At the end of his authoritative biography Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, Allan Bullock applied Christopher Wren’s epitaph in St Paul’s cathedral in London: si monumentum requiris, circumspice – if you seek a monument, look around you. This report describes ISIS’ monument – one of bleak misery and destruction, of physical and mental carnage.
It is difficult to avoid cliché in describing what ISIS wrought on the people of northeast Syria: to describe ISIS’ time in the area as a reign of terror is accurate but needs reflection. It is a story of relentless, soul-crushing evil, visited on a people who had done nothing to provoke the nihilistic violence that tore up their lives and communities. Through the victims’ stories and in the analysis of various themes, this account describes the nature of genuine terror lived – not for a matter of days or months, but in some cases, over five years. It is difficult to read them without feeling the heavy weight of inhumanity that expunged the very breath of life in the towns and villages.
It is a story with heroism, bravery, and courage, but also of unfathomable pain, trauma and loss. The fortitude of those who survived detention, and physical and psychological torture, who dared to believe they could emerge from their torment and did so, is a remarkable feat of human resilience. The teachers who risked their lives to continue a healthy education for the children whose lives had been blighted by the poisonous curriculum forced by providing clandestine schooling. The doctors and nurses who sought to offer care in conditions that made even relatively simple tasks dangerous and life threatening. Those who organised or engaged, each in their own way, in acts of resistance, however great or small, against the regressive political and social regime imposed upon them, and often at great risk to their own life and those of their families. In some ways the greatest bravery, when one considers the all-pervading nature of ISIS’ terror, is the resilience and desire of the people to rebuild their lives and try to find again some measure of joy and happiness with their loved ones, their neighbours, and their communities.
This account sought to do three things; to present the story of ISIS in northeast Syria through the eyes of those civilians who experienced it in their daily lives – not through the eyes of soldiers and not through a foreigner’s lens. It sought to present the authentic experience of ordinary civilian men and women, to acknowledge their dignity as human beings – a dignity of which ISIS sought to rob them.
Secondly, the accounts and analyses of this report demonstrate the impact of the years of ISIS terror in the lives of families, towns, and villages. It narrates, in stark terms, the depth of the horrors and the scars it has left on the people. The devastation to the lives of children, the destruction of their education, and the poisoning of their minds in a deliberately designed curriculum presents an obvious and profound challenge.
Likewise, the impact on the mental and physical health of so many, and indeed the mindless tyranny exercised over the medical profession to set back healthcare by decades is also made clear. The degree of deep psycho-social trauma, not least in the extremely high estimation of probable PTSD, is a daily scourge in the lives of many.
The desire of ISIS to treat women and girls as inferior in all ways to men and boys presents a profoundly aggravating aspect to the general terror experienced by the population. The impact this had on both the daily lives and the life chances of half the population is difficult to comprehend. The reverse side of the oppression of women and children was the toxic model of masculinity that permeated the ISIS culture, through the militarisation of males, the exultation of extreme, macho violence, and the glorification of violence to be rewarded in the subjectification of women and girls as sexual rewards and prizes.
The report also addresses the economic aspects of how ISIS operated and the impact that has had on the economy of the region. Even without ISIS the civil conflict had already had a devastating impact on the region; ISIS made that impact truly disastrous, from the destruction of infrastructure and agriculture to the diversion of oil revenues. ISIS aimed to put northeast Syria back towards a seventh century society. It did not manage that, but it has arguably put the economy back at least a hundred years if not much more.
Thirdly, the report sought to offer some modest suggestions to support the meaningful recovery of the region. The expectations of a breakthrough in the frozen conflict in Syria generally are extremely low. The more likely prospect by far is that things will remain as they are as far as relations with Damascus are concerned and in the geopolitical interests in the region. This puts in stark relief one of the dilemmas facing the international peacemaking and peacebuilding communities today. A war has been ended in respect of ISIS. Yet, beyond running repairs and hand-to-mouth humanitarian assistance, the local economy has not been able to recover. More pointedly, structured, systematic assistance in the other three areas – education, public and mental health, and gender relations – the report has highlighted remain substantially absent. This is not to denigrate the efforts of those seeking to provide aid in these areas, but the analysis indicates that in all relevant areas the nature of that assistance cannot be said to be structural, systematic, or sustainable. Four years after the fall of Baghouz the communities most directly affected by scourge of ISIS remain largely in an abyss of economic crisis, but also without the means to address the legacy of their oppressors.
The plight of the people in northeast Syria serves as a graphic demonstration of the crisis in peacemaking and peacebuilding. Notwithstanding the defeat of an enemy as terrifying and horrific as ISIS, and regardless of the evils visited upon the people there, the international community has remained incapable of concerted and sustainable efforts both to ensure genuine recovery and to prevent return to conflict.
Failure to address the damage that has been done to the society as quickly and as methodically as possible allows the future to be written all too clearly. We will see myriad families struggle with the legacy of psychological and physical trauma, making the prospect of social cohesion ever more difficult and family and social dysfunctionality almost a given. We will see a generation of children scarred, traumatised and in some cases, brainwashed into believing an entirely distorted and alien ideology, with profound ramifications in the longer term.
While the Autonomous Authority is rightly regarded as seriously committed to gender equality, the disastrous regression in the treatment of women and girls under ISIS accompanied by the cult of violently abusive masculinity will take years of concentrated effort to undo. Added into all of this is the reality that most experts believe – ISIS has not entirely disappeared. Sleeper cells, attacks on Ghuweran prison in January 2022, and more recent indications in the summer of 2023 of greater organisation indicate at least the possibilities of a limited re-emergence.
In these circumstances a small number of practical proposals can be made:
- A renewed strategic approach should be adopted to focus on recovery and resilience in the light of the information recounted in this report. A multi-disciplinary task force should be convened by the Autonomous Administration to focus on three areas: mental health and psycho-social support (MHPSS); education; and gender related issues. The task force should be composed primarily of local experts and leaders but also include the contribution of international experts and donors.
- The task force should include and consult with the local agencies that have developed and information on victims, martyrs, survivors, death, loss, and damage. The concerns and the interests of the victims and survivors of ISIS violence should figure prominently in the development of a renewed strategy in the three areas indicated.
- Mental Health and Psycho-Social Support: The persisting crisis of mental health including indications of extremely high levels of PTSD is not surprising but needs to be addressed. The particular phenomena of ISIS’ cruelty and violence from mutilations and torture, public executions and crucifixion, the all-consuming brutality of the attempts to control not only behaviour but thought have left the deepest of scars. The response to it needs to be specific and strategic if the children and adults affected are to have a reasonable chance of building a heathy life in the coming years. Efforts need to focus on restoring a functional core in terms of health infrastructure; counselling and training of health care professionals, and systematic care provision focused especially on best practice for PTSD to adults and children.
- Education: The targeting of the education system was a strategic priority for ISIS and one in which they were successful. The consequences for the communities affected will be generational unless a specific recovery programme is developed to address the challenges of the ISIS legacy. Again, this means ensuring a core infrastructure as well as provision of educational resources. Equally, so many teachers were terrorised or and traumatized that a specific programme that seeks to counsel and restore their capacity may be advisable. Closely connected to the issue of MHPSS, ensuring that schools are restored as fundamental safe havens for learning and development is crucial for the potential recovery of the region, for building resilience, and indeed restoring values of tolerance and reconciliation.
- Women and girls: The impact of ISIS on women and girls needs to be assessed and addressed. Reports, testimonies, and collective meetings indicated that, especially in rural areas, the role of women and girls remains in need of attention. Likewise, while all parts of society – women, men, girls and boys – were terrorised and traumatised by ISIS as well as impacted by ISIS’ oppressive approach to gender expression and roles, the particular focus on dehumanising women and girls requires a focused a strategic response to those practices and phenomena. At the same time a detailed approach to detoxifying the cult of violently abusive masculinity is also necessary.
- The missing: there remain large numbers of people unaccounted for as a result of the ISIS occupation throughout the region. Likewise, there are many unidentified graves. The authorities should develop a supported strategy to account for as many of the missing as possible, locate their whereabouts where possible, and provide the appropriate support to survivors.
- Justice: This report is not conceived as a substitute for accountability efforts. In the aftermath of mass atrocities, it has been widely accepted, especially by western states, that justice and accountability are core values necessary to vindicate the rights and dignity of victims, and to confirm the social values that have been so profoundly attacked. Political circumstances in northeast Syria and in the countries of origin of ISIS fighters have so far made it impossible for a credible and concerted effort to see those most responsible for crimes in northeast Syria brought to justice. While the Autonomous Administration has indicated its willingness to prosecute some of those under its jurisdiction, it lacks the infrastructure but more importantly the probable recognition of any convictions in foreign countries. The large number of male detainees represents a drain and a threat. To demonstrate that the values of justice and accountability are considered universal, especially in the light of particularly egregious acts, the governments of those detained should engage with Autonomous Administration to resolve this impasse, facilitate at least a limited number of trials for those most responsible for serious crimes, and come to an agreement on recognition of convictions and locations for imprisonment.
- Al-Hol camp: The legacy of ISIS is most vivid in the camps in northeast Syria, in particular al-Hol camp, where tens of thousands of people, primarily women, girls, and boys have been held since the fall of the ‘caliphate’. With regular acts of violence and exploitation occurring there, as well as continued agitation by remaining ISIS supporters, the camps remain both a humanitarian catastrophe and a profound security threat. Efforts should be continued and expedited to support returns of those in the camps wherever possible.