ISIS in Iraq and Syria: The Nationalities of the Islamic Jihad’s Foreign Legion
International Business Times
By: Gianluca Mezzofiore
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The jihadist group that has seized large swaths of territory in swift attacks on northern Iraq, seizing the country’s second largest city Mosul, Saddam Hussein’s hometown Tikrit and advancing south towards the capital Baghdad, was formed in April 2013 and grew out of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).
Run by Iraqi jihadist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) has up to 6,000 fighters in Iraq and 3,000-5,000 in Syria, including some 3,000 foreigners. The Economist reported that Isis is formed by a thousand jihadist from Chechnya and “perhaps 500 or more from France, Britain and elsewhere in…“
Prof Peter Neumann of King’s College London estimates that about 80% of Western fighters in Syria have joined the group.In the past year, the number of Westerners who have travelled to the region and become radicalised has mushroomed from hundreds to as many as 3,000. “A lot are young, often teenagers, and a fair percentage of those arriving from non-Muslim majority countries are converts to Islam,” wrote Richard Barrett of The Soufan Group, an intelligence organization. “These and others who share their faith commonly express their motivation as a religious obligation to protect fellow Muslims from attack…”
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