The paper examines the potenial fall out from foreign fighters ‘sitting idle’ in the Middle East and North Africa, as the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq wind down. As in Afghanistan in early 1989, these wars have the potential to create a glut of foreign fighters, who may find themselves unwanted by their home/source countries and restless for another Jihadi campaign. The “First Foreign Fighter Glut” spawned al-Qa’ida AQ and a decade of increasingly lethal terrorist attacks leading up to September 11, 2001. The author explores the recruitment process used by al-Qaeda in the past and how this should inform western counter-terrorism policy in the future.