by the radical, mujahedin-connected Active Islamic Youth, a small Bosnian-based youth group active post-war. They also received resources through funding channels, such as Islamic charities in Vienna and diaspora channels in Sweden, Austria, and the United Kingdom, established during the wars for funding and for fighter recruitment.[3] Though the Islamic Communities in each sub-region have attempted to act as moderating counters to fundamentalists and Wahhabi ideology, this has not consistently been feasible, practical, or favorable.[4] Additionally, in regions such as the Sandzak, the general population identifies more closely with religion than ethnicity, allowing religious fundamentalists to more easily exploit this identity.[5]

Recent research on flows of foreign fighters from Europe to Syria reveals that a significant number of foreign fighters from the Balkans have traveled to Syria to fight with ISIS.[6] This trend began in 2012 when many foreign fighters from the region were moving to Syria to fight with Jabhat al-Nusra. However, since late 2013 and early 2014, foreign fighters have increasingly been joining and fighting with ISIS.[7]

Research Questions

1. Which mosques, community centers, and/or religious schools in Sandzak, in the official Islamic Communities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia, and in Muslim-majority enclaves in Macedonia, Kosovo, and Albania have the strongest network influence on radicalization and the resulting export of foreign fighters to Syria?

2. Do returned foreign fighters reintegrate into the same mosque, community center, and/or religious school networks that facilitated their radicalization and resulting movement to Syria? In other words, do their connections to the networks that enabled their radicalization endure upon return?

Answering these questions and collecting this data would be useful to Balkan-based law enforcement officials in addressing security concerns. It would also be useful to the international community in establishing targeted partnerships with Balkan-based law enforcement bodies to build capacity and provide security assistance when/where necessary.

Hypothesis

1. The following mosques will likely appear as influencers/facilitators of foreign fighters:

- King Fahd Mosque and Cultural Center in Sarajevo;[8]

- White Mosque in Sarajevo;[9]

- Makowitz Mosque on the outskirts of Pristina;[10]

- Mazhiq Mosque in Mitrovica;[11]

- Yahya Pasha, Sultan Murat, Hudaverdi, and Kjosekadi mosques in Skopje;[12]

- Xhamia e Re Mosque in Durres, Albania;[13]

- Arab Mosque-Arab Dzamija in Novi Pazar;[14]

- Mosques in the Bosnian towns of Teshanj and Zavidovic and small Bosnian villages such as Lijeshnici, Novi Sheher, and Kopoce have historically been prime terrorist recruitment centers for al-Qaeda and could emerge as major recruitment centers for ISIS;[15]

- Mosques, community centers, and religious schools on the Montenegrin side of the Sandzak region, especially in Bijelo Polje and Rozaje. The official Islamic Community here has less influence and therefore uneducated youth are more susceptible to fundamentalist teachings.[16]

2. There will be a divided trend amongst returned foreign fighters. Some will reintegrate into their community networks, as this is the only place they will be accepted, and given support to find housing, jobs, etc. Others will not return to their communities and reintegrate into their networks due to fear of being more easily found, arrested, and prosecuted for their involvement with ISIS in Syria, or other terrorism-related offenses.

Data Collection

To collect my data, I am using a methodology established by Timothy Holman, a researcher and PhD candidate at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. He published an article in June 2014 entitled, “Foreign Fighters from the Western Balkans in Syria” in which he analyzed open-source data on 159 foreign fighters who traveled from the Balkans to Syria.[17] He confined his research to 2012 to 2014 and utilized regional and international press reports (identified through BBC Monitor), Facebook, and online court records to compile the dataset.[18] I would use this methodology to update this dataset to represent trends from July 2014 to the present (October 2017).

This methodology will yield significant data on individuals leaving the Balkans, but less information on individuals returning. Therefore, I will have to partner with organizations and independent researchers tracking foreign fighter movements, as well as international or Balkan-based private investigation firms, who have access to tools to determine the location of individuals. I would need to obtain a research grant to fund this part of the project.

I will collect the following data from the sources indicated above: name, date of birth, age, sex, cities/towns of origination, province, country, marital status, spouse name, prior links to terrorism, affiliation network (i.e. a mosque, community center, religious school) prior to departure and upon returning, status (i.e. arrested, dead, in Syria, returned), date killed (if applicable), date of exit from Balkans, date of exit from Syria, and if traveled with family.

SNA Methodology

I would create a two-mode network with the names of the foreign fighters identified and the mosques, community centers, or religious schools they are affiliated with before going to Syria. I would create a two-mode network in the same format with data about affiliations upon returning from Syria. To comparatively analyze the two, I could overlay the two matrices, and look at them separately as well. The data collected, as mentioned above, will overlay both network matrices as attribute data to provide nuance and detail in analyzing these individuals.

Clique and other sub-group analysis, such as factions and ego networks, will be central to beginning to look at the data and honing-in on significant clusters around certain mosques, community centers, or religious schools. Utilizing betweenness measures will help identify if there are any connections between the individuals and mosques identified (i.e. if one individual was connected to one or more mosque). Degree measures will help to indicate which mosques are affiliated with the largest number of individuals. Using the E-I index to measure homophily would be useful when looking for information such as whether individuals in a defined geographical area are more likely become foreign fighters. However, to determine this E-I index measure, the attribute data would likely have to be manipulated into two-mode network data.

Realistic Limitations

The most significant limitation on this project will be the ability to find complete data on all the foreign fighters identified. Therefore, only a subset of the data, where complete information could be collected, may be realistically used in conducting this social network analysis.

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[1] Christopher Deliso, The Coming Balkan Caliphate (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007), 153-155.

[2] Ibid, 161.

[3] Ibid, 157.

[4] Ibid, 156.

[5] Ibid, 155.

[6] Francesca Astorri, “Analysis: European fears of the ISIS black flag crossing from the Balkans,” Al Arabiya English, April 8, 2017, URL: http://english.alarabiya.net/en/features/2017/04/08/ANALYSIS-European-fears-of-the-ISIS-black-flag-crossing-from-the-Balkans-.html; BIRN Team, “ISIS Threatens Terror Campaign in the Balkans,” Balkan Insight, June 8, 2017, URL: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/isis-wows-to-wreak-vengeance-on-balkans-in-new-threat-06-08-2017; Walter Mayr, “Bosnia’s Islamic State Problem,” Der Spiegel Online, April 5, 2016, URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/islamic-state-presence-in-bosnia-cause-for-concern-a-1085326.html.   

[7] Timothy Holman, “Foreign Fighters from the Western Balkans in Syria,” CTC Sentinel Vol. 7, Issue 6 (June 2014), URL: https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/foreign-fighters-from-the-western-balkans-in-syria.

[8] Gordon Bardos, “Jihad in the Balkans: The Next Generation,” World Affairs Journal September/October 2014, URL: http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/jihad-balkans-next-generation.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Holman, “Foreign Fighters from the Western Balkans in Syria.”

[14] Deliso, The Coming Balkan Caliphate, 153.

[15] Ibid, 161.

[16] Ibid, 155.

[17] Holman, “Foreign Fighters from the Western Balkans in Syria.”

[18] Ibid.