The primary factors driving Syrian youths toward extremist groups are deprivation and personal trauma stemming from five years of civil war in the country, according to a report from International Alert, a British organization. Titled “Why Young Syrians Choose to Fight,” the report is based on interviews with 311 Syrians living in northern Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey.
The prime drivers for extremism were personal experiences of trauma, loss of economic and educational opportunities, and a desire for vengeance against the Syrian government, according to the British NGO. The Syrian respondents said these practical factors, rather than ideological beliefs, led many young men to support groups like Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State.
With unemployment reaching 90 percent in some areas of the country and no end in sight to the conflict, many of those interviewed said that a simple need to survive drove many youths to join with militants, whether they agreed with their ideology or not. “The economic situation for young men, inside Syria, is bad,” said one respondent living in the Syrian province of Idlib. “They are only able to survive by joining a military faction either to receive salaries or for robbery and waylaying.”
Another individual interviewed for the report, issued earlier this month, told the story of an 18-year-old who had been fighting with a Free Syrian Army unit that was unable to even maintain a supply of bullets. Despite disagreeing with the group’s ideology, the young man later joined Jabhat al-Nusra after it offered him bullets as well as a salary to continue fighting the government.
The civil war that started in 2011 following a government crackdown on peaceful protests has now claimed up to 470,000 lives, according to some estimates. Out of a pre-war population of 22 million, over 11 percent of the Syrian population is now believed to have been killed or injured. Average life expectancy has plummeted from 75 to 55 years. Millions more Syrians have become refugees in neighboring countries or in Europe.
These staggering numbers have left few Syrian families untouched, and have had a profound psychological impact on those left behind. Many of those interviewed in the report said that a desire to avenge atrocities drives many Syrian youth into the arms of extremists, particularly Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al Qaeda. Established by al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri after the 2011 uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Jabhat al-Nusra is widely viewed as one of the most effective fighting forces on the ground against Assad’s regime.
“Many Syrians want to get revenge against the regime for destroying their families, houses, lives and everything else,” one Syrian, now living in Turkey, told the researchers. “Jabhat al-Nusra actually fights the regime and now offers the best chance to get that revenge.”
Syrians interviewed overwhelmingly cited practical rather than ideological reasons for joining militant groups. “Belief in extreme ideologies appears to be — at most — a secondary factor in the decision to join an extremist group,” the study stated, noting that “religion is providing a moral medium for coping and justification for fighting, rather than a basis for rigid and extreme ideologies.”
Many young Syrians cited religious belief as something that obligated them to “defend their country” and “defend oppressed people” from the Syrian government. A young man in Aleppo told researchers that Syrian youths also became more religious after experiencing abandonment by other Arab and Islamic countries, as well as the sectarian policies of the Assad regime. Simple existential fear also led to increasing religious conservatism, he added: “Because of the ongoing shelling, youth became more religious for fear of sudden death.”
Amarnath Amarasingam, a fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, says the study’s findings comport with his own research. “Many Syrians have told me that the conflict is in many ways all-consuming, so if these youth want a future inside Syria, to go to school again without interruptions, build a family, and so on, it means contributing to bringing the war to an end,” he says. The spirit that animated the 2011 uprising against Assad still motivates many young Syrians, Amarasingam says, adding that a desire for political change among youth has increased after years of government brutality.
But for many others, taking up arms has been a matter of simple survival. “Our focus on jihadism means that we tend to ignore the many other youth who, out of sheer necessity, picked up a weapon to protect their villages from bombs dropping from the sky,” Amarasingam says. “I’m not sure what else we expect them to do at this point.”
Top photo: A Syrian man holds the body of his son, killed by the Syrian Army, near Dar El Shifa hospital in Aleppo on Oct. 3, 2012.
I expected the anti-Asad (Iran) article by the picture depicting a child killed by the Syrian government.
I expected an article written by a typical Sunni with terroristic mentality, like all Sunnis, to be anti Assad (Iran).
With that expectation I did click on the article to read it.
But………I just couldn’t get past the second paragraph that quickly quoted a farcical organization, in Britain, as its “credible” source going for Assad’s hind right away.
So………what are we to learn from BS articles like this? That all Sunnis are not self-righteous and misguided, but all terrorists are Sunnis.
Nice job weaving anti-Assad propaganda into the article.
Of course. Simply agreeing with the title as it sums it up perfectly. This is how terrorism and hatred is created. Its part of psychological warfare…
Its surprising to me that there even has to be a study about this. Syrians are human beings. Who responds to living in conditions of war with calm and reason especially as defined by people who aren’t living in war?
You put any ethnic or religious group in that environment (lets not forget 90% unemployment ) and you’re going to find people who do the same thing.
A study was needed ’cause of the lack of empathy of those in front of bright screens or relaxing in recliners. Most of those can only imagine the need to fight for the remote, why fight for anything else?
Says who? Have they ever been depicted by Western media as such? What could you possibly be talking about?
As far as I know the only ones we let pass as human beings somewhat would be Malala Yousafzai and Shyima “Hall” because they are the only ones who serve well their roles as circus monkeys for our “white man burden”, “let’s feel good about ourselves” theatre.
RCL
This has become a tired thesis, that Islakic terror groups like Al-Qaeda and affiliates have grown because of economic and other non-religious factors. This is a simplistic view, given that the youth are specifically choosing takfiri groups through which to express their political ambitions. Why not leftist, nationalist, or other expressions? Those have no meaningful presence on the ground in Syria, because the main factor in this war is Sunni extremism, an ideological cause. It is not the poor and the oppressed against the evil Alawites. It is extremist Sunni Arabs against literally every other ethnic and religious group in the country.
“Why not leftist, nationalist, or other expressions?”
Because they aren’t present and aren’t consistent with the culture the young people have grown up in.
The fact that you even ask the question demonstrates that you (1) don’t have the tiniest clue and (2) aren’t very good at simple reasoning.
Not sure where your grandiose hostility is coming from. I used to live in Syria and indeed there has historically been a strong legacy of secular and leftist political consciousness. But please, tell me what you know about Syria, Doug.
I feel like I am taking crazy pills. Certainly there are cultural issues that need to be addressed in the region, but those issues are directly related to destabilizing violence that we have been perpetuating for decades. If we really cared about spreading peace and democracy to the region, we would have had no reason to overthrow Mosaddegh in 1954. If we haven’t learned our lesson yet, I don’t see much hope for the future. The internet is still young though. Let’s hope more people decide to learn what was never taught in history class.
Unfortunately the US (and others) have played a major role in destabilizing the Mid east since early in the 20th century. As a history teacher I make sure those points such as Iran in ’54 are talked about and learned by my students. If we do not understand or know about the past we have no chance in our present nor the future.
To Danny and Andrew C:
Your point about the significance of the US aiding in the overthrowing Mosaddegh in 1954 is crucial in understanding the current mess in the Middle East. Who knows that if we let such a developing democracy free to find its way the people of Iran may have had a much truer form of democracy than the one we have lost here in the US.
When one of the Talk Radio hosts sycophants to the war mongers are faced with this question they simply ignorantly say that was then this is now.
1976: LIBERALS ARE SOFT ON COMMUNISM
2016: LIBERALS ARE SOFT ON SYRIANS
Maybe Syria will just collapse and go away like Communism did. Oh, wait…
1986 REPUBLICANS SELL ARMS TO IRAN, IMPORT COCAINE TO AMERICA
2002 REPUBLICANS GO NUTS IN IRAQ, ILLEGAL INVASION, FRAUD
got a point?
Nah man.
It’s the religion.
Sam Harris told me on the Bill Maher show.
No shit, sherlock.
This surprises no one with a brain, hence why I expect my wife and me to be the only people amongst 350,000 at the Indy 500 in two weeks who will not be standing during the National Anthem, removing our hats, and screaming “land of the free” while a Pentagram propaganda winged machine of death roars overhead. I will get a little misty-eyed ten minutes later while standing and mumbling “Back Home Again in Indiana”, though. Indiana itself has not attacked anyone since the Civil War.
Yea but it sure help elect the democrats and republicans that did. We all hold a degree of responsibility and disrespecting the national anthem does not absolve you of yours.
I don’t vote; it gives consent to the system. The national anthem was composed after the US invaded Canada. It is a fitting ode to the warrior empire.
“. . . after the US invaded Canada.”
In the War of 1812, which war, insofar as US involvement was concerned, was voluntary, unnecessary and aggressive.