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Number of foreign Daesh members has doubled since June 2014: Report

Tuesday, 08 December 2015 9:11 AM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 08 December 2015 9:11 AM ]

A new report by a US-based intelligence consultancy says the number of foreigners fighting for Daesh militants in Syria and Iraq has doubled since last year. (File photo)

The number of foreign extremists fighting for the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group has doubled since last June, reaching at least 27,000, a report says.

The intelligence consultancy, Soufan Group, said in a report on Tuesday that between 27,000 and 31,000 foreigners from some 86 countries had joined Daesh in Iraq and Syria.

The New York-based group said the figure shows a drastic rise from the approximately 12,000 foreign militants it had recorded as being in Syria in June 2014, around the same time the insurgents entered Iraq.

“The foreign fighter phenomenon in Iraq and Syria is truly global,” the group warned in its report, according to which about 5,000 individuals have arrived from European countries and some 4,700 from former Soviet Union states to fight for Daesh. More than 16,000 others have come from other countries in the Middle East and Africa.

About 20 to 30 percent of those who fought in Syria and Iraq are currently returning to their home countries, posing a major security threat to those nations, the report added.

Daesh terrorists have repeatedly called on the group’s members to carry out attacks in their home countries, similar to those carried out in the French capital, Paris, on November 13, which left some 130 people dead.

The Takfiri militants fighting against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have been carrying out acts of terrorism in Syria since 2011, where more than 250,000 people have lost their lives. The terror group began its militancy in Iraq about three years later, also killing many people there.

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