| RETURN OF FOREIGN FIGHTERS OF THE ISLAMIC STATE: CHALLENGES FOR NATIONAL SECURITY |
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Denis ?aleta, Sara Perkovi? Abstract From 2011, Europe is facing a problem of a large number of its citizens who were leaving to go on foreign battlefields and are joining terrorist groups who have appeared in the conflict in Syria. Foreign fighters were not something new that occurred but it was new to see that many people from different countries, all wanting to join and participate in foreign conflict. People were starting to join different terrorist groups the most notorious and most famous one was a group called the Islamic state. This organization has attracted a large number of people in a short amount of time. Here roots were in al-Qaida, one of the most famous terrorist organization of all time. Not long after the conflict started, first foreign fighters started coming back to their home countries. And even though politicians were happy when foreign fighters started leaving to join IS, because they expected decrease of small crimes, they were not that happy when those same foreign fighters started coming back. The largest wave of returns started in 2013 and continued for next couple of years. When it become known fact that foreign fighters are returning, all eyes were on the politicians who did not have many solutions for this kind of a problem. What to do with returning foreign fighters became main question. This question was not being asked just for the sake of it, but because people started to be scared of returning fighters. And not only that, it became clear that everyone is asking, are returning foreign fighters someone that we should be afraid of? Many more questions emerged. Are foreign fighters more willing to do a terrorist attack of some sort when they return home? Do they represent a security risk for their homeland? These questions are among the ones who will be researched in this paper. Keywords: foreign fighters, terrorism, national security, Islamic state [1] Ph.d. Denis ?aleta, Associate Professor, Institute for Corporative Security Studies, ICS-Ljubljana.
[2] M. Sc. Sara Perkovi?, was student at Faculty of Government and European Studies.
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