Between May 2021 and January 2022, the Iraqi government repatriated nearly five hundred Iraqi families from al-Hol camp in northeast Syria via the Jeddah 1 rehabilitation centre in Iraq. Some 86% of these returnees were under the age of 18. Thus began the admirable government-led efforts to start returning home some of the approximately thirty thousand Iraqis who comprise roughly half the residents of al-Hol camp – the camp infamous for housing many of the local and international Islamic State (IS)-affiliated families and supporters who were detained by the SDF and held after the territorial defeat of the group in 2019.
For Iraqis, the task ahead is complex for several reasons. First, this group of Iraqis largely comprises women and children, meaning age and gender must be taken into account at every step of the return process, longer-term rehabilitation and reintegration. For the purposes of this piece, I will focus on the needs of children, though those of the women detained deserve greater attention as well. Second, the communities these Iraqis are returning to were heavily impacted by IS governance and violence. Consequently, the Iraqi government must balance local needs and grievances with reintegration imperatives. Third, as IS focused on establishing a governance project, children became involved and impacted in various ways. For many years, the children under IS rule lived at the centre of a major international conflict – from 2014, local forces on the ground were supported by the US-led coalition, eventually defeating IS in early 2017 in Iraq, and next door in Baghouz, Syria in 2019. Those whose families were affiliated with IS risk being viewed as collectively guilty for the sins of their fathers, especially in the case of male children. Others who were born in IS territory and issued IS documentation such as birth certificates are currently prevented from attending schools in Iraq due to a ‘lack of documentation’, as IS documents are not recognised by the Iraqi government. As such, depending on their age and experiences under the caliphate, these children present a diverse and complex range of needs and profiles.
This article will briefly discuss the experience of Iraqi children who lived under IS. It will then consider their additional experiences in al-Hol camp and highlight several considerations that will be important for their successful return and integration eight years after IS first took control of an area the size of Britain across Iraq and Syria.
Children and life under IS
During the years IS controlled territory throughout Iraq and Syria, children were impacted in diverse ways. It is claimed that tens of thousands attended IS-led schools (if they were even able to attend school), where instead of normal subjects, they were exposed to an IS curriculum and indoctrination. In many cases, as the conflict progressed, many children simply could not receive any education at all and today face significant gaps in educational attainment, literacy and, in the case of older youth, vocational skills. In some cases, military training or becoming child soldiers was the route for young boys, causing significant psychosocial impacts and implications. In the case of young girls, many became child brides and married IS fighters or supporters. Others were imbued with the gendered ideology of the group and faced uniquely gendered experiences.
Children were exposed to IS violence and life in a conflict zone more broadly, as regional forces supported by an international coalition pushed back IS. For the thousands of children born between 2014 in this period, many may have not yet experienced ‘normal’ life and face additional challenges related to personal documentation (for example, birth certificates, as noted above), which further impact their prospects and access to government support and successful reintegration.
Children in al-Hol camp
While some aspects of life improved for children when many of these families were moved to al-Hol camp in 2019 after the defeat of IS in Baghouz, the general instability and violence present in the camp produced new challenges and added to existing ones. Furthermore, children have lacked the long-term support required to deal with the concerns raised from their time under IS, including psychosocial, educational and other types of support.
In al-Hol camp, children have continued to be exposed to violence, including murders and assaults. Almost 500 children died in the camp in 2019 alone; in 2021, two children every week on average were dying. Al-Hol camp also lacks sufficient tailored, child-focused services and long-term plans to support their growth and development. At least 850 boys are also being held in detention settings, impacted by events such as the attack in al-Hasakah prison that saw several boys killed and others taken hostage.
Considerations upon return to Iraq
Clearly, it is imperative for the governments and other actors legally responsible for these children to assess and address the situations they face. The Iraqi government has already taken the first steps by starting to return these persons through the Jeddah 1 rehabilitation centre, at which children can access some services, such as mental health and psychosocial support in the centre. By focusing on the risks, stigmas, and resilience factors related to children of IS-affiliated families, researchers can better identify what may negatively impact these children’s normal lives and development. Such an identification allows for the better targeting of efforts that can reduce the challenges faced by these children on the complex paths ahead.
Beyond the experience of life under IS and the continued concerns around conditions in al-Hol camp, many of these children now face complex psychosocial problems, educational limitations and societal stigmas. Research in other fields that has focused on child soldiers, refugee children, children exposed to war, and children in gangs or cults, among others, can help to inform this work and support rehabilitation and reintegration programming. This could include, for example, specific training and support for those, such as health care workers and educators, caring for and working with these children, or helping children to build social bonds and self confidence through art therapy or sports programmes. As highlighted by the EU-funded PREPARE project, and recent work by ICCT which I am involved in, it is important to identify and reduce the risks and stigmas children may face when their families are affiliated with terrorist networks, and to also build their resilience factors. Appropriately supported as they grow up, they will be better able to rehabilitate (as necessary) and reintegrate successfully and may be less likely to develop grievances or other challenges associated with these aspects of their life. Some of the potential inter-related implications, whether anti-social behaviour, trauma-related impacts and implications, or increased susceptibility to violent extremist narratives and recruitment, can also be more directly addressed. In turn, this can help to prevent or reduce tensions, and contribute to societal cohesion in communities receiving these families. This could prove to be one of the most fundamental aspects of recovery from conflict in the region. Supporting the rehabilitation and reintegration of children affiliated with IS must be the focus not only of governmental actors but also the research community, which can support this work.
More than thirty years after some scholars wondered if the end of the Cold War might herald the end of war as we know it, humanity is fighting at least 27 armed conflicts, more than at any time since the Second World War.
Two billion people, one out of every four humans on Earth, live in a conflict zone. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 drove the number of people displaced by fighting to over 100 million: the most since the United Nations began keeping records.
With violence worldwide worsening for a decade, the UK aid-funded Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) research programme has gathered a team of King’s College London (KCL) researchers from a diverse array of disciplines not often associated with war studies. The idea is to employ new tools, techniques and perspectives to answer some of the most complex questions surrounding the roots of human conflict, including: Why does one person turn to violence in response to a traumatic event and another to peace?
The study of armed conflict is as old as war itself, but the team at KCL are hoping to bring a new point of view to the field. While much of the scholarship has tended to view problems from a single perspective – with an economist investigating the financial interests of two warring nations, for example, or a political scientist exploring how cultural divisions and disenfranchisement lead to violence – the KCL team includes experts in such varied fields as epigenetics (the study of how behaviour and environment influence genetic expression), gender, memory, neuroscience, and trauma.
Researchers are employing techniques ranging from brain scans to storytelling to try and tell a fuller story of the causes of violent and peaceful behaviour, and perhaps even to begin triangulating a person’s life experience and very biology with their beliefs and actions.
What Brain Science Teaches Us About Radicalisation
Neuroscientist Nafees Hamid wanted to know how, precisely, did the chatty young man in skinny jeans and trainers come to be so taken with violent extremism? And just as importantly, might it be possible to change his mind?
Hamid rolled the 20-year-old into an MRI machine in Barcelona recently, as part of the first study to use brain scans in attempting to answer such questions. The good-natured would-be jihadist, who spoke repeatedly of his desire to travel to Syria and die for his cause, answered questions and played a video game as Hamid and his colleagues studied his brain activity. Searching for the neurobiological underpinnings of his radicalisation, the researchers were focused especially on regions of the brain that perform cost-benefit analyses and process social pressures.
Hamid and his colleagues have now examined the brains of over 70 men living in Spain, all “devoted actors”, in the parlance of some social scientists, due to the strength of their convictions, in this case to Islamic fundamentalist ideologies. He is interested in the development of so-called “sacred values,” convictions so cherished people are willing to fight and die for them, and whether those values might be altered again, rendered “non-sacred”.
Results from the first two studies indicate that the distress of being excluded from a social group, long known amongst sociologists and criminologists as a powerful motivator, can solidify formerly “non-sacred values” into potentially more volatile “sacred” ones.
As with other groups, however, even the radicalised “devoted actors” tended to reduce their commitment to violence if they believed it left them out of step with their peers, perhaps suggesting community as a tool for moderating extreme beliefs.
How Narratives and Memories Can Drive, Resolve, and Avoid Conflict
While much of Hamid’s recent work has focused on people sympathetic to violent groups, many of his colleagues are working with victims of violence – sometimes of violence committed by those very same groups – including refugees in Syria, Iraq, and South Sudan. All places that have been at war for years.
Narrowly-focused research efforts risk overlooking what happens just beyond the parameters of a study. A project might investigate the desire for revenge amongst people wounded in conflict, for example, but neglect those whose trauma is psychological.
To try and fill some of the gaps between disciplines, therefore, XCEPT researchers are turning to the age-old tradition of storytelling, asking refugees, combatants, survivors, and prisoners to share their experiences in their own words.
In order to understand the ideological and psychological journey many terrorists take, researcher Rajan Basra has turned to an institution that’s been at the heart of countless political movements: prison.
From Marxism in Latin America during the 20th Century, to Loyalism and Republicanism in Ireland during The Troubles, to Islamic jihad in Iraq in the 2000s, ideologies of every sort have been shaped and spread by prisoners. Some then go on to plan, or carry out, insurgencies, revolutions, and terror attacks.
But if prisons have long served as centrepieces of propaganda, and recruiting stations for ideologues, they’ve also been a place where many extremists have had a change of heart. Basra is gathering stories from former inmates – people either accused or convicted of extremist and terror charges in Lebanon – to learn more about how they chose their paths. He hopes his work will offer everyone from peacekeepers to policymakers a more complete picture of how people come to choose violence or peace, as well as practical strategies for breaking cycles of violence.
Tracing Conflict’s and Peacebuilding’s Impact on People Over Time
The evolution of war over the past century, from primarily conflicts between nation states, to civil wars, insurgencies, terror attacks, and other non-state violence, is the primary reason that, even today, casualty rates are a fraction of what they were during the wars of the early 20th century. Those same developments, however, have meant that contemporary wars often involve more parties with more competing claims, and tend to last longer.
Between them, Iraq, South Sudan, and Syria are home to hundreds of thousands of combatants, and millions more people traumatised by fighting and displacement. This is why XCEPT’s KCL researchers have chosen the three countries for one of their most ambitious projects: the Impact of Trauma Survey.
The Impact of Trauma Survey is designed to examine relationships between violence, trauma, mental health, and social cohesion: a little-studied nexus that researchers hope will reveal clues about how the effects of war often lead to further violence. Researchers will employ surveys across the conflict zones, and then speak again with participants after they have received counselling and other mental health interventions. The aim of the project is to study how therapy, as well as changes on the ground — renewed fighting, for example, or an extended period of peace — can influence such things as a desire for revenge or reconciliation. The team at KCL hope to use this research as a base from which to propose psychosocial interventions which could help to reduce violence and promote peace.
New insights from a new approach
The KCL team has begun publishing its new research on the XCEPT website, and, along with the programme’s other partners, laying out its vision for an interdisciplinary future in conflict studies that includes new kinds of scholarship from a broader variety of fields.
In an effort to probe several under-explored topics in conflict research, XCEPT plans in the coming years to meld the KCL team’s work with a variety of analyses, as well as with new research that other programme partners are conducting now – topics that include the dynamics of cross-border conflicts and how they impact people living in borderlands.
If the ultimate goal of conflict studies is to end armed conflict, the past decade has made it clear once more that there is work to be done. The researchers at XCEPT and KCL are hoping new approaches might lead to a greater understanding of how people come to choose violence or peace.
The most recent work of the King’s College London team of XCEPT researchers can be found here:
Over decades of conflict and instability, the border town of Torkham, one of the main crossing points between Afghanistan and Pakistan, has found a way to endure and to profit. Even as the Taliban swept across Afghanistan in August of last year, seizing major roads and border crossings on their way to Kabul, Torkham was closed to traffic for just hours. Despite the chaos in Afghanistan, state agencies and chambers of commerce in both countries worked together to ensure that cross-border trade through this vital gateway would continue.
Conflicts in border areas are prevalent across South and Southeast Asia, and they are some of the most challenging environments to navigate, owing to both their remoteness from the centers of national political power and the clash of local, national, and regional interests. Borders are where the competing interests of neighboring states collide, but they remain highly dependent on the cooperative flow of trade and the movement of people, creating inevitable tensions.
How these tensions can descend into violent conflict, and the durability of border towns like Torkham, are the focus of, Border Towns, Markets, and Conflict, a new report from the XCEPT programme. The report examines the unique dynamics at work in six border towns within some of the most intractable conflicts in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. While these regional conflicts are notorious for their levels of violence and the suffering of the local populations, these border towns highlight the complexity of modern conflicts and the role that continuing cross-border trade can play in providing a modicum of stability.
Borders are about control and security, but also about flows and movement, creating a paradox for governance of conflict-affected regions. Over the past five years, Pakistan has sought to stabilize its border with Afghanistan through a series of overlapping security and governance initiatives. Responding to high levels of militancy and the cross-border flow of weapons and contraband, it has pursued an aggressive counterterrorism strategy while also garrisoning border gates, expanding customs and immigration facilities, and fencing almost all of the 2,600km Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
At the same time, Islamabad has strengthened its rule over its border regions, folding the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas into the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and replacing customary practices with state-run governance and judicial systems. Altogether these efforts have shown some success in improving regional governance and security, but the instability that followed the Taliban’s takeover in August has contributed to an increase in violence in the past 12 months.
These dynamics are covered in detail by Azeema Cheema, director of research and strategy at Verso Consulting in Pakistan, in the opening chapter of the new report. While writing about the changing security and trade environment at Torkham, she also highlights the uneven and often negative effects on local communities of Pakistan’s efforts to secure and formalize trade along its border.
In Pakistan and many other cases, national policies threaten local communities in volatile border areas. Expanded border infrastructure, the closing of border bazaars, and limitations on the free movement of laborers across the border damage local livelihoods, leading to clashes with the government and protests over compensation. Afghan communities that rely on cross-border mobility for job opportunities, healthcare, education, and family visits on the Pakistani side of the border have been hit particularly hard.
These effects add up to a set of enduring grievances with Islamabad, and feature in the narratives of militant groups who continue to resist the expansion of state control. The paradox, then, is that while Pakistan’s security efforts have sought to stabilize its border, in many areas they have produced the opposite outcome, and are leading in the longer term to an increased risk of instability and violence.
Similar trends are observable along the Myanmar-Thailand border in the town of Shwe Kokko, featured in the final chapter of the report, where a new commercial development consisting of a hotel and casino complex is being built in the jungle by the Karen Border Guard Force (BGF), a local militia group that is a key ally of the Myanmar army. In an area that has experienced decades of conflict, a long-running, informal pact has allowed the army to extend its control over locally contested territory while offering the BGF nearly free rein on illicit economic activity, including gambling and smuggling.
While this arrangement benefits armed elites, author Naw Betty Han highlights the marginalization and violence experienced by local populations—a situation that has deteriorated since the military takeover in February 2021 with growing allegations of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. At the same time, the BGF has been at the frontlines of the new cycle of conflict, fighting alongside the Myanmar army against prodemocracy armed groups based in the border area.
Situations like those in Torkham and Shwe Kokko, where trade, conflict, and state intervention interact, can also be found in the report’s other four chapters, which cover Makha in Yemen; Sarmada, Syria; and Maiwut and the Northern Bahr el-Ghazal region in South Sudan. Together they point to the complexity of conflict-affected border regions and the perverse effects on local populations caught in the middle.
One highlight of the report is that it champions the voices of local populations: seven of the eight authors are nationals of the countries they write about, and all six case studies involve on-the-ground research and insights. Working with local researchers is a core component of the project, and the report emphasizes the importance of this approach for building a more complete understanding of the causes and consequences of conflict. Engaging local residents, who live in and intimately understand these conflict zones, is an essential strategy for achieving equitable development in conflict-affected border areas.
This podcast and article was originally published on The Asia Foundation’s website.
Introduction
While many observers claim that Iraq’s Tishreen protest movement has been coerced into silence, I believe it maintains mobilisation momentum beyond street demonstrations. This is because the movement roots itself in storytelling; as a result, its relived memories of mass protests continue to motivate a collective consciousness.
Storytelling as a Tool
Storytelling helps to transform lived experience into meaning through the recounting of narrative via verbal and/or physical enactment and its reception by an engaged listener or audience. Therefore, storytelling is inherently a sociocultural process where people engage with the narrated story. Specific to time and place, this process also produces discourses in which people come to understand themselves. This subjectivity is central to storytelling; voice is always present. Storytellers engage in reflexive narration while provoking reflexivity in their engaged audience. Through this process, we construct our identities, find purpose and reimagine the past. Storytelling is a means to relay personal and collective experiences and collective aspirations, and to work towards them. For it to be utilitarian, instructive and a catalyst for change, storytelling must be intimately connected with and directly accessible to audiences and tap into their emotions. During protest movements, which are cauldrons of emotion at the boil, storytelling is a powerful tool to rouse solidarity and challenge the status quo.
Against the backdrop of asymmetric power relations, storytelling both generates positive relationships within communities and intensifies social cleavages, perpetuating divisive rhetoric and systemic violence. By distinguishing between destructive and constructive storytelling, we can delineate narratives that provoke and warrant acts of resistance. According to Jessica Senehi, constructive storytelling “is inclusive and fosters collaborative power and mutual recognition; creates opportunities for openness, dialogue, and insight; a means to bring issues to consciousness; and a means of resistance”. In contrast, destructive storytelling is “associated with coercive power (‘power over’ rather than ‘power with’), exclusionary practices, a lack of mutual recognition, dishonesty, and a lack of awareness. It’s a form of storytelling which sustains mistrust and denial.” Destructive storytelling arises when people break between the ideal and real in the erasure and/or whitewashing of stories. Distinguishing between destructive and constructive storytelling recognises coercive power versus shared power, dehumanization versus mutual recognition, dishonesty and unawareness versus honesty and a critical consciousness, and resistance and agency versus passivity and hopelessness. Iraq’s Tishreen movement has been a site of such dynamics, where citizens with agency use storytelling as a tool of resistance.
Tishreen: The Story
In October 2019, Iraq’s Tishreen movement (October in Arabic is ‘Tishreen’) emerged as a spring of collective consciousness. In the most expansive protests in Iraq’s recent history, Iraqis demonstrated for their rights and self-agency, which have been denied for decades. Thousands of protesters filled public squares and blocked roads in several cities. They gathered in places such as Baghdad’s Tahrir Square and Nasiriyah’s Habbouby Square where monuments tell stories of the country’s rebellious past against colonialism. Joined by academics, professional unions and guilds, the protesters shared stories of collective fury towards a corrupt, undemocratic and that institutionalises ethno-sectarian discrimination under the guise of representation. Through chants, poetry, music and art, the protesters shared their stories of alienation from a system that also alienates them from each other through sectarian policies and violence. Recognising that unfair elections recycle the same political players, they proposed demands that included the resignation of government, a redrafting of electoral law, the repeal of elitist, exclusive policies, the dissolution of parliament and early elections. Bringing together people from varied ages and socioeconomic groups, protests gave Iraqis a newfound sense of unity and solidarity. Post-secondary students provided the backbone for the movement. Women were prominently involved. The most widespread slogans in Iraq and the diaspora were نازل_آخذ_حقّي (“I’m taking back my rights”) andنريد_وطن (“We want a homeland”).
Feeling threatened, political parties and paramilitaries attempted to divide protesters by embedding armed undercover agents in protests who would kill security forces and/or protesters to incite violence. Besides live ammunition and rubber bullets, state forces fired tear gas canisters directly at protesters, killing many. Gruesome videos of dead protesters with tear gas grenades embedded in their skulls circulated on the Internet. Within months, riot police and paramilitary snipers killed over seven hundred protesters and injured over twenty-thousand, permanently handicapping dozens. Numbers have continued to rise since and, as of March 2021, some 1,035 protesters were reported killed and 26,300 injured. In the Kurdish Region of Iraq, Kurdish security forces killed at least six protesters and arrested 400 in December 2020. The government and paramilitaries weaponised enforced disappearances to weaken protesters, activists and journalists. An estimated 7,663 people have gone missing in the past three years. Besides physical violence, symbolic violence and hate speech have been common. State and non-state actors waged a psychological war involving sound-flash bombs to terrorise protesters and a social media war with character assassinations to silence them. Engaging in destructive storytelling, Iran-backed paramilitaries created Telegram channels and hashtag factories to attack activists and protesters, labelling them as “jokers” and falsely accusing them of being foreign agents. Vicious and persistent hate speech campaigns targeted Iraqi activists both online and offline, aiming to delegitimise them and the movement and to incite assassinations. Meanwhile, the government enforced Internet blackouts to silence protesters who grew more resourceful and persistent. Radios placed in public squares warned those participating in sit-ins of armed threats. Activists in the Kurdish Region unaffected by the blackout worked to fill the information gap and reported human rights violations. Despite and because of the consistent attempts to silence them, Iraqis want to be heard and seen.
The paramilitaries created a culture of fear. Coupled with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the protest movement was forced to a halt, with many observers claiming the Tishreen movement was crushed. However, the movement remains alive in the collective consciousness of Iraqis and through other forms of .
Memory & Continued Mobilisation
Realising the lengths to which the government and paramilitaries will go to promote fear and silence protesters’ narratives, activists see the power of their storytelling. As Iraqis in the country and in the diaspora continue to discuss online their memories from the protests’ early days, these stories help to maintain the movement’s momentum. Social media outlets emerging from the movement have kept the protest alive through commemorations of important dates, events and persons. In particular, fallen protesters are celebrated on the anniversaries of their murders and massacres at Nasiriyah’s Zeitoun Bridge, Baghdad’s Sinak Square and Najaf’s Sadrain Square are commemorated. With the revisiting of these stories, calls for accountability continue and several campaigns have emerged. With hashtags and slogans asking #من_قتلني؟ (“Who killed me?”), Iraqis demand transparent investigations and prosecutions of those responsible for assassinations. #End_Impunity is a hashtag that has developed into an organisation that launches targeted campaigns against corrupt officials and members of security forces responsible for violence against civilians. Online awareness campaigns challenge unjust draft laws, such as the Combatting Cybercrimes Bill, The Freedom of Assembly and Peaceful Demonstrations Bill and dangerous proposed amendments to the Personal Status Law. انقذوا_الأيزيديات_المختطفات# (“Save Kidnapped Yazidi Women”) connects the cause to the wider Tishreen movement and blames state institutions for failing to respond to Islamic State’s attempted genocide and the sexual slavery of Yazidi women. Activists recognise the direct connection between memory, storytelling and activism to keep the movement alive in public consciousness. This is notable in the explosion of the Iraq arts scene. Murals at Tahrir Square and elsewhere remind the public not only of mass political protests but also of the potential for further grassroots mobilisation and self-expression.
Conclusion
Storytelling in Iraq’s Tishreen movement reminds us that memory, both an outcome and part of storytelling, is an indirect expansion of power. It helps to reclaim identities, histories and resistance movements. Owning the narrative around the protests has maintained the Tishreen movement’s momentum through other forms of other grassroots mobilisation. State institutions and paramilitaries’ attempts to erase collective memory will fail, as resilient and determined youth now believe in the power of public pressure and taunt them with defiance: إنت منو؟ (“who are you?”).
This article was originally published on the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation’s website.
The modernization policies in Saudi Arabia supervised by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have brought about a number of transformations in the structure of state institutions and Saudi society. One of the foremost domains in which change has been visible is religion. It is common to hear that the kingdom’s political-religious system was built on an alliance between the ruling Al Saud family and Wahhabi Salafism. However, Prince Mohammed appears to be moving away from this approach, as he seeks to mobilize the youth by reducing the religious and social constraints imposed as a result of that alliance.
These transformations raise an important question about Saudi ties with Salafism, a branch of Sunni groups that defines Islam as anything the prophet Muhammad said or did and that was upheld by his first three generations of his followers, which Saudi Arabia helped to spread over recent decades. Support for Salafism was one of the instruments of soft power that the kingdom used to expand its influence in Muslim societies. One place where this happened is Yemen. In 1982, Muqbil al-Wadi’i, a Salafi scholar who had been residing in Saudi Arabia, established Dar al-Hadith in the northern governorate of Saada. This is seen as the starting point for the Salafi movement in the country. By backing Wadi’i, the Saudis sought a counterweight to the Zaydi Shia community in Saada, leading members of which supported Iran’s revolution of 1979.
Saudi Arabia benefited from the Salafi expansion in Yemen. The Salafis’ discourse portrayed Saudi Arabia as the primary protector of Islam, and Salafi teachings were largely based on the ideas of Saudi Salafi scholars such as Abdel-Aziz bin Baz, Mohammed bin al-Uthaymeen, Mohammed bin Ibrahim Al al-Sheikh, and other figures. Subsequently, the religious divide in Yemen was driven by transnational ideas, with the Saudis influencing the Salafis and Iran influencing the Zaydis, a situation that later fueled the ongoing Yemeni civil war.
Given their ideological differences with the Iran-backed Houthis, Salafi groups have become a significant force supported by the Saudi-led Arab coalition.
While Salafism appears to be reducing in importance within the Saudi state, the kingdom has reinforced its alliance with Salafis in Yemen, even expanding cooperation in some areas as conflict rages on. Given their ideological differences with the Iran-backed Houthis, Salafi groups have become a significant force supported by the Saudi-led Arab coalition. Several military brigades dominated by Salafis were able to alter the balance of power on vital military fronts. For example, the Salafi Giants Brigades, which are supported by both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, spearheaded the operations to control Yemen’s western coastal areas in 2017 and 2018. They again made major gains in the more recent battle for Shabwa.
The changing relationship between the Saudi state and Salafis in Saudi Arabia has been accompanied by transformations in the Salafi environment in Yemen. Traditionally, Yemeni Salafis are divided into three categories: Salafi-jihadis; political Salafis, who have Salafi roots but follow the path of political Islamist movements by involving themselves in politics, such as Al Rashad Union Party and the Peace and Development Party; and traditional Salafis, which encompasses most Yemeni Salafis. While the traditional Salafi schools have historically abstained from engaging in politics, prioritizing obedience to the ruler (wali al-amr), this principle was shaken by the Houthi takeover of the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, in 2014. The Salafis woke up to the fact that the Zaydi Houthis, whom they opposed, had become the dominant military force in Yemen.
This change in the political context prompted many followers of traditional Salafism to reconsider their quietist principles, as they found themselves at the center of a war effort, leading armed groups. Alongside Mohammed bin Salman’s transformations in Saudi Arabia, this reconsideration led to a new relationship between the two Salafi communities—one centered on Saudi support for Salafis who were engaged in a political conflict, not simply spreading their religious doctrine.
Saudi Arabi has three fundamental motives for strengthening its ties with Yemeni Salafi groups. First, there is deep enmity between Salafis and the Houthis, whom Saudi Arabia is also fighting. The clash between the Salafis and Houthis is not only one over doctrine, but also has a military dimension. In 2014, the Houthis took over the Saada-based Dammaj Center, the first Salafi school in Yemen, and forced the Salafi community to leave the area. The sense of grievance among Salafis was revived when the Houthis expanded into other areas in which Salafis were present. When the Saudi-led coalition began its military operations in March 2015, the Salafis proved to be reliable partners in the coalition’s ground operations.
A second motive is that the Salafis have no specific political agenda. Their primary aim is to combat the Houthis, based on a religious rationale, particularly after the takeover of the Dammaj Center and the expulsion of Salafis from Saada. This gave the Salafis pride of place among other Yemeni groups that were fighting alongside the coalition, including the Islah Party and southern separatists, who have political agendas that conflict with those of the Saudi-led coalition.
A third motive is to maintain Saudi religious influence in Yemen, which Salafi groups have helped to sustain in the past four decades, and to prevent Salafis from engaging in any compromises with the Houthis. To the Saudis, the agreements that some Salafi leaders signed with the Houthis in areas of northern Yemen in 2014 were alarming. These called for peaceful coexistence, an end to hostile rhetoric, and direct communications between the sides to deal with any issues. The kingdom is providing the Salafis with military and financial support, and at the same time is continuing to fund their religious centers. Although the Yemen conflict has impaired educational institutions in Yemen, Salafi schools continue to operate and are even expanding in several parts in the country, including Aden, Dhaleh, and Mahra.
For the Salafis, having regional backers, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, is important. Receiving financial support is only part of the reason. The Salafis also seek some sort of legitimacy in their fight against the Houthis, especially after concerns emerged about ties between the traditional Salafis and Al-Qaeda groups. Fighting under the Saudi-led coalition has helped to water down such apprehensions, not least because Salafis have joined the Yemeni government. Indeed, the eight-member Presidential Leadership Council, the executive body of the internationally recognized government, includes the Salafi leader Abu Zara’a al-Mahrami, who is also the leader of the Giants Brigades.
Considering the political and military context in Yemen, the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Salafis there will remain strong, despite the religious changes inside the kingdom. While Saudi Arabia pursues its battle in Yemen, Salafis will remain their preferred partners and a key part of the kingdom’s network of influence in the country. The role of the Saudi-backed Salafi groups in Yemen has been shifting over the past years. While it was a soft power spread through religious teaching till last decade, Salafism today is becoming a part of Saudi hard power, transforming its students into fighters on the battlefield. This is not only the case in Yemen, but also in other areas such as Libya, where the Saudi-backed Madkhali Salafi groups witnessed similar transformation. The case of the Salafi groups underscores the complex evolution of cross-border exchange of religious ideas, with external powers able to grow influence amongst local communities.
In October 2020, Sudan’s transitional government – a coalition of military and civilian politicians – signed the Juba Peace Agreement (JPA) with several of the country’s armed rebel groups (collectively known as the Sudan Revolutionary Front). The peace agreement gave some leaders of these groups powerful positions in the transitional government or state administrations, thus providing them with a tangible stake in Sudan’s evolving political order following the fall of long-time president Omar al-Bashir. When the military launched a coup against the leadership of the civilian government in October 2021, some of the rebel leaders sided with the country’s generals, rather than its civilian leadership, many of whom had been their allies in opposing the previous regime. Why did a collection of long-time opponents to Sudan’s military-led dictatorship do this?
The Juba Peace Agreement gave some leaders of Sudan’s rebel groups powerful positions in the transitional government or state administrations, thus providing them with a tangible stake in Sudan’s evolving political order.
Borderland Rebels
Most of Sudan’s armed movements originated in the country’s peripheries, where wealth has been systematically drained through decades of exploitative and violent rule by an elite from the country’s metropolitan centre, enforced by a system of rural militias, armed and backed by the government. The main rebel groups originated in Darfur, Sudan’s expansive western region bordering Chad and Libya; and the borderlands between Sudan and South Sudan, specifically South Kordofan and Blue Nile states (known as the ‘Two Areas’).
In the latter years of the Bashir regime, the wars in Sudan’s peripheries had effectively ground to a standstill. Previously, the rebel groups in Darfur and the Two Areas had received significant support from neighbouring countries (mainly Chad, South Sudan and Ethiopia), but this had dried up. While the remaining rebels were not a large threat to the government, they also couldn’t be completely defeated and these long-running conflicts stuttered on with little prospect of resolution while Bashir remained in power.
When Bashir was deposed by his generals in 2019 after months of mass civilian protests, the new government developed plans to end the conflicts in Sudan’s peripheries with one, overarching peace agreement that was split into several regional tracks. Drawing on earlier ‘pay-roll peace’ deals, notably the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended Sudan’s north-south civil war in 2005; and the Darfur Peace Agreement, which attempted the same in 2006, the Juba Peace Agreement was born.
Destabilising the Peripheries
While the designers of the peace agreement had ambitions to craft a national, all-inclusive arrangement that would solve all of Sudan’s festering conflicts in one go, the reality was somewhat different. The peace agreement has shifted the balance of power in various local contexts and, as a result, has at times fuelled more conflict. For example, in Darfur, after the fall of Bashir, the (mostly Arab) groups that had generally benefitted from his rule feared that they would lose out. Particularly in North Darfur, the peace agreement has contributed to an increase in violence as Arab, mostly cattle herding communities have sought to strengthen their positions to avoid losing out in any political reorganisation.
In the Two Areas, the Bashir regime’s collapse created a power vacuum. Before the former president’s fall, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – North, which had been fighting the government since 2011, had acrimoniously split into two factions (one in South Kordofan and the other in Blue Nile). While the South Kordofan group rejected the peace agreement, the (weaker) Blue Nile faction chose to sign, and its leadership sided with the military during the coup in October 2021. The peace deal further entrenched splits in the group and isolated the South Kordofan faction, which has shown no serious inclination of signing.
In Eastern Sudan, military leaders have played divide-and-rule with the different communities in the region. In the run-up to the coup, they looked to exploit communal differences by securing the allegiance of the dominant Beja community through promises to renegotiate parts of the peace agreement. As a strategically important region that hosts Sudan’s largest sea port, its political elites have significant leverage over the Khartoum government and have not been afraid to use it – for example, during the blockade imposed on Port Sudan in 2021, which further damaged Sudan’s struggling economy.
Rebel Realpolitik
The peace agreement has emboldened opportunistic rebel leaders from the peripheries who had been on the political back-foot for years to trade their support for positions of power in national and regional administrations. This has helped buttress the country’s military leaders, who have side-lined the civilian members of the transitional government and appear determined to remain in power for the foreseeable future.
Sudan’s pro-democracy coalition, whose mass rallies and street protests were central to the removal of Bashir and his regime from power, expected that the returning rebel leaders would help tip the balance of power towards the civilian component of the transitional government, helping to off-set the creeping authority of Sudan’s military appointees. However, during the months that led up to the peace agreement, the Sudanese military successfully imposed itself on the process, signalling to the rebel leaders that it was in a better position to grant access to political power than the civilian members of the transitional government.
With the civilian administration unable to govern effectively, the economy in free-fall, and the military showing no desire to relinquish power, much of the rebel leadership took the practical political position of siding with the group most likely to help it assert its own interests. The political deal-making of rebel leaders in the wake of the coup reveals their calculations and objectives to safeguard their own positions within Sudan’s future governance arrangements. While some leaders share the pro-democracy agenda of the civilian government and the revolutionary movement that fuelled its rise, others are led by local political interests and may feel little connection to the urban-based revolutionaries. For many, the military appeared to be a more powerful partner in asserting, or protecting these interests, even if this is little more than a marriage of convenience.
The war in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region has reshaped agriculture across the borderlands of Ethiopia, Sudan, and Eritrea, and redrawn the relationship between farming, politics, and conflict. Sesame is a case in point. This is a crop that thrives in two regions affected by the Tigray conflict – Western Tigray and Al Fashaga in eastern Sudan. These areas have been contested for decades, and the continuing conflict in Tigray is simply the latest chapter in a long history of territorial transfer.
Until November 2020, Tigray was a major player in global sesame production. This fertile region grew almost a third of Ethiopian sesame exports (a share worth around $350 million annually) – no mean feat, given Ethiopia is the world’s third-largest oilseed producer after India and Sudan, with sesame accounting for 30% of its oilseed production. Sesame is the second foreign currency earning crop after coffee in Ethiopia: most sesame grown here is intended for export.
Just across the border, in the contested region of Al Fashaga in eastern Sudan, Ethiopian farmers have grown sesame and other crops for decades. Until the onset of the Tigray conflict, farmers would send sesame back into Ethiopia for sale, swelling the agricultural products passing through Ethiopian markets. Their farms in eastern Sudan were protected by Ethiopian militia, effectively limiting the space for Sudanese farmers and, at times, intimidating local communities through frequent incidents of kidnapping and robbery.
The outbreak of war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region in November 2020 changed everything. The expulsion of Tigrayans from Western Tigray by Amhara forces, and Sudan’s expulsion of Ethiopian farmers from Al Fashaga have reshaped sesame production and trade across the agricultural value chain – the range of processes involved in moving a crop from farm to consumer. Power and profits now lie in the hands of new players, and cash from this lucrative crop is likely being used to back factions in the conflict.
Farming on the frontline
Following the assault on the Tigray region by the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) and soldiers from the neighbouring Amhara region, thousands of Tigrayan sesame farmers were killed, displaced, or fled; others joined the Tigray Defence Forces (TDF). Farms were looted or destroyed at the height of the harvest season, further exacerbating food insecurity for Tigrayans.
Western Tigray – an area under the administration of the Tigray regional government until the start of the war in 2020 – was de facto annexed by the Amhara regional government. Control over sesame production and trade passed from Tigrayan smallholders and cooperatives to Amhara owners. Some Amhara investors have been granted two-year leases for prime agricultural land by the new administration. Amhara smallholder farmers, large investors and cooperatives in this enlarged Amhara region now account for 70% of Ethiopian sesame production.
In Al Fashaga, meanwhile, Sudan capitalised on the bloody conflict across its border to retake control of this highly fertile agricultural triangle on its eastern border. With Ethiopia distracted by the conflict in Tigray, Sudan moved its troops into Al Fashaga and expelled thousands of mainly Amhara farmers between November and December 2020.
The Sudanese Armed Forces themselves managed the harvest of crops planted in 2020 by Ethiopians in Al Fashaga, including sesame. These were then sold on the market in Gedaref in eastern Sudan. Profits flowed to Sudan’s military and, by extension, to the military leadership participating in Sudan’s power-sharing arrangement after the overthrow of President Omar al Bashir in 2019. Since 2020, Sudanese landholders have been encouraged to return to some areas of Al Fashaga under military protection.
Follow the money
On the Ethiopian side of the border, Amhara capture of fertile land in contested Western Tigray is likely linked to funding for factions in the Tigray conflict, with profits propping up Ethiopia’s war machine and recalibrating the relationship between farming, politics, and conflict. The significance of sesame profits in funding conflict is hard to assess precisely – more research is vital here – but close links between agriculture and political and military interests demonstrate that these profits matter.
A handful of Amhara businesspeople who actively and openly support the Ethiopian government in its war with Tigray have been among new beneficiaries of the sesame market in Humera, an important sesame hub in the region. They are affiliated with the ruling Prosperity Party – some have even earned honorific military titles in recognition of their support in the war. Amhara politicians in senior government positions are also widely believed to be engaged in the sesame industry, linking party politics to agricultural profits gained through conflict.
This merging of political interests and agricultural profits reflects a well-established pattern in Ethiopia. During their decades in power, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF)[1] dominated virtually all sectors of the Ethiopian economy through the companies under its massive conglomerate, the Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT) – by far the largest conglomerate in the country. Hiwot Agricultural Development, the buyer which dominated the pre-war sesame market around Humera, was part of EFFORT.
Since the conflict began, EFFORT’s control of the market has been steadily dismantled, with the Amhara-owned Nigat Agro-processing taking its place as the new market hegemon. Like EFFORT, it is politically connected, but to the Amhara branch of the Prosperity Party.
The rise of illegal sesame trading
Another seismic shift in the sesame sector is a switch from licit to illicit trading. Prior to the conflict, most Tigrayan sesame was exported legally, which meant the federal government benefitted via customs and duties on exports.
Today, illegal sesame trading is surging, with sesame from Tigray winding its way to the markets of neighbouring Eritrea without passing through customs authorities. Illegal activity has corrupted the sesame value chain. Sesame profits from illegal trading grease the hands of those who provide security, finance, or permissions along the chain from production to market.
Those involved in illegal sesame production include members of the security services, top administrators, and businesspeople – mainly Amhara, as well as their political sympathisers. Security actors (including Amhara regional forces and the Fano youth movement and militia), political leaders, and smugglers all gain, and are unlikely to re-invest productively in the sesame sector.
The smuggling of cash crops in the region often goes hand in hand with arms smuggling, using the same routes and even the same trucks, with arms hidden underneath crops. There are multiple reports that arms have proliferated over the course of the Tigray conflict, largely smuggled through the forests between the Ethiopia-Sudan border. According to some reports, you can find two or three guns per household – sometimes formally registered in the name of children.
A volatile future
The future of sesame farming in Tigray and Al Fashaga looks increasingly uncertain. In Amhara-controlled Western Tigray, Amhara dominance over sesame production is linked to the rise of Amhara nationalism and could still become a flashpoint for conflict with the federal government. Members of the National Movement of Amhara, an Amhara political party with a nationalist agenda, have vested interests in the sesame sector and a political agenda to weaken federal institutions and replace them with Amhara-controlled institutions – such as the commodity exchange – bringing the region into direct conflict with the federal government.
Sesame outputs have fallen, and Tigrayan farming communities that have lost their land and livelihoods face a future of aid dependence and hunger: more than five million people are in need of assistance in Tigray. Western Tigray and Amhara security forces have continued to deny Tigrayans access to food aid and blocked access to international aid convoys through Amhara. The Amhara look set to continue to consolidate their hold on contested Western Tigray, having laid an administrative structure for the allocation of land to ethnic Amhara through leases which are likely to be coming up for renewal soon.
In Al Fashaga, it is unlikely that the Amhara will accept the loss of this fertile territory, which has been an important source of sesame for Ethiopian farmers operating across the border and employment for otherwise landless Amhara. Once time and resources allow, Amhara attention will likely turn to reclaiming land they consider rightly theirs.
Sesame is not the only crop likely being used to sustain the war effort; other cash crops such as sorghum and cereals are likely playing a part. Writ large, the flow of income from agriculture into the war economy is draining much-needed resources from Ethiopia’s regional and federal governments. The government needs to raise foreign exchange – including through cash crops – to counter the downward spiral of the blighted Ethiopian economy. Further research into the illicit flows of money between cash crops and conflict would shed light on the intersection of agriculture and insecurity in conflict-affected borderlands, providing vital information for efforts to build peace and stability in the Horn of Africa.
Contact the XCEPT team at [email protected] for further information on the topics covered in this article.
[1] The TPLF came to power in 1991, as the leader of the political coalition, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). It lost to President Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party in 2018.
In August 2022 it will be five years since the start of one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises, yet the political and security dynamics surrounding Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh remain unstable. Persecution and targeted attacks against this minority community by Myanmar’s military led to the forced displacement of over 730,000 refugees across the border into Bangladesh in 2017. Five years on, their lives continue to be marked by struggle.
Bangladesh’s own history of war may have influenced its government’s openness to refugees, but growing uncertainty in a post-Covid world, anti-Rohingya sentiments amongst the population, security concerns, and pressure on resources are cited as reasons for a recent rise in restrictions on residents of the 34 refugee camps along the border. These restrictions relate to refugees’ uninterrupted access to education, employment, movement, and civic participation in their host country. Underdevelopment, poverty, crime, and trafficking in people and drugs affect both the Rohingya and the host communities adjacent to the camps.
Despite vocal demands by Rohingya to be able to return to their home villages, organised repatriation attempts have been hindered by lack of political will in Myanmar. Today, global humanitarian aid is on the decline as the international community contends with the need to address competing crises. Refugees and local communities are angered by the limited efforts of global powers to compel Myanmar to accelerate Rohingya repatriation. Increased frustration amongst Bangladeshi authorities has translated into harsher policies and limited opportunities for the refugees. Amid pressure to uphold refugee rights, and the need to maintain safety and adequate infrastructure within the camps despite a persistent funding shortage, actors involved in the response face increasing challenges around sustainable solutions for Rohingya populations.
The Asia Foundation’s partner in Bangladesh, Centre for Peace and Justice, Brac University, (CPJ) has worked to address emerging concerns amongst Rohingya and host communities, and analyse social differences and political dynamics through various research initiatives that aim to understand and elevate voices on the ground. This article summarises viewpoints of Rohingya refugees on their current predicament and outlook, compiled by CPJ researchers since 2018.
Camp governance and decision-making mechanisms have been criticised by human rights groups for being unclear, restrictive and ad-hoc. With an ever-shifting regulatory dynamic, limited direct access to policymakers, and a national refugee policy vacuum that allows lower-level officials to apply rules at their own discretion, the governance environment in Cox’s Bazar remains opaque, complex and exclusive of community voices. Humanitarian agencies focus on maintaining permission to work in the camps and are hesitant to intervene and probe officials about policies. It is unclear to communities how decisions about refugee policy are made within government and by whom, resulting in a power gap and lack of accountability toward stakeholders.
Who is making decisions and why are they unknown to our community?
a Rohingya refugee in Bangladesh
Livelihood possibilities in the camps are extremely limited. Rohingya are restricted from moving from one camp to another and have no right to formal employment or access to markets. Even the need to travel for medical attention requires the permission of camp authorities. Hundreds of makeshift shops have been destroyed by authorities in recent months, limiting refugees’ access to basic necessities not provided as aid, including many cooking ingredients as well as clothing.
Perceptions of the Rohingya amongst host communities are generally negative even though, according to CPJ’s research, only a small percentage of host community residents have personally interacted with a refugee. Local people fear the assimilation of refugees and the increased pressure on already-stretched resources. Negative impacts on wage rates and over-saturation of the labour market have been contentious issues.
Education gaps among Rohingya children and adolescents remain unresolved. Approximately 400,000 school-aged refugees are not enrolled in formal schooling, and although a pilot formal education programme was recently launched when schools reopened post-Covid, it serves only a small percentage of learners and many will likely never return to their studies. Moreover, private learning centres organised by the Rohingya have been restricted by authorities, eliminating educational access for thousands more children.
Global attention has been fleeting. The spotlight that brought attention to the Rohingya crisis after the 2017 exodus has shifted elsewhere, and Rohingya feel that they are isolated from the international community. Bangladesh continues to be praised by the international community for hosting persecuted Rohingya and undoubtedly saving thousands of lives, but refugees are frustrated with the lack of public discussion around their current situation. Many claim that living conditions within the camps have deteriorated leading to desperate attempts by refugees to escape, akin to their pre-exodus state of vulnerability in Myanmar. High-profile international delegations have resumed visiting the camps, but few visits have resulted in tangible action toward the necessary changes.
Sustainable, long-term solutions for displaced Rohingya will require a comprehensive refugee policy in Bangladesh, built on accountability to affected populations and effective coordination amongst national and international actors. Such a policy will need to address concurrent needs for good governance, refugee rights and participation, humanitarian service provision, and security-related factors, grounded in robust data reflecting the evolving needs and perspectives of refugee and host populations. Political economic analysis can be used to assess the current policy environment, highlighting gaps that need to be addressed, an understanding of how decisions are made and enforced, and identifying areas for innovative approaches to refugee governance. For example, Rohingya participation in labour markets could be approached in a way that benefits refugees and impoverished Bangladeshis alike. Such a coordinated, inclusive approach may yet yield opportunities for improvement.
The past two decades have seen a slew of programmatic efforts aimed at countering an individual’s susceptibility to violent extremism. These initiatives have delivered uneven results. This blog post examines the role of mental health and conflict-related trauma in driving individuals towards embracing violent extremism. By showing the high propensity of pre-existing trauma and associated mental health problems among violent actors in extremist movements, it argues that successful interventions cannot afford to overlook this component of the “radicalisation” puzzle.
Studies that have examined prison[1] and community-based populations[2] have shown that individuals who use violence are significantly more likely to be survivors of violence and trauma than their non-violent counterparts.[3] Whilst this is true for different types of violence – for example, against an intimate partner, children, strangers – it is also true for those who pursue violence for ideological or political goals. The documented link between trauma and the propensity to engage in violence is particularly sobering when considering the prevalence of trauma among conflict-affected populations: it is thought that up to 65% of civilians affected by civil war or conflict suffer some form of recurrent trauma.[4] This can include violence and/or rape, but also forced displacement, homelessness, starvation and slavery.
Programming to support violence and conflict prevention must incorporate a better understanding of the types of trauma experienced by conflict actors and the communities in which they operate. Two things are particularly important here: (i) types of trauma(s); and (ii) how trauma can be transmitted from one generation to the next. Violence driven by a desire for revenge is often borne of complex traumas that involve incidents such as family members being killed or kidnapped and/or suffering prolonged periods of imprisonment or torture.[5] Traumatic stress can also manifest in individuals who have been exposed to some form of abuse outside of conflict dynamics – for example, being abused by a parent. In this scenario, parents who are traumatised by conflict can, in turn, transmit their experiences by traumatising their children who are then more susceptible to violence themselves when entering adolescence or adulthood.[6] Trauma-related mental health problems, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, or anxiety, are important because if they are untreated, not only do they associate with violence, but they can also leave an individual vulnerable to joining up with a violent extremist group.[7]
Appreciating these interlocking dynamics is important when considering how to break cyclical periods of violence and peace in recurrent conflicts. Put another way, how might a better appreciation of the interaction between trauma and mental health inform our understanding of how and why an individual might choose either a violent or peaceful action? Our working hypothesis on the KCL team for The Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) project – and it’s one that we’ll be empirically testing as the research progresses – is that trauma is an often overlooked but extremely important part of an individual’s ‘radicalisation’ journey. In brief, XCEPT is a multi-year, interdisciplinary project with funding from UK Aid, that examines factors that shape violent and peaceful behaviour across different conflict-affected regions, such as Iraq, Syria, and South Sudan, to inform policy and programming efforts to prevent violent extremism.
The good news for policymakers is that trauma-related mental health interventions related to traumatic events need not be created de novo. There are already several effective interventions that are scalable, which means they can be offered to large numbers relatively cheaply. Bodies such as the World Health Organisation have databases of scalable interventions which are ready to go.[8] These are culturally adaptable and can be deployed through easily trained partners on the ground.
Consider one particularly encouraging intervention for children and teenagers, known as Teaching Recovery Techniques. This helps individuals learn socio-emotional skills to cope with difficulties following traumatic experiences of war,[9] whilst also teaching them how to manage intrusive thoughts and feelings (bad memories, nightmares and flashbacks), arousal (difficulties relaxing, concentrating and sleeping) and avoidance (fears, difficulties in facing up to reminders of a disaster).
Although this is just one example of many, it shows the types of interventions already available which are easily scalable and which can be delivered over a relatively short period (in this case, just five weeks). It is also important to consider that this intervention can be modulated to address non-conflict related traumas (for example, childhood maltreatment).
Trauma is cumulative. The more individuals experience it, the more likely they are to have greater mental health problems. That, in turn, increases the risk of them turning to violence. Some estimates suggest that up to 50% of people who join violent extremist groups demonstrate some form of childhood maltreatment: neglect, or physical or sexual abuse.[10] This reveals the importance of adopting a holistic intervention approach around trauma and mental health to effectively manage an individual’s risk of choosing violent outcomes in any given situation,[11] and to include such approaches in interventions to promote peace and prevent resurgent conflict violence.
[1] Wolff N, Caravaca Sánchez F. Associations Among Psychological Distress, Adverse Childhood Experiences, Social Support, and Resilience in Incarcerate Men. Criminal Justice and Behavior. 2019;46(11):1630-1649.
[2] Taylor LK, McKeown S. Does violence beget violence? The role of family ethnic socialization and intergroup bias among youth in a setting of protracted intergroup conflict. International Journal of Behavioral Development. 2019;43(5):403-408.
[3] Widom CS. The cycle of violence. Science. 1989;16(244):160-166.
[4] Allwood MA, Bell-Dolan D, Husain SA. Children’s trauma and adjustment reactions to violent and nonviolent war experiences. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 2002;41(4):450-457.
[5] Klasen F, Gehrke J, Metzner F, Blotevogel M, Okello J. Complex Trauma Symptoms in Former Ugandan Child Soldiers. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma. 2013;22(7):698-713; de Jong JTVM, Komproe IH, Van Ommeren M, et al. Lifetime Events and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in 4 Postconflict Settings. JAMA. 2001;286(5):555-562.
[6] Galovski T, Lyons JA. Psychological sequelae of combat violence: A review of the impact of PTSD on the veteran’s family and possible interventions. Aggression and violent behavior. 2004;9(5):477-501; Dekel R, Goldblatt H. Is there intergenerational transmission of trauma? The case of combat veterans’ children. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry. 2008;78(3):281-289.
[7] Simi P, Bubolz B, McNeel H, Sporer K, Windisch S. Trauma as a precursor to violent extremism: How non-ideological factors can influence joining an extremist group. START Newsletter. 2015.
[8] Organization WH. Scalable psychological interventions for people in communities affected by adversity: a new area of mental health and psychosocial work at WHO. 2017.
[9] Ali NS, Al-Joudi TW, Snell T. Teaching recovery techniques to adolescents exposed to multiple trauma following war and ongoing violence in Baghdad. The Editorial Assistants–Jordan. 2019;30(1):25-33; Sarkadi A, Warner G, Salari R, et al. Evaluation of the Teaching Recovery Techniques community-based intervention for unaccompanied refugee youth experiencing post-traumatic stress symptoms (Swedish UnaccomPanied yOuth Refugee Trial; SUPpORT): study protocol for a randomised controlled trial. Trials. 2020;21(1):63; Barron IG, Abdallah G, Smith P. Randomized Control Trial of a CBT Trauma Recovery Program in Palestinian Schools. Journal of Loss and Trauma. 2013;18(4):306-321.
[10] Lewis J, Marsden S. Trauma adversity and violent extremism. Contemporary Research. 2021.
[11] Lewis J, Marsden S. Countering Violent Extremism Interventions: Contemporary Research. 2021.
Social media has become an indispensable aspect of everyday life. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, Tumblr, Kik and Ask.fm have also become hosts of a virtual minefield of extremist and violent content and political misinformation. Countless academic articles and reports have drawn upon user-generated content alongside official group publications circulated on social media platforms as primary data for research. Such media includes hate-filled speeches by extremist ideologues, logistical communications for group recruitment and photographic and audio-visual evidence of violence and abuses committed by official members and inspired adherents. This has enabled greater understanding of the recruitment strategies, propagandistic narratives and influencers of extremist groups, and has opened a field of work focused on counter-narratives to prevent and deter individuals from succumbing to the influence of online extremists.
This all sounds very positive, but what are the costs and risks of this research? Here, I argue that the welfare of the researcher frequently slips through the net of the ethical principle to ‘do no harm’.
For researchers affiliated with an academic institution, ethical considerations form a necessary part of the planning process for any study involving human participants or human data. In order to receive approval from the independent Institutional Review Board (IRB), a proposal in either the social or medical sciences must demonstrate evidence of planned measures to mitigate harm and safeguard research subjects, particularly those considered especially ‘vulnerable’. However, an in-depth study carried out in the United States in 2017 of national and international research ethics policies revealed a consistent lack of explicit definition of what ‘vulnerability’ in fact was.
The primary concern and mandate of the IRB is to safeguard the researched rather than the researcher. In cases of research conducted in unstable or insecure contexts, approval may be granted upon condition of completion of a risk assessment form, requiring researchers to demonstrate protection against potential physical harm to themselves, their colleagues and their equipment. However, there is usually little or no mention of safeguards for psychological harm to the researcher. Furthermore, if the research is solely based on documents such as social media posts or audio-video recordings already in the public domain, generally no ethical approval is needed at all.
The vulnerability of researchers therefore largely falls through the cracks of the ethical review process. Moreover, in the context of gruelling publication pressures and the emphasis on terrorism as a fluid and fast-paced phenomenon, self-care is frequently overlooked or seen as a sign of one’s inability to ‘handle’ the demands of the field. Seamus Hughes, Deputy Director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, summed up the issue when he explained that the mental toll of research is ‘the type of thing that nobody really talks about’. Fortunately, the tide is changing.
Recently, attention has turned to the unseen, psychological toll of viewing extremist or violent content, particularly in light of brutal videos of amputations, killings and torture conducted by Islamic State (IS) and circulated internationally on social media platforms. Cottee and Cunliffe’s study of audience responses to watching official English-language IS propaganda videos is widely read and outlines the authors’ steps to mitigate harm to their participants, including removing scenes of explicit ‘ultraviolence’, in which the victim is killed. However, Carol Winkler, Professor of Communication Studies at Georgia State University, has directly challenged this approach. She suggests that simply omitting the scene of ‘ultraviolence’ does not remove the ‘promised violence’ that elicits the audience’s emotional reaction. This, then, prompts consideration of the psychological risks to researchers whose work does not include or explicitly focus on the ‘ultraviolent’ visual climax of extremist imagery.
My own empirical research has thus far adopted a different approach to studying the policies and activities of IS. While documentary evidence provides a baseline for comparison, my focus has been the first-hand testimonies of (female) civilians who lived under the group’s rule. By nature of engaging with survivors of conflict, my research required high-risk ethical approval. The scope of experiences of life under terrorist rule are broad. Some stories of defiance are uplifting, empowering and inspiring. Other narratives of captivity, genocide and sexual and gender-based violence are harrowing.
Extensive measures were put in place to protect my research subjects from the negative effects of narrating and reliving traumatic events. However, I participated in that process with each of them through almost seventy hours of one-on-one interviews. Just as violent imagery takes an emotional toll on an archival researcher, so too does the experience of listening to detailed recollections of traumatic experiences. This is known as ‘vicarious trauma’, a self-transformation in the researcher as a result of empathic engagement with reports and stories from trauma survivors. It is important to note that vicarious trauma extends beyond the allotted time of interview. Long-term traumatisation resulting from research participation is acknowledged in the ethical approval process for the interviewee, but again is often overlooked for the interviewer. For weeks on end, I worked on transcription, transporting myself back to each interview. Where I had gained consent for audio recordings, I could also replay the women’s voices, rewinding and repeating second by second in my headphones. Despite a busy office environment, such a task can feel isolating and emotionally draining.
The issue of vicarious trauma is well researched within the area of psychology, with a particular focus on the experiences of therapists and counsellors. However, research by Coles et al. reveals that academic researchers and analysts are at higher risk of vicarious trauma because we (largely) do not adopt an assistance role. Indeed, in a recent study of vicarious trauma in criminological research, Moran and Asquith found that the costs of engagement may be compensated by the productive outputs and impacts on policy and practice that the research may elicit. For those who are not in a position to offer practical benefit for their research subjects, what can be done?
Jane Palmer, Professorial Lecturer in the Department of Justice, Law, and Criminology at the American University, has written a helpful blog post on recognising and dealing with vicarious trauma among researchers. Among the list of key areas of concern and consideration is ‘the researcher’s current support systems’ and she encourages the development of policies and protocols for supporting colleagues with negative impacts of their research. With public debates concerning researcher (vicarious) trauma gaining momentum among analysts of terrorism and extremist violence, this is an important juncture to bring these conversations internally within each research team and ensure preventative measures and support networks are in place.
The benefits of researching extremist violence are clear; collection of primary data can provide vital evidence of criminal activity and abuses by underground and terrorist organisations. However, this research comes at a cost. In order to sustain this work, greater measures are needed to recognise researcher vulnerability without stigma. The academic community is now starting to think about the right approach; I hope that the perspectives of early career researchers will be included. From my own experience, I would like to see greater support for and acceptance of the vulnerabilities that researchers face. This could come in the form of conference panels or support guides for scholars and analysts, as well as integration of researcher care within project design. By opening and normalising these conversations, we can progressively reduce the hidden costs of research and prioritise care for ourselves and colleagues.
What can neuroscience tell us about violent extremism? As a cognitive scientist who was part of the team that conducted the first ever set of brain scans of a radicalised population (that is, jihadist supporters), this is a question I encounter at conferences, during webinars and via social media posts. Often the question is meant rhetorically. Some social scientists have even accused me of conducting phrenology, a defunct discipline from the 19th century that is best known for looking at bumps on human skulls to make unfounded conclusions about the intellectual inferiority of certain ethnicities. My answer, if I choose to give one, is that neuroscience has much to contribute to our scientific understanding and in terms of offering practical insights. Moreover, these contributions are complimentary to rather than in competition with social and behavioural sciences.
In my experience, most social scientists and policy experts specialising in security-related issues fall on two ends of a spectrum when presented with neuroscientific data. One group is repulsed, at worst calling such research “Nazi science” or at best showing extreme scepticism about the encroachment of life sciences on what they see as something that should fall squarely within the purview of the social sciences. The other, much larger group takes the opposite position, displaying a bizarre fealty to colourful pictures of the human brain and showing a willingness to dismiss everything that they previously believed in order to usher in the findings from a “real science”.
Of course, both ends of this spectrum are overreactions. Neuroscientific research will always be subordinate to the social and behavioural sciences. It is the observations from such fields as sociology that allow neuroscientists to infer what must be going on inside the human brain given what we see at a social scale. Meanwhile, social neuroscience is largely a field that takes well-tested social psychology experiments and tries to replicate them inside things like brain scanners. Neuroscientific data is nothing more than an extra source of information that can help us to triangulate, along with social and behavioural science data, the causes of violent extremism and potentially lead to solutions as to preventing and countering them.
Rational Actors Versus Devoted Actors
So, how does neuroscience work hand in glove with the social and behavioural sciences to explain violent extremism? Much of social science research looks at war and violent conflict through the lens of rational actor models. These are models positing that people make decisions by weighing self-interested advantages and disadvantages of a particular action. From this perspective, if the pros outweigh the cons, it is then rational to go to war, join a terrorist group, start an insurrection and so on.
While rational actor models certainly explain a lot, they are insufficient at explaining the data on radicalisation, the process by which someone’s mind changes to increase their likelihood of committing political violence. Many of those who join terrorist groups leave behind comfortable, secure and materially pleasurable existences to put their lives at risk in war-torn regions of the world. They are not being rational in a self-interested way; rather, they are being group- and value-interested. We call these people devoted actors: people who are willing to make extreme, costly sacrifices (including fighting and dying) for their primary identity group and their sacred values.
The concept of sacred values has been well developed in anthropology, sociology, political science and psychology. They are a subset of moral values that do not conform to instrumental (that is, reward and punishment) decision-making. In other words, adherence to sacred values cannot be explained using rational actor models. Instead, it seems to be a fundamental element of devoted actors. My colleagues and I wanted to see how peer-group dynamics interacted with sacred values to increase or decrease a radicalised person’s willingness to fight and die. In essence, we wanted to pinpoint how peer-group dynamics can move people closer to and further from violence, to inform counter-radicalisation programmes.
Social Exclusion Pushing Extremists Towards Violence
To do this, we ran two neuro-imaging studies on jihadist supporters in Barcelona. Spain regularly ranks among Europe’s top nations for recruitment into jihadist groups and the Barcelona region is the country’s primary hotspot for radicalisation. In the first study we wanted to look at what made people at the early stages of radicalisation move towards violence. We know from decades of social and behavioural science research that social exclusion can push people towards nefarious groups, such as gangs, cults and extremist movements. In this context, we wanted to see how a sample of Moroccan diaspora men who held jihadist sympathies would react if they were excluded by non-diaspora Spaniards.
Out of a pool of 535 surveyed respondents from the Moroccan diaspora community, we recruited 38 early-stage radicals who said that they would engage in violence in defence of issues championed by jihadist groups (such as the enforcement of strict sharia law across all Muslim countries, armed jihad against the West and so on). After being screened for normal IQs and mental health disorders, the Moroccan participants played a virtual game with three ostensibly Spanish players that involved tossing a ball. For half the participants, after a few attempts, the Spanish players stopped passing the ball to the early-stage radicals and kept passing it among themselves (what the study considered a “social exclusion condition”). For the other half, the other players kept passing the ball to our participants (this was the “control condition”). All participants then entered the scanner and viewed multiple values that were either sacred or non-sacred to them, as ascertained beforehand using psychometric tools. They also evaluated their willingness to fight and die for each value.
We found behavioural and neural evidence that social exclusion moves values from the non-sacred category into the sacred one. Specifically, we found that participants who were socially excluded had areas of the brain (in particular, the left inferior frontal gyrus) that normally activates for sacred values (as evidenced in two previous studies) now activated for non-sacred values. Participants even started behaviourally stating that previously non-sacred values were now sacred. Additionally, the socially excluded participants explicitly increased their stated willingness to fight and die for their non-sacred values and made them comparable to sacred values. This is a worrying finding as this means these individuals were becoming more devoted actors. Standard rational actor persuasion techniques (such as carrots and sticks) will thus become less effective.
Social Norms Pulling Extremists Back From Violence
How do you persuade a devoted actor off the path of violence? In the previous study, we showed how social exclusion from an out-group can move in-group members who hold extremist sympathies towards violence. Next, we wanted to see how non-extremist in-group members can pull their extremist peers back from violence. To do this, we conducted a second study where we surveyed 146 Pakistani men in the Barcelona region and found 30 who explicitly supported Lashkar-e-Taiba, a jihadist group that fights on the Kashmir issue and is associated with al-Qaeda. They also explicitly supported armed jihad more broadly, saying that they would be willing to carry out an act of armed jihad and endorsing violence against the West. These participants were thus far more radicalised than those in our previous study.
As in the previous study, our participants evaluated their willingness to fight and die for various sacred and non-sacred values while in the scanner. This time, however, after they had made their evaluations, they were presented with their own responses and the average responses of Pakistanis from the broader community in Barcelona. Unbeknown to them, these responses were invented. They showed that half the time the average willingness to fight and die of the broader community was the same as that of the participants and half the time it was lower (we also wanted to include a third condition where the community responses were higher but this was not possible since the participants gave responses that were already at the extreme end of the spectrum). The Lashkar-e-Taiba supporters then left the scanner and re-evaluated their willingness to fight and die for all values.
We found that parts of the brain associated with deliberation and self-control (such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) went “offline” when participants evaluated their willingness to fight and die for their sacred values. However, when they were presented with the information that their peers (other local Pakistanis) had a lower willingness to fight and die than them, this caused that same area to come back “online”. Not only that, when the supporters re-evaluated their willingness to fight and die, they reduced it to conform with their peers’ responses. Furthermore, the degree of reactivation of self-control regions of the brain predicted the extent of their conformity with their peers’ responses, indicating a link between the activation of those brain areas and the extent of their behavioural change. As such, the Lashkar-e-Taiba supporters did not change their sacred values but they did change the level of violence they were willing to engage in to defend those values once they realised it was out of step with their peer group. This provides evidence of one way – bringing the attitudes of the broader peer group to an extremist’s attention – to move a devoted actor off the path of violence.
Social, Behavioural and Brain Sciences Informing Policy Together
Both of these studies were inspired by decades of research from the social and behavioural sciences that highlight the importance of social exclusion and social norms (that is, what people suspect their peer group thinks are acceptable beliefs or behaviours). Qualitative research on violent extremism in Syria, Somalia and Nigeria has shown the importance of social exclusion as a motivating factor for why people join jihadist groups. Longitudinal survey research in the United States has shown that when marginalised Muslims face discrimination they increase their support for radical groups. Similarly, the role of social norms in reducing violent conflict has been demonstrated in post-conflict reconciliation environments. Large-scale randomised control trial studies in Rwanda and the DRC demonstrated that social norms embedded in radio soap opera programmes increased willingness for reconciliation and cooperation by changing perceptions of social norms while having no effect on personal beliefs. The neuro-imaging research simply augments these findings by offering yet another source of data.
While these studies may be the first conducted on radicalised populations, there are exciting findings emerging from adjacent fields, such as neuro-criminology. Research has shown that youth who have adverse childhood experiences grow up with an increased likelihood for delinquency and criminal behaviour, especially once they reach adolescence and early adulthood. Given the well-established links between crime and terrorism, these findings could bear important policy implications for violent extremism as well.
An obvious policy suggestion would be to try to reduce such adverse experiences in children’s lives. But what could one suggest if a child has already experienced these adversities but has not yet reached adolescence? There seems to be a window of opportunity to intervene. However, if we do not understand which psycho-neural mechanisms create the increased vulnerability to crime and extremism, any intervention will be little more than a shot in the dark. Luckily, there is some ongoing research that shows that adverse childhood experiences negatively impact sympathetic nervous system reactivity but that high-quality friendships by the age of twelve can buffer against some of these outcomes. If these results can be replicated, they will add to the research demonstrating the importance of peers, in terms of both social exclusion and social norms, in either increasing or decreasing an individual’s propensity for political violence.
This kind of research is especially prescient in such countries as Syria, Iraq and South Sudan, where there are potentially tens of thousands of children who are in this window of opportunity after having survived early childhood years amid armed conflict. Discovering and offering the right kinds of interventions for these children is a humanitarian concern, while failing to do so could lead to security issues in the future if armed groups are able to prey on unhealed trauma for recruitment purposes.
Neuroscience need not be seen as a pariah invading the domain of social and behavioural sciences, nor should it be seen as a prophet descending from on high to answer all our security-related questions. Instead, it is an ally for all empirical work that seeks to understand the factors that move people closer to or further from violence. Its findings can help to aid theoretical developments and provoke practical policy suggestions.
This blog was originally published on the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation’s website.
The growing Captagon trade in Syria and Lebanon has been given much attention in recent months. The networks involved in this trade, such as the Fourth Division of the Syrian Arab Army and other smaller armed groups in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and networks of smugglers in both countries, help extend its reach beyond the borders of Syria and Lebanon, smuggling Captagon to Gulf countries – especially Saudi Arabia – and even to Europe. The transnational nature of this illicit activity and its link to the context of the Syrian conflict requires international policies that take into account cross-border conflict dynamics, including how people can end up involved in illicit activities to cope financially. A key component of any such policy must be an understanding of the impact of the Captagon trade specifically and drug smuggling more generally on local communities, especially those residing in border regions between Lebanon and Syria.
The Syria-Lebanon border is dominated mainly by Hezbollah on the Lebanese side and armed groups on the Syrian side, with the Fourth Division of the Syrian Arab Army being the most influential Syrian actor in the Captagon trade. The course of the Syrian conflict has seen an increase in the number of Captagon factories – some primitive, some more advanced – set up in border areas dominated by armed actors. While the factories have been mainly set up in sparsely populated areas, getting involved in the booming drug trade is often one of the few ways for local residents to generate an income.
Several areas where Captagon factories have been set up are Syrian villages and towns that have seen significant population displacement because of the conflict, such as Madaya and Zabadani, where people either fled the violence or left because they were forcibly displaced by the armed actors that came to dominate these areas, namely Hezbollah and the Syrian army. But some residents remained and others moved from elsewhere to join them. The boom in the drug trade and the lack of other employment options for residents, as well as the dominance of armed groups and warlords, presents a serious challenge to any post-conflict settlement in Syria which includes repatriating the displaced. People with an economic stake in a geographical area are not going to readily give that area up. This raises concerns regarding the potential for supporting community cohesion in Syria following any future resolution to the conflict.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah has purchased property and land in many eastern areas along the border with Syria. It has also declared a number of military zones in this region, which are inaccessible to the Lebanese authorities or to anyone not affiliated with Hezbollah. These zones help facilitate the military and non-military activities that Hezbollah engages in across the border and gives it sole security oversight that extends beyond the zones themselves and into surrounding villages where, as in Syria, drug factories recruit workers from the local communities. Even if there is a resolution to the Syrian conflict, Hezbollah’s political and military dominance in Lebanon and its engagement in Syria are likely to continue in some form – the drug trade across the border predates the start of the Syrian conflict. With the Lebanese state almost bankrupt and many border communities persistently ignored by its development policies, the appeal of the drug trade to populations in eastern Lebanon and its connection to Syria will not be easy to reverse.
As the drug trade becomes an embedded aspect of everyday life for local border communities in Lebanon and Syria, young people abandon education to enrol in this trade. Vulnerable people are particularly exploited, being forced to engage in illicit activities, pay royalties to the ruling militias or endure harassment, fraud and intimidation. This situation increases the isolation of such communities and poses a challenge to national cohesion.
The international community must consider the impact of the Captagon trade, and the drug trade more widely, on local border communities when designing a policy to counter it. Alternative sources of livelihood must be offered to those who have ended up entangled in the drug trade to cope financially – what the Chatham House team working on the XCEPT project on cross-border conflict refers to as the ‘coping economy’.
This blog was originally published on the Chatham House website.
