Sebahate J. Shala
In his address to the UN General Assembly last week, the Turkey Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu raised the issue of foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq, the number of which according to the UN figures, has reached at 25,000, involving over 100 countries. (www.gadebate.un.org/70/turkey) Approximately 4,000 come from Western Europe (Brooking Doha Center, 2015:1). Amongs them, 232 Kosovars or 125 foreign fighters per capita for every 1 million citizens making Kosovo the eighth ranked among the twenty-two Western states with the highest per capita participation followed by Bosnia with 85, Belgium with 42, and Albania with 30 cases of foreign fighters (KCSS, 2015). About 500 German citizens meanwhile are supposed to be among the top commanders of ISIS militants (http://www.rferl.org/contentinfographics/foreign-fighters-syria-iraq-is-isis-isil-infographic/26584940.html).
Foreign fighters, defined by Malet of the University of Melbourne, as “non-citizens of conflict states who join insurgencies during civil conflicts”, have been involved in at least 70 of more than 330 civil wars occurred in the past 200 years. The phenomenon is known since the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) where some 35,000- 50,000 foreign nationals joined the conflict. It then continued in Afghanistan during the 1970s-1980s–the so-called “Brigade of Strangers” was created by Azaam (later became Al Qaeda) to fight the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan (ABC July, 2015). Currently, ISIS presents one of the largest terrorist organizations consisting of foreign fighters who come from different parts of the world. Kosovo does not represent an exception. Motivations are various, amongst them the introducing of the Takfir extremist ideology by most of the Albanian imams from Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo since 2000, is said to have had a strong impact to pulling young Kosovars towards violent extremism in Syria (Kosovar Center for Security Studies, 2015:9).
Now, the question is how to tackle the problem of foreign fighters, and what solutions remain on the table? Foreign fighters can either stay in the country they have fought and peacefully reintegrated or engage in terrorist activity; they can return to their native country and peacefully reintegrated or engage in terrorist activities, or they can go to the non-Western countries and peacefully reintegrated, engage in terrorist activities in non-conflict environment, or fight in other conflicts (ICCT, 2014:10). Amnesty should also be considered as the option to reintegrate ex-combatants, like Rwanda has been doing, except for those who have committed crime against humanity.
Some of the EU countries have taken various measures of tackling the problem of foreign fighters, such as by stripping citizenship to citizens with double nationality and giving green light for stripping citizenship of naturalized ones applied by Britain and Austria; by criminalizing them like Germany (Bogdanovski, 2014:4); or by providing comprehensive reintegration policies through offering rehabilitation services, job training, and psychological services, like Denmark (ABC, July 2015).
Kosovo as all other Western Balkans countries has chosen to criminalize its citizens fighting in Syria and Iraq. Authorities have arrested more than 80 persons; most of them were released or are under house arrest under suspicions of being involved in terrorist actions or organizations (KCSS, 2015:1). In addition, in March, Parliament adopted the Law on the Prohibition of Joining Armed Conflicts outside State Territory that calls to punish participation in foreign conflicts with up to 15 years in jail (Kosovo Assembly, March 2015). In Albania, the penalty is up to 10 years, while in Macedonian 4 and 5 years jail sentence as a minimum (Bogdanovski, 2014:2).
Although, the law has been widely accepted by Kosovo society, and no critics have been raised so far, it is not a “cure” to the problem. Criminalization instead of reintegration may produce negative effects for fighters as well as their families. Amnesty, on the other hand is problematic considering that we are dealing with persons who are engaged in terror, and alleged to have committed war crimes.
What Kosovo should do is to address the root causes of problem. In addition, it should launch a comprehensive reintegration policy by providing psychological treatment, counseling services, proper education and jobs for the returning fighters and associates. Further, a systematic control should be made in order to control and monitor them, since as Hegghammer suggests, an average 1 out of 9 foreign fighters returning home from fighting in Syria can become threat to the countries from the region as a result of psychological trauma (Bogdanovski, 2014:1-2). In fact, several times the so-called Kosovo jihadists have threatened to commit terrorist attacks in Kosovo, like one in Prizren last year during the Documentary Film Festival which every year gathers producers from across the world.
WAR AND PEACE 
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