Syria’s new rulers say they are keen to integrate foreign fighters

The mandiitishtshtstiphts chicken, a Yemeni dish, in the Emad Eddin restaurant in Idlib is a favourite among . On a recent afternoon, a group of them eat next to a . The diners’ faces and accents are so diverse it might be a restaurant in an airport, were it not for the patrons’ fatigues and automatic weapons.Also eating there is Abu Obeida, a former worker from London who came to Syria in 2013. He and the others are known as —“emigrants”, foreign fighters who came to Syria during its long civil war. In their home countries many are regarded as a threat to national security. The British government revoked Abu Obeida’s citizenship in 2017, alleging that he had links to al-Qaeda.Abu Obaida denies being a fighter. He says he came as a humanitarian worker; for the past seven years he has been teaching English. He is challenging the British government’s decision in court, but is realistic about his chances of being allowed to return. Nor would he necessarily want to. He married a Syrian woman; they have four children. “I dream of going back to see my family for a short trip,” he explains, “but I’d like to stay and become Syrian.”Tens of thousands of foreign fighters were lured to Syria by the radicalism of Islamic State () and its declaration of a caliphate in Iraq and Syria in 2014. Those militants were key to the group’s attempts to launch terrorist attacks on Western states. Today, most are dead or in Kurdish prisons in eastern Syria. But others who joined less radical groups, including Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (), the Islamists now in charge of Syria, focused on fighting Mr Assad and building lives there, rather than international terrorism.Ahmad al-Sharaa, Syria’s de facto new leader, has tried to clamp down on groups with transnational aspirations such as Haras al-Deen, the official al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria. Mr Sharaa’s attitude is “either you abide by our Syria-centred strategy, or you leave, or you face arrest,” explains Thomas Pierret, an expert on Syrian Islamists. “So I think they’ve already got rid of the most problematic people,” he says.Only a few thousand foreign fighters are still active in Idlib, one Western intelligence official estimates. Mr Sharaa insists that those remaining will not be a worry. He may be right. “There’s a track record of them not being involved in any security incidents outside Syria now, especially since the break from al-Qaeda,” says Aaron Zelin of the Washington Institute, a think-tank, who has followed closely.More than that, Mr Sharaa sees Syria’s foreign fighters as an integral part of his country’s struggle. A Turk and a Jordanian are among his closest confidants. He is also said to be fond of the Turkistan Islamic Party (), a group of Uyghur fighters which aims to set up an Islamic state in Xinjiang and other parts of Central Asia, and whose members have proved indispensable on Syria’s battlefield. “These people are part of our revolution. They [foreign countries] have nothing to worry about. We will give them passports. We will Syrian-ise them,” insists an official from .Mr Sharaa’s drive for integration is not unprecedented. Bosnia granted citizenship to hundreds of jihadists who fought for it in the 1990s. “Granting citizenship is not so new; the whole world does it,” says Obayda Amer Ghadban, another researcher of Syrian armed groups. Not everyone is as sanguine. Mr Sharaa’s appointment of several foreigners to key positions in the new defence ministry has alarmed some governments, especially in the Gulf. In the end, the reaction of foreign governments to the foreign fighters in the new Syria may decide their fate. Their continued presence may undermine Syria’s efforts to end its isolation. China is likely to object to the thousands of Uyghur fighters in Syria, while the Egyptian and Jordanian governments are edgy about their nationals being given official posts. If he is serious about rebuilding Syria, Mr Sharaa may have to choose between his foreign fighters and his new friends abroad.