Month: January 2017

Russians have largely greeted Donald Trump’s ascendancy to the White House with high hopes for a new era of improved relations with the United States. And judging by this week’s reaction, the first telephone call between Presidents Trump and Putin has done nothing to diminish those expectations.

In his influential weekly news program Vesti Nedeli, anchor Dmitry Kiselev praised the 45-minute conversation as the “most awaited phone call on Earth.”

“Donald Trump is fulfilling his election promises and getting rid of Obama’s pathetic legacy,” Kiselev said during the broadcast.

Kremlin officials have been more circumspect, if only slightly.  

On Monday, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the conversation as “constructive” with both men showing a desire to resolve “complex issues through dialogue.”

Peskov said such cooperation was not possible under the Obama administration, with whom the Kremlin sparred bitterly over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, military support for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, and allegations of interference in the U.S. presidential election, among other issues.

Indeed, following the phone call, statements from both the Kremlin and White House stressed a desire to find common ground.

Sanctions relief?

The Kremlin said the leaders expressed an interest in closer cooperation in fighting Islamic State terrorists, as well as dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Iran nuclear deal, and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. There was no indication that the presidents discussed the charges that Russia tried to interfere with the U.S. election.

Nor do the two appear to have discussed Western sanctions over Russia’s actions in Ukraine, although the tone of the call fed into speculation that they could soon be eased.  

Key European allies – in line with the former Obama administration – have proposed partially lifting the sanctions only if Moscow fulfills its obligations under the Minsk Peace Accords aimed at ending the fighting in east Ukraine between Kyiv government forces and pro-Russian separatists.  

President Trump has suggested he could lift sanctions in exchange for a reduction in Russia’s nuclear arsenal or a commitment to fight the Islamic State.

In his press call Monday, Kremlin spokesman Peskov insisted sanctions were not raised during the Trump-Putin call.

A shift in tone

But many observers pointed hopefully to a Kremlin statement that the two leaders expressed a desire improve “economic cooperation.”

“To fully develop economic ties, it’s necessary to create the right climate and legal conditions,” said Russian lawmaker Dmitri Novikov in comments reported by the Interfax news agency.  “That requires canceling sanctions.”

Kremlin allies also contrasted the apparently warm rapport between Trump and Putin to the Russian president’s frosty relationships with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francoise Hollande.

Indeed, some argued that the budding Trump-Putin friendship had the potential to shake traditional U.S. allies to the core.

“Kyiv, Vilnius, Riga, Tallinn, Warsaw, Oslo, Stockholm, NATO – they’re all horrified by the results of the Putin-Trump call,” crowed Alexey Pushkov, a Russian lawmaker and former head of the Duma’s Foreign Affairs committee in a post to Twitter.

Hacking charges

Yet hovering over any budding detente are the accusations the Kremlin meddled in the U.S. election with the aim of helping Trump win the White House.

So, too, are unsubstantiated claims the Kremlin possesses compromising sexual material on Trump from a visit to Moscow in 2013.

A U.S. investigation also is continuing into whether there were improper contacts between the Trump campaign team and Russian officials during the election campaign.

Moscow has repeatedly denied the hacking charges, and angrily dismissed related allegations as attempts to sabotage a new era in U.S.-Russian relations.

Still, the hacking scandal gained new intrigue with recent Russian news reports that two intelligence officers from the FSB’s cybersecurity unit were among six Russian nationals arrested and charged with treason.

According to sources quoted by the Interfax news agency, those arrested are suspected of providing information to the CIA – raising questions of its possible connections to the U.S. investigation into Russian hacking.

Kremlin officials have yet to comment.

Who is playing whom?

Warranted or not, the hacking scandal has made the Trump team sensitive to charges it is beholden to Moscow.  

Some Russia analysts point to the White House’s decision to release photos of Trump on the phone with Putin surrounded by Vice President Mike Pence and other advisors as a sign of the administration’s concerns over the optics of Russian rapprochement.

But Russian political analyst Feodor Krashenninkov argues the “Trump as Putin’s puppet” theory is overblown.  

In an interview with VOA, Krashenninkov noted that Trump’s actions are hemmed in by Republican lawmakers who favor a hardline approach to Russia.

“Putin – by contrast – can give away anything,” says Krashenninkov, who noted – in a twist – that it is Putin who would be more likely to embrace the title of Trump’s bestseller, The Art of the Deal.

Krashenninkov argued that Trump, in his introductory conversation with the Russian leader, borrowed from another book of American tycoon lore:  Dale Carnegie’s 1936 classic How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Wherever U.S.-Russian relations head next, some in Moscow were reveling in the domestic controversy arising during Trump’s first week in office – including mass protests against the administration’s decision to temporarily ban admission to the United States of all refugees and most citizens of seven Middle Eastern countries.

Maxim Shevchenko, a pro-Kremlin journalist, urged his government to enjoy – if not stoke – the chaos.

“Trump is a symbol of the deep, insurmountable and not easily defined confrontation of the societal, political, and economic split in America… therefore, greetings Trump!’  Shevchenko wrote in a post to his Facebook account.

“The more chaos, anger, and confrontation they have the better.”
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Peter Plasman showed up at the Netherlands’ national electoral commission’s offices Monday to register one of the more unusual parties bidding to take part in the upcoming Dutch election — a party for people who don’t vote.

Plasman was hardly an exception when it came to flouting convention. A record 81 parties have expressed interest in taking part in the March 15 parliamentary election. Monday was the day they all had to hand in their paperwork.

Among the eclectic roster of potential players, there also is the Colorful Cow Party, which casts itself in part as an antidote to the fierce anti-Islam rhetoric of the Party for Freedom. Its website includes a recipe for a traditional Dutch mashed potato dish, prepared with Turkish sausages and Moroccan spices.

Tiny splinter parties that tap into the Netherlands’ long tradition of non-conformism could eat into the constituencies of the mainstream powerhouse parties of Liberal, Christian Democrat, anti-immigrant or Socialist bent.

Tiny parties could make it interesting

The real match-up is likely to be between the ruling People’s Party of Freedom and Democracy — the party of two-time Prime Minister Mark Rutte — and the Party for Freedom fronted by firebrand Geert Wilders. But the tiny parties, if they manage to meet the electoral commission’s criteria, will make for a colorful campaign.

Plasman, a famous criminal defense lawyer, argues he wants to give non-voters a voice in Parliament. A quarter of the Dutch electorate didn’t vote in 2012, and Plasman says they would have taken 37 of the legislature’s 150 seats and been the biggest party if they had cast ballots as a unified bloc.

So now, he wants the non-voters to vote — for him. To honor their wishes, his party has a simple pledge: “We will never vote in parliament.”

Plasman’s Niet Stemmers (Not Voters) party underscores a growing unease, even disgust, with politics as usual in a nation where the election system leads almost automatically to multi-party coalition governments and convoluted compromise decisions are the order of the day.

“People want change. We need more influence on political matters,” Thierry Baudet of the pro-referendum Forum for Democracy party said. “Our voice is not being heard, so we want more referenda, more direct democracy.”

Costly entry fee

According to rules published by the electoral commission, parties must submit lists of candidates. If they are taking part in their first election or failed to win any seats last time around, they must pay a deposit of 11,250 euros ($12,000) and hand in declarations of support from each of the Netherlands’ 20 electoral districts.

That is easier said than done: one of the districts is the Caribbean island of Bonaire, located 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) away.

The official list of parties that qualified to take part in the election will be announced Friday.
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A state visit to Britain by President Donald Trump later this year will go ahead, the prime minister’s office said Monday, despite increasing calls for it to be canceled over his temporary ban on residents of seven majority-Muslim countries entering the U.S.

Furor over the travel ban has tarnished what British officials had considered a highly successful trip to Washington by Prime Minister Theresa May. She met Trump at the White House on Friday and announced that he had been invited to come to Britain later this year as the guest of Queen Elizabeth II.

May’s Downing St. office said Monday that “an invitation has been extended and accepted,” and the visit is still on.

No date has been announced for the state visit, which involves lavish pomp and ceremony, generally with a stay at Buckingham Palace.

The visit was hailed by government officials as a sign of the close trans-Atlantic relationship, which was also reflected in May’s invitation to meet Trump just a week after his inauguration.

But criticism of May’s wooing of Trump erupted when – only hours after the prime minister had left the White House – the president signed an executive order suspending all travel to the U.S. of citizens of Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and Libya for 90 days. The order also bars all refugees entering the country for 120 days.

Britain’s three biggest opposition parties have all called for Trump’s state visit to be canceled and an online petition opposing the trip has more than 1 million signatures. Protests against the travel ban are planned Monday in London and other British cities.

Any petition with more than 100,000 signatures must be considered for a debate in Parliament, though not a binding vote.

Last year, Parliament debated whether to ban Trump, then a presidential candidate, from visiting Britain after a similar online petition was filed.

Trump’s travel ban sparked protests at airports across the U.S., along with expressions of condemnation and concern from around the world.

There was widespread confusion about whether the ban applied to dual nationals. Somali-born British Olympic champion runner Mo Farah said he feared it would prevent him returning to the U.S., where he lives.

Late Sunday, Britain’s Foreign Office said U.S. authorities had clarified that the ban didn’t apply to British citizens who are also nationals of one of the seven countries. Canada’s foreign minister said he had been told the same about Canadian dual nationals.

However, the website of the U.S. Embassy in London advised nationals of the seven countries – “including dual nationals” – not to book visa appointments, saying their applications would not be processed.

The U.S. Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The British exemption didn’t end the storm of opposition, with prominent members of May’s Conservative Party joining in calls for Trump’s visit to be scrapped.

Sayeeda Warsi, a former government minister and Conservative member of the House of Lords, said it was “sending out a wrong signal” to invite Trump, a leaders whose values “are not the same as British values.”

Conservative lawmaker Sarah Wollaston said Trump should not be invited to address both houses of Parliament, an honor given to many visiting foreign leaders.

She said that “those who wish to fawn over him” should do so elsewhere.

Former U.K. Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, a Trump ally, said “British politicians are sheer hypocrites” to oppose the travel ban as they had not objected when President Barack Obama imposed what Farage called a six-month ban on Iraqis.

In 2011 the U.S. imposed stringent checks on Iraqi refugees after two Iraqis were charged with terrorism offenses in Kentucky. It did not ban all travelers from Iraq, however.
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U.S. President Donald Trump’s ban on travelers from seven majority-Muslim countries has European governments scrambling to respond to the measure. The ban presents a major dilemma for these governments, under pressure by their growing Muslim populations on side and, on the other, rising nationalist sentiments among those who oppose further Muslim immigration.  VOA Europe Correspondent Luis Ramirez reports.
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Socialists in France have chosen former junior minister Benoit Hamon as their candidate for president, in a victory that analysts say is not likely to boost his election chances when French voters begin first-round balloting for a new president in April.

With 60 percent of votes tallied in Sunday’s Socialist primary, Hamon was holding near 59 percent of the vote, while rival Manuel Valls, a former prime minister, was winning 41 percent. A short while later, Valls conceded defeat.

Analysts give the Socialist party, weakened and divided by the widely unpopular presidency of Francois Hollande, little or no chance of moving past the first round of voting April 23. If no one wins 50 percent of that vote, the two top vote getters will face off for the presidency May 7.

Early polls shows Hamon trailing four others in opinion polls.

The Hamon candidacy and the apparent lack of enthusiasm for his party are expected to boost the chances of independent centrist Emmanuel Macron in a faceoff with leading rivals on the right and far-right.

Opinion polls show those rivals — Conservative Francois Fillon, the Republican candidate, and far-right leader Marine Le Pen — headed for a likely showdown in the May 7 election.
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International reaction to U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order banning entry to refugees and citizens from seven mostly-Muslim countries has begun.

In addition to barring residents of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen from entering the U.S. for 90 days, the Trump executive order put a permanent ban on admission of Syrian refugees and a 120-day ban on all other refugees entering the U.S.

The president said that only people who support the United States should be allowed into the country. The executive order he signed discussed identification and verification procedures that U.S. consular officers should use in extensive detail.

“We want to make sure that we are not admitting into our country the very threats our soldiers are fighting overseas. We only want to admit those into our country who will support our country and love deeply our people,” Trump said in announcing the ban.

A spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday that Merkel “is convinced that even the necessary, resolute fight against terrorism doesn’t justify putting people of a particular origin or particular faith under general suspicion.”

May faces criticism

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Theresa May has been slammed by her fellow politicians for not condemning Trump’s ban when she was in Ankara meeting with her Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan. May said in Turkey, “The United States is responsible for the United States’ policy on refugees. The United Kingdom is responsible for the United Kingdom’s policy on refugees.”

Back in England, May said that Britain does “not agree” with Trump’s ban on Muslims, adding that the approach was “not one we will be taking.”

British lawmaker Heidi Allen said on social media that “Strong leadership means not being afraid to tell someone powerful when they’re wrong … I don’t care how special the relationship is – some lines just shouldn’t be crossed.”

Another lawmaker Jeremy Corbyn said, “Theresa May should have stood up for Britain and our values by condemning [Trump’s] actions. It should sadden our country that she chose not to … After Trump’s hideous actions and May’s weak failure to condemn them, it’s more important than ever for us to say to refugees seeking a place of safety that they will always be welcome in Britain.”

Trump is scheduled to visit Britain later this year, but British lawmaker Sarah Wollston said the U.S.leader should not be invited to address Parliament, adding that “those who wish to fawn over him” could do that someplace else.

Other world reactions

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said of Trump’s ban, “Welcoming refugees, who flee war and oppression, is part our duty.”

Ayrault’s German counterpart Sigmar Gabriel said, “The United States is a country where Christian traditions have an important meaning. Loving your neighbor is a major Christian value and that includes helping people.”

Retno Marsudi, the foreign minister of Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population, but was not included in the nations whose citizens face restrictions for entering the United States, told Reuters in a social media message, “We have deep regrets about the policy.”

Iran on Saturday announced it will bar all U.S. citizens from entering the Islamic republic in retaliation for the curbs on citizens from its country. “Unlike the U.S., our decision is not retroactive.  All with valid Iranian visa will be gladly welcomed,”  Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to Twitter to express his country’s attitude towards refugees. He tweeted, “To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength. #Welcome to Canada.”

The Canadian leader also tweeted a photograph of himself greeting a Syrian child at Toronto’s airport.
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President Donald Trump’s travel ban barring citizens of seven predominantly Muslim nations entry into the U.S. has sparked protests around the country.

A look at what is happening:

NEW YORK

Cries of “Let them in!” rose up from a crowd of more than 2,000 people protesting at John F. Kennedy Airport, where 12 refugees were detained Saturday. Celebrities including Sex and the City actress Cynthia Nixon joined the demonstration. 

“What Donald Trump did in the last 24 hours is disgusting, disgraceful and completely un-American and I’m here in protest,” said protester Pamela French. 

The agency that runs the airport tried to restore order by shutting down the train that runs to airport terminals. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, reversed that decision, saying people had a right to protest. “The people of New York will have their voices heard,” he said in a statement.

NEWARK, NEW JERSEY

More than 120 people clutching signs denouncing the Trump immigration orders gathered at Newark Liberty International Airport. NorthJersey.com reports that they joined lawyers who’d rushed to the airport to defend the rights of refugees and immigrants who were being detained and denied entry.

FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA

Dozens of protesters inside Washington Dulles International Airport chanted “Love, Not Hate, Makes America Great” and “Say It Loud, Say it Clear, Muslims Are Welcome Here,” as travelers walked through a terminal to a baggage claim area to collect luggage and greet their loved ones. There was a heavy police presence during the peaceful protest. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said during a press conference at Dulles that he has asked Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring to look into “all legal remedies” available to help individuals who may be detained in Virginia.

DENVER

Dozens of people converged on Denver International to show their support for refugees. Standing in the main terminal Saturday, they sang “Refugees are welcome here.” Some held signs declaring their identity, such as Jew or Christian, and the phrase “I come in peace.’’ Denver has some direct international flights but it wasn’t clear whether anyone has been detained under the president’s executive order.

CHICAGO

A crowd of demonstrators held a rally at O’Hare International Airport. The Chicago Sun-Times reports protesters blocked vehicle traffic to O’Hare’s international terminal for a time. The newspaper says some arriving travelers joined the protest, while others were upset by the demonstrations. 

Lawyers working with the International Refugee Assistance Project tell the Chicago Tribune that 17 people who had been detained at O’Hare all released by late Saturday.

Among those released before the federal judge’s order was Hessan Noorian, a suburban Park Ridge resident returning with his family from Iran, the Tribune reported.

Noorian, who is of British and Iranian citizenship and has a green card, was detained at O’Hare after he and his wife, Zahra Amirisefat, a U.S.citizen, arrived from Tehran, the newspaper said. 

The couple, who told the Tribune that they work at a community college in the Chicago area, said they were questioned for five hours. 

After Noorian was released, his wife told the Tribune: “I can’t believe something like this can happen to someone with a green card.”

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DALLAS

Protesters who gathered at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport Saturday evening voiced their displeasure with Trump’s executive order. The crowd of a few dozen ballooned into hundreds of demonstrators who frequently chanted “Set them free!’’ At times, cheers erupted from the crowd as those who were detained got released.

Among those still held at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport at midnight Saturday was a 70-year-old Iranian widow, Shahin Hassanpour, whose son said she suffers from high blood pressure and had breast cancer surgery four years ago. She obtained an immigrant visa in November on her son’s petition.

Bahzad Honarjou, a 43-year-old network engineer, said he spoke twice to his mother by phone after her 9 a.m. arrival, but that they hadn’t talked since courts stayed the executive order, meaning she should have been released.

Hundreds of protesters stood in the waiting area and chanted “This is what democracy looks like.”

Immigration agents were not being very communicative, Honarjou said.

“They were like a machine when I talked to them today,’’ he said. His mother only speaks a few words of English and a fellow passenger was translating for her from her native Farsi as no immigration agents spoke the language, he said.

Hassanpour was originally going to be deported on a Sunday flight, she informed her son the first time they spoke.

“She was about to cry,” he said. “She is not able to take (tolerate) a 20-hour flight back to Iran.” 

Honarjou said he is a U.S. citizen, obtained entry in a lottery, and has been in the country for seven years. Why did he come?

“To have a better life and to make more money,” he said. “And, you know, for the freedom.’’

SEATTLE

At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, about 3,000 protesters holding signs and chanting “no hatred, no fear, immigrants are welcome here” and “let them in” gathered Saturday evening and continued demonstrating into early Sunday morning. 

Aayah Khalaf, a Muslim American, was sitting at home watching the protest on television when she and her friend studying from Egypt decided to join the rally. It was her second time joining a protest. The first one was the Women’s March. 

The Port of Seattle Commissioners, which oversees the airport, issued a statement criticizing the executive order. 

“The Port of Seattle Commissioners, Tom Albro, Courtney Gregoire, Stephanie Bowman, Fred Felleman and John Creighton are here today to express our concerns over the immigration ban executive order that was issued late last night. As the government that operates this airport, this executive order runs counter to our values. America is great because we are a land of immigrants and that is what made us great to begin with,” the statement said. ​

PORTLAND, OREGON

A protest by several dozen people in and around Portland International Airport briefly disrupted light rail service at the airport. The Oregonian/OregonLive reports that the demonstrators carried signs and chanted “Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here” and “No ban no wall America is for us all.”

LOS ANGELES

About 300 people expressed their displeasure with the ban at Los Angeles International Airport Saturday night. Protesters entered the airport’s Tom Bradley International Terminal after holding a candlelight vigil. 

Avriel Epps held a candle and a large photo a drowned 3-year-old Syrian boy who washed up on a Turkish beach in 2015 and became a haunting symbol of the Syrian refugee crisis. 

SAN FRANCISCO

Hundreds of protesters blocked the street outside at San Francisco International Airport’s international terminal to express their opposition to the barring of some people from Muslim-majority nations. 

SAN DIEGO

As motorists honked their support, demonstrators outside San Diego International Airport chanted “No hate, no fear, everyone is welcome here.”

 
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Yazidi children play soccer in the biting winter wind outside the northern Greek refugee camp of Agios Athanasios.

The camp is reserved for Yazidis, thousands of whom were forced to flee their homeland in northern Iraq in 2014 as Islamic State fighters swept across the region.

Twenty-five-hundred Yazidis are now stranded in Greece, and most live in separate camps from other migrants. Refugee Riad Salo said that even now, they are targeted.

“Every day, fighting,” Salo said. “Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria people, Iraqi people, all the Muslim, Islam people. All together came to Yazidi people and fighting them.”

IS militants killed thousands of Yazidis in Iraq. Many of the women were forced to become sex slaves. The United Nations describes what happened as genocide.

Portugal has offered to take in several hundred of the Yazidi refugees from Greece, but Athens has refused the offer. Ioannis Mouzalas, the Greek minister of migration, said that “a government can’t racially discriminate.”

“We see with sympathy the Yazidis and all that they have gone through,” Mouzalas added, “but for the Greek government, the European Commission and the European Council, discrimination is reprehensible.”

Ana Gomes, a Portuguese member of the European Parliament who has led her country’s efforts to resettle Yazidi refugees, said Greek concerns were misplaced. She said the Yazidis had been discriminated against in terms of being resettled in other European countries, and that special consideration should be given to them because of the barbarity they have suffered.

The aid group AMAR International cares for thousands of refugees, many of them Yazidis, in camps across Iraq. The group’s founder, British lawmaker Emma Nicholson, said the Yazidis deserved special recognition “because the Yazidis are the immigrants in greatest need. They’re in greatest need because they are the ones who are being subjected to genocide.”

A Yazidi cannot marry outside the faith, bringing added dangers as they are scattered from their homeland.

“So the number of people [Yazidis] you can marry is extremely limited,” Nicholson said. “And the smaller the blocks of Yazidis become, the more the difficulties, physically, of this very close intermarrying will start to appear.”

Europe is wrestling with the issue of whether Yazidi refugees should receive priority. Meanwhile, the EU’s resettlement program remains essentially frozen, and Greece alone is struggling to care for 60,000 stranded migrants.
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Women from Kosovo who joined the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria were recruited mainly by their husbands and joined for family reasons, not out of religious fervor, researchers have found.

“Of more than 4,000 foreign fighters from Western Europe who have joined violent extremist organizations in Syria and Iraq, more than 700 are women, more than 40 of whom were from Kosovo,” said a report released this week by the Pristina-based Kosovar Center for Security Studies (KCSS).

However, unlike Western European women recruited into violent extremist organizations through online propaganda, the KCSS report found that Kosovar women, because of prevailing socioeconomic conditions such as high unemployment and low education levels, are more likely to be recruited by family members, especially husbands.

In Kosovo, the report said, “statistics show that women are discriminated against in almost every sphere of public life.”

“When compared to men, women are underrepresented in all levels of institutions and decision-making process [and] unemployment is also higher among women,” the report said. “This society-wide general discrimination is also reflected within the structures of Kosovo’s Islamic Community (BIK).”

Vulnerable to radicalization

Report co-author Vese Kelmendi said these factors leave BIK women, particularly those from rural areas, unusually vulnerable to radicalization.

“In countries like England, France, Belgium, recruitment is done more through IS online propaganda, where the group urges women to get married and shows them how to do that in the so-called Islamic State,” Kelmendi told reporters. “Meanwhile, in Kosovo, we have noticed that recruitment is done directly from their husbands, because women are not employed.

“At most they may have had one year of college education, and their basic knowledge regarding IS and religion comes from their husbands,” she said.

But co-author Rudine Jakupi said that not all radicalized Kosovar women are victimized by others.

“Ideological reasons, socioeconomic factors and personal motives” drive some Kosovar women to radicalization, she said. “As per our interviews, some of the women said that the feeling of being discriminated [against on religious grounds], as well as their identity and isolation, influenced them on joining IS.”

Convinced of their cause

Once with IS in Syria and Iraq, the women face a point of no return, the researchers said.

“Kosovar women, like some Kosovar men who joined extremists in the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, are deeply convinced that they made the right decision as Muslims or as Muslim-practicing believers,” Jakupi said. “They are convinced that they will be rewarded for this decision in the next world.”

Across the Western Balkans region, the number of radicalized women in Kosovo is second only to the total in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which has seen 60 women join conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

The report was produced with the help of a grant from the European branch of the New York-headquartered Open Society Initiatives, with assistance from the Think Tank Fund for Wider Europe.

Fewer fighters

The number of fighters joining extremist groups in the Middle East from Kosovo, once the highest per capita in Europe, has dwindled in the last year, according to government officials, analysts and ex-fighters.

The turnabout came after a government crackdown in Kosovo on extremist recruiting, an increased education campaign to show the ills of radical groups, and a waning appeal of IS militancy, experts said.

“Kosovo has done great work in getting local Muslim communities directly involved in efforts to educate their members against the dangers of radicalization,” Sarah Bedenbaugh, a Balkan expert at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank, told VOA last year.

Kosovo is the smallest country in the Balkan region with a Muslim-majority population. The country gained its independence in 2008 after a long-fought war with Serbia.

The landlocked nation has struggled with increasing radicalization of Muslim youth that increased after the start of the Syrian civil war in 2012. Roughly 93 percent of Kosovo’s 1.7 million people are from Muslim family backgrounds. Young people in Kosovo were drawn to become militants as high youth unemployment and poor education left them wanting, analysts say.

This report was produced in collaboration with VOA’s Albanian service.
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