Prisoner Releases Will Empower Extremist Insurgencies

By Eva Kahan, Rahma Bayrakdar, & Omer Niazi | Published in the Institute for the Study of War and the American Enterprise Institutes' (AEI) Critial Threats Project

Key Takeaway: Large-scale prisoner releases and escapes will invigorate the global Salafi-jihadi movement at a time when it has ample opportunity to expand. Recent prisoner exchanges, escapes, and mass releases are returning thousands of insurgents to battlefields in West Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia and will accelerate the growth of several insurgencies.

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Global counterterrorism efforts are receding. The US is planning drawdowns from Afghanistan under the US-Taliban deal and from the counter–Islamic State in Iraq and the Sham (ISIS) mission in Iraq. The US footprint in the Sahel, which enables a French-led counterterrorism mission, may be removed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also challenged extant counterterrorism missions. The downsizing of counterterrorism missions is pulling already limited support from local forces and governments that are responsible for detainees and lack sufficient long-term detention infrastructure and effective de-radicalization programs.

The US-Taliban deal set conditions for several thousand Taliban fighters to return to the battlefield. In February 2020, the US and Taliban signed an agreement setting conditions for ending the war in Afghanistan and guaranteeing a US drawdown by May 2021. The Afghan government agreed to release 5,000 Taliban members in Afghanistan in exchange for 1,000 government-affiliated detainees during the US-Afghan peace negotiations. The Afghan government released most of the promised Taliban-affiliated detainees, including 400 convicted of serious violent crimes, by August 2020. The Taliban guaranteed that released detainees will abide by the terms of the US-Taliban agreement and support an intra-Afghan cease-fire, but there is no mechanism for the US or the Afghan government to enforce that guarantee. The drawdown of US forces in Afghanistan creates an opportunity for the Taliban to expand and cement its political power just as these experienced fighters return to the battlefield.

The postcoup Malian government released prisoners to an al Qaeda–linked group in exchange for hostages. The Malian government released 180 prisoners to Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wa al Muslimeen (JNIM) on October 8 in exchange for four high-profile hostages. The prisoners released were not exclusively JNIM militants and included other combatants in Mali’s complicated insurgency.

JNIM’s strategy includes forging alliances with nonideologically aligned groups to achieve its ends; securing the release of such groups’ members will raise JNIM’s profile and increase the likelihood of cooperation. Creating alliances with these groups will provide protection and safe havens for JNIM militants. The release of JNIM militants will also strengthen the group directly.

The US-Taliban deal has influenced the handling of the Salafi-jihadi threat in Mali. Ousted Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita directly cited the US-Taliban deal in Afghanistan as a justification for negotiating with JNIM. Other international arbitrators, including UN Secretary-General António Guterres and an African Union commissioner, encouraged negotiations with Salafi-jihadi groups in the Sahel region after the JNIM prisoner exchange, citing the Afghan deal as a successful precedent. Continue reading the full article at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW)

For citation, Use the following reference: Eva Kahan, Rahma Bayrakdar, and Omer Niazi, "Prisoner Releases Will Empower Extremist Insurgencies," Institute for the Study of War, August 19, 2021.

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