Since the territorial fall of Daesh in 2017-2018, a total illusion has gradually taken hold in Europe: that according to which the military defeat of the “caliphate” would have resolved the jihadist problem. European states finally seized the jihadist threat after the attacks in Paris and Brussels only to ease the reins after the capture of Racca. A long debate then took place in public opinion in Europe to know whether or not we should repatriate “our jihadists”. Many considered that they had made the fatal error of joining the ranks of jihadist fighters and that our security would now be better ensured by keeping them at bay even if they were French.
I already said it in 2017, then again in 2018, in several columns and analyzes published in France and Belgium: Daesh was not a “State” like the others, and its geographical disappearance in no way meant the disappearance of its ideology, its networks or its fighters. On the contrary, it marked the beginning of a new phase, more diffuse, more underground and potentially even more dangerous. And for that, it was better to keep an eye on the madmen of God who had gone to Syria and Iraq, by repatriating them to bring their cases to justice. They were French and would seek at one point or another to turn against the country where they were born. This was the case of all the terrorists of the Abaaoud network who committed the attacks in Paris and Brussels.
The real blind spot: those who stayed behind
Between 2012 and 2017, Syria and Iraq acted like a gigantic magnet. I recalled in 2017 that the Syrian jihad was not only a local war, but a global catalytic phenomenon of social misery, identity distress and ideological manipulation in the abandoned suburbs of France, mosques, families, and the internet. Thousands of young people from the Maghreb and Europe were lured by this promise of meaning and revenge through skillful recruiters. Tunisians, Moroccans, Libyans, but also French, Belgians, British and Germans have flocked to areas controlled by Daesh, swelling its ranks well beyond what Western services had anticipated.
“The camps have become frightening new pockets of radicalization”
France paid a particularly heavy price. Around 1,700 French nationals have reached Syria and Iraq. Several hundred died in the area. But from 2018, I insisted on a point that was largely underestimated at the time: the heart of the problem was no longer to be found in the returns, but in those who remained there, captured by Kurdish forces without a clear judicial framework, without prospect of trial and without a coordinated international strategy.
Since the fall of Raqqa, thousands of foreign fighters, their wives and especially their children have been grouped together in camps like al-Hol or al-Roj or detained in improvised prisons in northeastern Syria. While we preferred to sweep the dust under the carpet in Europe, I continued to warn about the profoundly illusory nature of this solution through distance, something of the order of “out of sight, out of mind” and our concerns. It was a mistake.
Radicalization incubators
These camps are neither secure prisons nor deradicalization centers. At some point, we would let go of the Kurds who did the dirty work for more than seven years. These pockets have become frightening new zones of radicalization, so much so that many consider that Daesh survived precisely through these camps. They were extreme ideological zones, where Daesh continued to exist in social, cultural and mental form. The ideology circulated violently there again and again, sometimes hardened, and was transmitted on a daily basis.
Children constitute the most explosive dimension of this time bomb. Many of them, born locally to French parents, whose parents are surely dead, will be perfect human bombs that the recruiters will turn against France with the following well-hammered mantra: “You see clearly that France is not your country, it has abandoned you! ». An entire generation grew up in a world of violence, hatred and a total break with all European social norms. Many of these children have only known Daesh, captivity and indoctrination. Thinking that time would solve the problem is a major strategic error. Today, with the liberation of the camps, many will find themselves released into the wild. We can doubt that the current Syrian state will turn against them, when we know where the first of them comes from, the transitional president, Ahmed al-Charaa, a “former” jihadist converted into a political leader acceptable to the international community.
A post-war Syria conducive to the reconstitution of networks
In this new fragmented, impoverished and militarized Syria, securing the camps was no longer a lasting strategic priority. We have just put hundreds of seasoned profiles back into circulation. Not necessarily to return immediately to Europe, but to rebuild networks, sectors and capacities for action. Because contemporary jihadism works in a network, by capillarity, and not by territorial conquest.
Europe is all the more exposed as it has already demonstrated its vulnerabilities. The attacks in Paris and Brussels showed how fighters passing through Syria could exploit migratory routes, criminal networks and gaps in European judicial cooperation. There is no indication that these flaws have disappeared. On the contrary, security fatigue, political polarization and the saturation of intelligence services today make Europe more fragile than it wants to admit.
For years, Europe has chosen to push the problem out of its immediate political sphere. This avoidance strategy is now reaching its limits. Either it finally assumes a coordinated response, based on justice, strict security monitoring and prevention on its soil, or it accepts the risk of an uncontrolled return of this threat. Continuing to do nothing, as I wrote more than seven years ago, is not preserving peace. It’s preparing for the next crisis.
*Sébastien Boussois is a doctor in political science, media consultant, researcher in international relations associated with the CNAM Paris (Defense Security Team) and the Geostrategic Observatory of Geneva (Switzerland) and director of the European Geopolitical Institute (IGE).
