MEASURING AND UNDERSTANDING THE IMPACT OF TERRORISM
2015 Global Terrorism Index Report_0_0
2015 Global Terrorism Index Report_0_0
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
FOREIGN FIGHTERS<br />
IN IRAQ & SYRIA<br />
The rise of ISIL has brought with it several challenging dynamics for counterterrorism.<br />
One of many concerns is the increasing prevalence of foreign fighters joining armed<br />
groups, especially in Iraq and Syria.<br />
In order to assess the scale of movement of foreign fighters, IEP assembled estimates<br />
from ten different government, media and expert sources. Overall estimates from UN<br />
and government reports indicate that nearly 30,000 foreign individuals have travelled<br />
to Iraq and Syria from roughly 100 countries.<br />
Foreign fighters are not a new factor in violent conflict. As many<br />
as 20,000 foreign fighters are believed to have travelled to<br />
Afghanistan over the course of the conflict with the Soviet<br />
Union, from 1980 to 1992. 8 However, the flow of fighters into<br />
Iraq and Syria since 2011 is believed to be the largest influx in<br />
the last sixty years, with current estimates ranging from 25,000<br />
to 30,000 fighters from roughly 100 countries.<br />
There has been a great deal of debate regarding the number of<br />
foreign fighters that have travelled to and that are currently in<br />
Iraq and Syria. Estimates vary depending on sources, with some<br />
counting total numbers, including those killed in action or those<br />
who have returned home, whilst others try to estimate only the<br />
number of currently active fighters.<br />
The majority of the individuals are fighters travelling to join<br />
armed movements, but figures may also include family members<br />
travelling with these fighters. IEP was able to identify numeric<br />
estimates for 67 countries from which recruits came, totalling<br />
27,371 individuals, including 350 women and girls. IEP identified<br />
an additional 21 known countries from which individuals are<br />
believed to have travelled, but estimates of number of the<br />
number of fighters were unavailable.<br />
Figures 19 and 20 illustrate the various estimates for Muslimmajority<br />
countries and for the rest of the world. The<br />
conservative and high-end estimates from the International<br />
Centre for the Study of Radicalism (ICSR) reflect data published<br />
in December of 2014 based on estimates totalled in mid-2014. 9<br />
IEP further collated individual estimates from more recent<br />
government announcements, press releases, media and expert<br />
reports including those published by The Soufan Group.<br />
BOX 1<br />
BUILDING IEP’S FOREIGN FIGHTER DATASET<br />
Estimating the number of foreign fighters in an<br />
armed conflict is very difficult given the associated<br />
intelligence and human security challenges. As a<br />
result, there are few datasets that capture figures<br />
for more than a handful of countries. The most<br />
authoritative, publically-available datasets to-date<br />
have been those published by security analysts The<br />
Soufan Group (TSG) and the think tank International<br />
Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political<br />
Violence (ICSR), the latter including data for 50<br />
countries. However, the UN and the US government<br />
have repeatedly issued statements estimating that<br />
fighters come from 100 countries. In order to<br />
understand how many fighters are in fact present in<br />
Iraq and Syria and which countries they come from,<br />
IEP has supplemented these two existing datasets<br />
with additional information to account for fighters<br />
from 67 countries.<br />
IEP’s foreign fighter data represent a compilation of<br />
estimates from TSG, ICSR, US government reports,<br />
UN Security Council report S/2015/358, accounts of<br />
individuals by independent researchers and media<br />
reports that reflect individual government estimates<br />
of the number of national’s estimated to be fighting<br />
or joining fighters in Syria and Iraq.<br />
GLOBAL <strong>TERRORISM</strong> INDEX 2015 | Trends<br />
45