The effects of Assad’s atrocities and the call to foreign fighters to come to Syria on the rise and fall of the ISIS Caliphate

ABSTRACT The present study is a targeted analysis of in-depth interviews of ISIS defectors, returnees, and imprisoned cadres about the motivational effects of the Assad regime’s atrocities against the Syrian people and how they bolstered the calls to foreign fighters to come to Syria. This research question is examined within a larger study of 245 in-depth research interviews of male and female ISIS defectors, returnees, and imprisoned cadres. Many of these ISIS members joined early in the Syrian uprising, responding to calls from ISIS, rebel groups, and the Syrian people themselves to come to their aid. Motivated to travel and join in response to the world’s lack of meaningful remedies to Assad’s atrocities, many voiced their hatred of Assad as a primary factor in their willingness to join ISIS. Therefore, this study examines how ISIS cadres responded to Assad’s atrocities and ISIS’s self-portrayal as the defenders of Syrian Sunni Muslims.