“Jordanian jihadists and the collapse of the ISIS state” .. a new publication by researchers Abu Rumman and clinics

Amman - 

A field study on the so-called "Islamic jihadist currents in Jordan" concluded that the collapse of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant led to differences between the "jihadist" currents between the ideologists of the organization and other Islamic currents such as Al-Qaeda and Hay'at Tahrir Al-Sham.

The study, prepared by the Director of the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan, Zaid Eyadat, and the researcher at the Center, Muhammad Abu Rumman, recommended the importance of “distinguishing between ages and levels in engaging with jihadist currents, setting clear protocols for the pre-prison stage, when they are sent to the judiciary, and reviewing the prison and post-prison stages, And not to promote people’s penetration of these currents, and to put exit signals at each of the stages, with the need to include civil society and its effective and strong integration in the policies of combating extremism and terrorism in its various stages.”

Database

The study on "Jordanian jihadist movement after the collapse of the state of ISIS" came in a book issued by the Studies Center entitled "Jordanian Jihadists and the collapse of the state of ISIS... Dynamics of extremism, terrorism and counter-politics", which was launched a few days ago.

The book included - according to the researchers - a detailed and detailed field study of hundreds of cases of jihadists, and the number of cases dealt with in the book was about 330, in addition to the nearly 800 cases included in the center's previous book entitled "The Psychology of Extremism and Terrorism in Jordan", until the center now owns a database On Jordanian jihadists, it includes data on more than 1,100 cases, and it may represent the largest scientific and research database in the Arab world, and it is the result of a years-long effort by the Studies Center researchers in this field.

Researchers Muhammad Abu Rumman (right) and Zaid Clinics (center) at the University of Jordan (Al-Jazeera)

The purpose of the book

Through the book, the researchers sought answers to an important set of questions related to:

Researcher Eyadat believes that the success of the international coalition in dismantling the state of the Islamic State and ending this political phenomenon does not mean that “the regional threat that the organization poses to the Jordanian national security has collapsed or disappeared altogether, and most importantly, the transformations produced by the organization in the characteristics and patterns of the Jordanian jihadist movement. The levels of its spread and its rise are still present in the Jordanian case, whether in terms of human legacy or the movement that believes in the ideas of the organization and adopts them, or ideology, or those returning from prisons who received punishments related to their relations with this ideology and agenda of the movement.

 The most dangerous results

According to researcher Abu Rumman, the most dangerous aspect of the book is “the societal and cultural features related to supporters and supporters of the ideology of the Islamic State in Jordan, after it represented a new global jihadist trend that attracted tens of thousands of supporters, including thousands of Jordanians.”

The results of the study show, through statistical analysis, the danger of “consecrating the family pattern in jihadist issues,” meaning the noticeable impact of kinship ties, especially the phenomenon of jihadist brothers and sisters, and the generational dimension in the family represented by the father, son, grandson, and so on, and the “terrifying presence of juveniles (young) of their ages. Under the age of 18 is among the cases before the Military State Security Court, as the number has become remarkable and large, until there are organizations called juvenile organizations.

The book "Jordanian Jihadists and the Collapse of ISIS" was published in Arabic and English (Al-Jazeera)

The study points to the "heavy presence of university students on state security issues, especially engineering students and the educated class, and the limited and small percentage of the influence of the unemployment factor and indicators of the clear presence of the two groups of teachers and imams of mosques."

As for socially and geographically, it seemed that the presence in the Palestinian refugee camps and the surrounding areas is more evident than the previous stage.

ISIS social club

The book spoke in depth about the concept of the "social club" of jihadists, represented by the relations of friendship, neighborhood and kinship, which play a major role in recruitment and influence, bearing in mind that "the majority of the new generation of Jordanian jihadists are closer to the ideology of ISIS in a concrete and clear way."

The two researchers conclude their books by saying that “the impact of the military defeat and collapse of the state of ISIS in Iraq and Syria was not on the same degree as the impact on all ISIS militants, some of them decided to withdraw from the scene, others remained silent, some of them disappeared, and some of them insisted on his ideological positions.

But the end result - according to the study - is that the movement in general "is under siege and pressure, part of it is still abroad, another was killed, a third imprisoned on the background of terrorism cases, and a fourth is under strict security supervision, which makes it in a state of stagnation, calm, anticipation and waiting." .