Worries Mount as Syria Lures West’s Muslims

[Cincinnatus]

Sounds like a modern day version of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

WASHINGTON — A rising number of radicalized young Muslims with Western passports are traveling to Syria to fight with the rebels against the government of Bashar al-Assad, raising fears among American and European intelligence officials of a new terrorist threat when the fighters return home.

More Westerners are now fighting in Syria than fought in conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia or Yemen, according to the officials. They go to Syria motivated by the desire to help the people suffering there by overthrowing Mr. Assad. But there is growing concern that they will come back with a burst of jihadist zeal, some semblance of military discipline, enhanced weapons and explosives skills, and, in the worst case, orders from affiliates of Al Qaeda to carry out terrorist strikes.

“Syria has become really the predominant jihadist battlefield in the world,” Matthew G. Olsen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told a security conference in Aspen, Colo., this month. He added, “The concern going forward from a threat perspective is there are individuals traveling to Syria, becoming further radicalized, becoming trained and then returning as part of really a global jihadist movement to Western Europe and, potentially, to the United States.”

Classified estimates from Western intelligence services and unclassified assessments from government and independent experts put the number of fighters from Europe, North America and Australia who have entered Syria since 2011 at more than 600. That represents about 10 percent of the roughly 6,000 foreign fighters who have poured into Syria by way of the Middle East and North Africa.

Most of the Westerners are self-radicalized and are traveling on their own initiative to Turkey, where rebel facilitators often link them up with specific groups, terrorism experts say. Many have joined ranks with the Qaeda-aligned Nusra Front, which American officials have designated as a terrorist group.

“The scale of this is completely different from what we’ve experienced in the past,” Gilles de Kerchove, the European Union’s counterterrorism coordinator, said at the conference in Aspen.

So far, terrorism experts say, there have been no documented terrorist plots linked to European or other Western fighters returning from Syria, but France’s interior minister, Manuel Valls, recently called the threat “a ticking time bomb.” Security services across Europe are stepping up their surveillance efforts and seeking ways to make it more difficult for people suspected of being jihadists to travel to Syria.

European and other Western intelligence agencies are rushing to work together to track the individuals seeking to cross the border into Syria from Turkey, though several American officials expressed frustration that Turkey is not taking more aggressive steps to stem the flow of Europeans going to fight in Syria.

Hans-Peter Friedrich, Germany’s interior minister, is pushing for an European Union-wide registry for all foreigners entering the bloc as one of the measures that will help better track returning radicals...

A precise breakdown of the Western fighters in Syria is difficult to offer, counterterrorism and intelligence officials said, but their estimates include about 140 French citizens, 100 Britons, 75 Spaniards, 60 Germans, and as many as a few dozen Canadians and Australians. There are also fighters from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands, according to a study in April by the International Center for the Study of Radicalization, a partnership of academic institutions based in London, which estimated that 140 to 600 Europeans had gone to Syria.

Only about a dozen Americans have so far gone to fight in Syria, according to American intelligence officials. Nicole Lynn Mansfield, 33, of Flint, Mich., a convert to Islam, was killed in May while in the company of Syrian rebels in Idlib Province.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/world/middleeast/worries-mount-as-syria-lures-wests-muslims.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

[Oceander]

So just keep track of who's going after they return.  Oh wait, my bad, that would be "profiling" wouldn't it.

[EC]

So just keep track of who's going after they return.  Oh wait, my bad, that would be "profiling" wouldn't it.

My first thoughts too. They are self selecting for being watched. A handy tool.

[Oceander]

My first thoughts too. They are self selecting for being watched. A handy tool.

To a rational government, perhaps; to this US government?

[EC]

To a rational government, perhaps; to this US government?

Point taken. 

Though I had a long and instructive talk with a TSA screener once in Houston during his coffee break back in 2011. I got pulled for a secondary check since I carry a couple pounds of metal permanently in my bones.
Nice guy. Ex army, about 50 and cracking jokes and using common sense in the line. They do actually profile - most of the better ones, at least. Sure, they are not supposed to. But as he said (roughly) "A grandma is not exactly a threat. A kid isn't a threat. But the rights lot scream murder if we pick on only the likely targets. What we going to do?"

[Oceander]

Point taken. 

Though I had a long and instructive talk with a TSA screener once in Houston during his coffee break back in 2011. I got pulled for a secondary check since I carry a couple pounds of metal permanently in my bones.
Nice guy. Ex army, about 50 and cracking jokes and using common sense in the line. They do actually profile - most of the better ones, at least. Sure, they are not supposed to. But as he said (roughly) "A grandma is not exactly a threat. A kid isn't a threat. But the rights lot scream murder if we pick on only the likely targets. What we going to do?"

It's the "what are we going to do" part that's the problem.  That puts him perilously close to being a "good German."

[EC]

Yeah. He wasn't exactly fond of it either. Felt the same way about the PC BS and was a little scathing about some of his colleagues.

Still. Remember him fondly and hope he got a better job.

[Oceander]

Yeah. He wasn't exactly fond of it either. Felt the same way about the PC BS and was a little scathing about some of his colleagues.

Still. Remember him fondly and hope he got a better job.

I hope he did too.

[olde north church]

It's the "what are we going to do" part that's the problem.  That puts him perilously close to being a "good German."

(pointing accusingly) Freethinker!

[evadR]

"Only about a dozen Americans have so far gone to fight in Syria, according to American intelligence officials. Nicole Lynn Mansfield, 33, of Flint, Mich., a convert to Islam, was killed in May while in the company of Syrian rebels in Idlib Province."

It's a start.

[Fishrrman]

[[ Worries Mount as Syria Lures West’s Muslims ]]

With a bit of luck, could we persuade them ALL to go there?

[truth_seeker]

The allies denazified Germany following the war's end. Germany, Austria, Italy.

We probably could not do that again.

We've lost common sense to survive, to please political correctness.

[EC]

The allies denazified Germany following the war's end. Germany, Austria, Italy.

We probably could not do that again.

We've lost common sense to survive, to please political correctness.

There weren't that many Nazis, compared to the population as a whole, well documented, and it was agreed that they were a cancer on the face of the Earth. Cleaning them out was comparatively easy, though we did miss many and the cancer has resurged in places. It always does.

I know folk tease me here (frequently) because I maintain that most Muslims are normal people, with normal concerns and normal lives. Yet the fundamentalists are indeed a cancer on society and should be removed without pity.

There are too damned many of them and it seems that almost anything can flick someone from "Just a guy doing his job, what goes to a different church than me" to "murdering scumbag."

[Oceander]

There weren't that many Nazis, compared to the population as a whole, well documented, and it was agreed that they were a cancer on the face of the Earth. Cleaning them out was comparatively easy, though we did miss many and the cancer has resurged in places. It always does.

I know folk tease me here (frequently) because I maintain that most Muslims are normal people, with normal concerns and normal lives. Yet the fundamentalists are indeed a cancer on society and should be removed without pity.

There are too damned many of them and it seems that almost anything can flick someone from "Just a guy doing his job, what goes to a different church than me" to "murdering scumbag."

Most muslims are normal people, with normal concerns and normal lives.  The problem is, of course, the radicals, and possibly also the fact that the muslim religion as a whole appears to be passing through the same sorts of developmental steps Christianity went through, and is now more or less where Christianity was during the crusades.  And lest anyone forget, Christianity was at one time a very "activist" religion in which a radical minority used the immense power of the Church to exact a terrible price from people who didn't toe the right line(s).

[EC]

Most muslims are normal people, with normal concerns and normal lives.  The problem is, of course, the radicals, and possibly also the fact that the muslim religion as a whole appears to be passing through the same sorts of developmental steps Christianity went through, and is now more or less where Christianity was during the crusades.  And lest anyone forget, Christianity was at one time a very "activist" religion in which a radical minority used the immense power of the Church to exact a terrible price from people who didn't toe the right line(s).

I have often thought the same. It isn't a mirror image, obviously, but the stages seem to be incredibly similar.

[evadR]

Most muslims are normal people, with normal concerns and normal lives.  The problem is, of course, the radicals, and possibly also the fact that the muslim religion as a whole appears to be passing through the same sorts of developmental steps Christianity went through, and is now more or less where Christianity was during the crusades.  And lest anyone forget, Christianity was at one time a very "activist" religion in which a radical minority used the immense power of the Church to exact a terrible price from people who didn't toe the right line(s).

I guess that depends on your definition of normal.
In America, maybe.
In the middle east, I don't see normality, unless the definition of normality is "whatever the majority is".
In Europe, somewhere between radicalized and normal.
The bottom line is there are tens of millions of crazy assed muslims that use their religion as an excuse to attack and kill us...and that's all I need to know.

[Fishrrman]

[[ Most muslims are normal people, with normal concerns and normal lives... ]]

The only problem is that as muslims they are adherents to islam, a totalitarian political system which disguises itself as a "religion".

They are nearly ALL "soldiers of islam" -- with the majority not being "on active duty".

And they nearly ALL "support the troops".

Could it not also be said that most Germans also were "normal people, with normal concerns and normal lives" during the Third Reich?