Choosing battles: A cross-case analysis of seven Muslim foreign fighter mobilizations (1980-2014)

Abstract

This study focuses on the conflicts that in the past 35 years have triggered Muslims worldwide to leave their home country and become a so-called foreign fighter. Since 1980, seven conflict zones attracted in total more than 40,000 unpaid combatants with no apparent link to the conflict other than religious affinity with the Muslim side. Partly for this reason, these insurgencies have drawn considerable attention from scholars and media but also from those Islamists leaders who wish to globalize local conflicts and promote the jihadist narrative. However, most seem to ignore the fact that there are huge differences in the number of transnational insurgents who actually joined the fight. Connected conflicts like Afghanistan (1980-1992), Bosnia (1992-1995), Iraq (since 2003) and Syria (since 2011) each attracted several thousands of foreign fighters, whereas other conflicts like Chechnya (1994-2009), Somalia (1993-2014) and Afghanistan after 2001 could not count on more than a few hundred foreign combatants. Some have argued this is merely a coincidence, but no one has so far addressed this issue thoroughly. This study tries to offer a first preliminary explanation by testing five factors that possibly could be relevant to explain why some conflicts attract far more foreign fighters than others.