Today, the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) launched the new report Western
Foreign Fighters and the Yazidi Genocide, authored by London-based CEP Stra


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CEP Launches Report Highlighting Role of Western Foreign Fighters in Yazidi
Genocide

 

(New York, N.Y. / London) – Today, the Counter Extremism Project (CEP)
launched the new reportWestern Foreign Fighters and the Yazidi Genocide,
authored by London-based CEP Strategic Advisor Liam Duffy.

 

Using archived social media activity, interviews with captured or stranded
foreign fighters, and first-hand testimonies from survivors of ISIS captivity,
the report collates evidence of Western foreign fighters’ extensive involvement
in the atrocities committed by ISIS against Iraq’s marginalized Yazidi minority.

 

The report outlines how the Yazidi people were deliberately targeted by ISIS.
More than 3,000 Yazidis are thought to have been killed in the initial assault
by ISIS, many in mass executions. Almost 7,000 Yazidi women and children were
systematically kidnapped and enslaved.

 

Of the 67 genocide survivors interviewed for this paper, almost all had come
into contact with foreign ISIS recruits in captivity, with half encountering
fighters from Europe, North America, Australia, or New Zealand. Several
respondents were personally abused or assaulted by Western recruits.

 

Liam Duffy, strategic advisor to CEP outlined the purpose of the paper: “As
the fate of hundreds of their own citizens who joined ISIS remains in the
balance in Northern Syria, Western governments must investigate whether crimes
against humanity were committed by these recruits, as well as those who have
already returned to no sanction. As this paper shows, involvement by Westerners
in the sexual enslavement of Yazidi women and girls was widespread, yet so far,
no one has been made to answer for these atrocities. It is a moral and legal
imperative that states committed to justice and the rule of law pursue
accountability for the Yazidi genocide, starting with their own citizens.”

 

Despite the widespread involvement of Westerners in the genocide exemplified
by this report, only Germany has brought a handful of charges against Western
homegrown recruits. Many Western ISIS recruits have even returned to their home
countries to continue to live as civilians.

 

David Ibsen, executive director for CEP, said: “The West has a responsibility
both to its citizens and to the Yazidi people, to hold these foreign fighters
accountable for their heinous actions. From both a human rights and national
security perspective, it is imperative that investigations are led into both
returnees and nationals stranded overseas for the crimes committed.”

 

The report was introduced today at a webinar, with award-winning historian,
author, and broadcaster Tom Holland and President of Yazda Haider Elias.

 

To read the report Western Foreign Fighters and the Yazidi Genocide click here
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