BEYOND SYRIA IRAQ

DAVID POLLOCK
reasoned analysis by Assaf Moghaddam and others suggests potential for IS
to recruit supporters in that wide region may well be nontrivial. Firm conclusions,
though, will have to await further evidence.
But it is in Muslim West Africa that polls show the highest percentages
of popular sympathy for IS, although only a few surveys from a few places
have been reported: in Senegal, 8 percent express support for the group; in
Burkina Faso, 10 percent; and in Nigeria, among the roughly half of the
population who are Muslims, an unsettling 20 percent. The local IS affiliate
in Nigeria, Boko Haram, is notorious for mass atrocities, including kidnapping,
rape, and murder, so that number must give pause. A compelling
explanation for it is beyond the author’s expertise; but an educated guess is
that the deep sectarian cleavage in that country (in this case, Muslim/Christian
instead of Sunni/Shiite) may have something to do with the relatively
high popular appeal of such an extreme movement.
Last and least in this geographical overview, in terms of sheer numbers,
are the Muslim communities of Europe or the Western Hemisphere. Here,
it must first be said that no truly reliable polls are really available, if only
because sampling frames are so indeterminate. No one even knows with any
confidence or precision how many Muslims reside in most of these places.
Still, based on the author’s review of many such purported polls, a very rough
estimate is that the proportion of Muslims harboring some sympathy for IS
may be in the same range in Europe as in Nigeria: as high as 20 percent.
This very soft “statistic” is also quite surprising, yet it seems to have a realworld
reference. The per capita flow of foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) to IS
from various European countries suggests active IS supporters are a higher
proportion of Muslims there than in any other locales. And perhaps not just
in Europe; a recent conference paper pointed out that among the countries
with the very highest ratios of FTFs per capita is tiny Trinidad and Tobago,
with 84 known cases out of barely 1 million people. That island nation shares
this dubious distinction with Kosovo, whose numbers on both counts are in
the same ballpark—but Kosovo’s population, unlike Trinidad and Tobago’s,
is overwhelmingly at least nominally Muslim.
This brief excursion into far-flung Muslim minority communities should
serve as a reminder that the FTF recruitment issue is distinct from that of
local popular support in IS provinces, where IS maintains a physical, territorial
presence. And it is also distinct from the issue of popular support in
neighboring, mostly Muslim, societies that may or may not be ripe for IS
intervention. To take but one striking example, Tunisia has the highest per
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