20,000 foreign fighters head to Syria, US intel shows

The estimate of the total number of foreign fighters flocking to Syria was up from a previous estimate in January of roughly 19,000, according to US intelligence officials at the National Counter-Terrorism Center.

WASHINGTON // Foreign fighters are flocking to Syria at an “unprecedented” rate with more than 20,000 volunteers from around the world are joining ISIL or other extremist groups, according to US intelligence officials on Tuesday.

The foreign fighters have travelled to Syria from more than 90 countries, including at least 3,400 from Western states and more than 150 Americans, the National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC) said.

The estimate of the total number of foreign fighters flocking to Syria was up from a previous estimate in January of roughly 19,000.

No precise numbers are available “but the trend lines are clear and concerning”, Nicholas Rasmussen, NCTC director, said in prepared remarks for a congressional hearing on Wednesday.

“The rate of foreign fighter travel to Syria is unprecedented. It exceeds the rate of travellers who went to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, or Somalia at any point in the last 20 years,” he said.

The volunteers come from a range of backgrounds and “do not fit any one stereotype,” Mr Rasmussen said.

Most of the foreign volunteers who arrived recently have joined forces with the ISIL group in Syria and Iraq.

“The battlefields in Iraq and Syria provide foreign fighters with combat experience, weapons and explosives training, and access to terrorist networks that may be planning attacks which target the West,” he said.

Western governments have voiced increasing alarm over the flow of foreign volunteers heading to the Syrian conflict.

In the months-long battle for the Syrian town of Kobani near the Turkish border, large numbers of foreign fighters were among the extremist fighters killed, according to US officials.

The ISIL militants are able to recruit new volunteers partly because of their savvy use of propaganda on social media, producing videos and appeals in a range of languages, Mr Rasmussen said.

Apart from grisly images of murders of hostages and battlefield executions, the group also tries to reach alienated youth by promoting images of a welcoming, “bucolic” life in their self-declared caliphate, he said.

Catering to a younger, thrill-seeking audience, the ISIL militants employ references to Western brands and popular video games, he said.

“They have also coined pithy ‘memes’ such as, ‘YODO: You Only Die Once. Why not make it martyrdom?’”

Al Qaeda and its branches in the Middle East and Africa have never displayed such an acumen with propaganda, he added.

The NCTC director’s prepared testimony for the House Homeland Security Committee, which holds a hearing on Wednesday, was released on Tuesday.

* Agence France-Presse