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the city of Fallujah by the end of December. By June 2014, this group was able to extend
its reach to the northern city of Mosul, advance south to capture Tikrit, and head towards
Baghdad. With momentum behind them, and Iraq and the international community in
disarray, ISIL designated their seized territory a “Caliphate” and rebranded the group
simply as the “Islamic State”.
As ISIL moved forward, it became increasingly evident that international law was being
violated, with systemic human rights abuses being committed along with the systematic
destruction of cultural heritage. As a result, by August 2014, the US and Britain launched
a humanitarian mission to save thousands of members of the Yazidi religion on Mount
Sinjar in northwest Iraq. This was followed by US airstrikes in Iraq, which were later
expanded to Syria, leading to a renewed round of US intervention in the region. It was
within this context that the EU was forced to re-evaluate its Iraq policy and draw up a wider
regional strategy for Iraq and Syria. A significant part of the European Council’s August
2014 plans included developing more effective means of dealing with the threat posed
by foreign fighters and returnees to Europe from Syria and Iraq. As a result, the EU was
explicitly acknowledging that the crisis in Syria and Iraq was not just a regional problem,
but was spilling over into Europe itself. Indeed, as the European Council made clear, ISIL
presents a “clear threat to our partners in the Middle East, a threat to wider international
security
and to Europe directly”
(European Council, 2015, p. 2).
Evidently, ISIL is undermining stability and security in Iraq and Syria, yet within
Europe’s Southern Neighbourhood, the EU fears that this threat could spill over into
Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey (European Council, 2015, p. 16). More widely in the Middle
East and North Africa (MENA), the threat from Iraq and Syria is becoming evident through
ISIL affiliates and inspired terrorist attacks which have already occurred in Libya, Tunisia,
Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. Indeed, the rise of violent extremism in Libya,
which includes the brutal slaughter of Egyptian Copts, attacks on the Corinthia Hotel, car
bombings in Qubbah, an attack on the Iranian embassy, and a seizure of a critical power
plant, places ISIL perilously close to Europe’s Southern border (Wehrey and Alrababa’h,
2015). Indeed, from occupied cities, such as Sirte and Şabrātah in northern Libya, ISIL
has been able to train jihadists willing to carryout atrocities in North Africa, including for
example an attack on a Tunisian beach in Sousse that saw 38 tourists murdered. As Libyan
jihadists return from Syria and Iraq this problem is clearly intensifying, raising questions
regarding what these trained, combat-experienced and radicalized individuals do within
any post-conflict scenario.
The scale of the direct terrorist threat to the EU, from Syria and Iraq, is by its clandestine
nature unknown. However, fears of foreign fighters entering Europe have been heightened
following the March 2015 attack in the Tunisian Bardo Museum. The attack not only saw
the murder of tourists from Britain, Germany, Poland, Italy and Spain, but a Moroccan-born
suspect in the attack, Abdelmajid Touil, was later arrested in Northern Italy having crossed
the Mediterranean for a second time on a refugee boat (Politi and Saleh, 2015). This case has
led to the increased securitization of Europe’s southern border and Europe’s refugee policy,
due to concern that foreign fighters crossing the Mediterranean could carryout terrorist