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FRANCE’S ATTITUDE TO the killing of its citizens in Syria fighting for the Islamic State group has rarely been as frankly stated as it was in the lead up to the fall of Raqqa.
“We are committed along with our allies to the destruction of Daesh (Islamic State) and we’re doing everything to that end,” Defence Minister Florence Parly told reporters last weekend.
What we want is to go to the end of this combat and of course if jihadists die in the fighting, then I’d say it’s for the best.
French citizens are among the biggest contingent of overseas fighters who have joined IS, with around 1,000 nationals estimated by counter-terror officials to have travelled to Iraq and Syria.
Their return home to a country that has faced the worst of the IS-inspired violence in Europe since 2015 – violence which has claimed 241 lives – has long worried government and intelligence officials in Paris.
Aside from the obvious moral issues, a dead jihadist poses far fewer problems for French and European authorities than a captured one.
First, there are the legal problems associated with a prisoner taken on the battlefield in Iraq or Syria.
Under what jurisdiction should he or she be tried? And for what crimes? In Iraq, for example, they could face the death penalty, which the European Union and member states officially oppose.
Should they be extradited for trial in their home countries then – which requires an extradition treaty? What evidence, collected by whom, would be used in a domestic court?
Furthermore, judges and anti-terror prosecutors are already struggling to cope with the ever-increasing caseload related to extremism across Europe and would be swamped by potentially hundreds of new trials.
Once convicted, the jihadists become a security risk in jail because of the danger that they will radicalise other inmates – already a problem in prisons across Europe.
“There will be negotiations with the countries concerned,” French European lawmaker Arnaud Danjean, the lead author of a recent French strategic military review, told France Inter radio last week.
There’s not only France that is concerned, there’s Belgium, the United States.
‘War brings risks’
A US military official said last week that about 400 Islamic State members including foreign fighters had surrendered in Raqqa as US-backed forces closed in on the city notorious for its atrocities under the rule of the Sunni extremists.
Resistance around a city hospital and stadium was ultimately less than expected as IS forces either gave up or withdrew to the small strip of territory still under the group’s control in neighbouring Deir Ezzor province.
In May, the Wall Street Journal published an investigation that claimed that French special forces had provided a hitlist to Iraqi forces of around 30 men who were “identified as high value targets”.
Asked afterwards to comment, a spokesman for the new government of centrist President Emmanuel Macron did not deny France carried out killings – a policy that was confirmed by previous president Francois Hollande.
“I say to all fighters who join the Islamic State group and then go abroad to wage war: waging war brings risks, and they must accept those risks,” Christophe Castaner told reporters.
Speaking to journalists for a book published last year, Hollande confirmed that he had personally authorised at least four killings of “high value targets” by special forces in what are known as “homicide” operations in France.
Another estimate by the journalist Vincent Nouzille, who wrote a book on the subject, said French forces had killed around 40 nationals during his five-year term.
‘Our aim is to kill them’
As IS jihadists flee Raqqa and face imminent defeat elsewhere in their shrinking ‘caliphate’, the question for the French and other Western governments will be how to deal with the holdouts.
In June, French magazine Paris Match also published a report quoting Iraqi officials around the city of Mosul before it was recaptured by US and French-backed forces.
Abdelghani al-Assadi, a top commander in the Counter-Terrorism Service, said the Iraqis had an understanding with France that they would mop up the jihadists to prevent them from returning home.
“We will prevent as much as possible any French person leaving Mosul alive,” he was quoted as saying.
Our aim is to kill them so that no one from Daesh can flee.
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I see nothing wrong with that. Good on Macron
@Nick Allen: In stark contrast to Sweden, giving new identities, houses and benefits to ISIS fighters who have returned from Syria and Iraq. Any wonder it’s ruined.
@Nick Allen: Europe needs to close it’s doors on anyone affiliated with Isis. Let them be dealt with by Syrian authorities. They did the crimes over there. Death penalty for them all
@Michael Geraghty: the majority of those coming to Europe from the Middle East, Africa and Asia have no identification papers. There is no way of knowing whether they are affiliated with ISIS, Al qaeda, Boko Harem, or any of the other multiple extremest groups from those regions.
@JimmyMc: Sweden has the very low crime rate and a better standard of living than most EU countries. we should be copying them instead of criticising them.
@Sean Conway: They used to. Not anymore. Hence the comments.
@JimmyMc: It’s called progress?
Finally, some common sense…
@Shayno O’Donnchadha: surely with Isis now finished the ideology no longer has the power it did a few years ago when they had a “calibrate” and Syrian army almost defeated. They were defeated by a collaboration of Muslim and Christian forces, so that is the template for the future. I think Islamic extremism has peaked and Muslim countries will regard this as a very dark period not to be repeated. Therefore I think there will be a big opening up and secularization gradually of Muslim countries. The hard line religious authoritarian states like Iran and Saudi will also open up, they have to. We are already seeing the start of this, in Tunisia and even Saudi
I think the majority of decent humans would agree the best condition for any religious fundamentalist to be in is dead.
@John Shea Hen: Only the violent ones. People can have fundamentalist views and live peacefully. It’s the violence that causes the problem not the religion. We must keep that distinction.
@VladosHat:
Better safe than sorry
@John Shea Hen: Spot the self loathing western white middle class apologist. No John they’re not all the same and it’s not racist or sectarian to say so.
@kevin: You sound like a Christian fundamentalist.
They signed on for it as Trump put it
The ‘Irish’ jihadis would be guesting on the Late Late Show with the full support of our dissembling media.
@Deano Cracow:
Always wondered about the Mohammad Tubridy bloke
Even if they return home they have committed treason by fighting against their country of origin. So traditional penalty for treason is death. Problem solved
Just looking at Sky News as they unearth the prison of death in the Raqqa football stadium. Stomach churning ! I know what I would do with any IS follower !
@Terry Cahill: But it’s what Allah wanted , living the way of Mohammed . Butchers hiding in wolves clothing .
What a heading…sure let’s give them red carpet treatment.
over here they’ll put them on the late late show a week after they get back…
and if any are imprisoned the government would petition for there release!!!!!
Why would jihadists even think that they had any right to come to their country of birth. They made their bed so now they can lie on it.They did not show any compassion for the people they were murdering and terrorizing.
Muslim supremacists are, ….Muslim supremacists. We need to increase our armed forces for the inevitable.
@Tom Newnewman: “We need to increase our armed forces for the inevitable.” What’s the inevitable Tom? Do tell . . .
@Neil Mcdonough:
Deafness claims?
@Neil Mcdonough: The apartheid regime that exists in countries that islam has infested , that’s the ”inevitable” if we follow the way of EVERY OTHER COUNTRY that has allowed islam to take a toe hold .
@Paddy Hayden: Sure Paddy, are you drunk or what? It’s a bit early . . .
@Neil Mcdonough: unfortunately snowflake, Paddy is right
@Neil Mcdonough: The last bastion eh? No argument, so attack the messenger.
@Neil Mcdonough: ”are you drunk or what? It’s a bit early ” that depends on what part of the world you live in , I live in the real part , you obviously don’t .
@Gus Sheridan: Yeah Gus, sure, the scaremongering doomsayers are the real warriors eh? I don’t think you know what snowflake means . . .
@Father Hody Commody: Then you’re assuming that Paddy’s comment merited an argument, which it didn’t.
@Tom Newnewman: you’re right in principle, but more than that, need to increase military and police intelligence departments, at the moment these departments are stretched to the maximum, having to use help from uk, French and Italian secret service.
its absolutely astonishing how ignorant some people are about the situation..
just because there’s not a bomb going off or it’s not in the Irish times the word scare mongering is used..
I’ve close relative who is working in the field, has been for 14 year’s and he said it’s worse than its ever been and working 7 days a week at it…
Those ISIS members who need to come home now are innocent victims of western aggression. What could they do? When bombs were falling on them? They should all be brought home to France as heroes who were brainwashed by some ideology or something. Large houses, fat pensions after their foray into the Middle East. We deserve it after all… we deserve it cause our great grandfathers did some bad things over there… and we need workers for our aging society (unemployment will soon be a thing of the past) and like they had it tough growing up in a western liberal democracy.
@Christine o’donnell:
Waste of time trying to reprogram them
Relocate them all , their supporters and sympathisers to Yemen the sphincter of the Middle East
@Christine o’donnell: I know you were being sarcastic , but Sweden is actually following that path .
Rightly so
Give them what they wish for a glorious martyrdom,
Democracy is great embras it.
These guys don’t need punishment. They need gunishment.
Shuold be an automatic death sentence for anyone who joins ISIS. Preferably by way of one bullet. Cheap and easy.
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