Tunisia Of the six countries caught up in the Arab Spring, democracy has taken hold only in Tunisia. Unfortunately, Tunisia’s newfound enthusiasm for democracy is not shared by all. Roughly 6,000 Tunisians have left home to join the foreign fighters russia of ISIS, the highest per capita rate in the world.
Saudi Arabia The Saudi kingdom, an active promoter and sponsor of Wahhabism, the fundamentalist strain of Islam that serves as the backbone of modern Islamic extremism, is the second largest source of foreign fighters for ISIS — roughly 2,500 have joined. Russia The ISIS corps stem from well beyond the Middle East. The latest took place just last week when a bomb exploded in the St. The collapse of the USSR in 1991 breathed new life into the region’s independence movements and led to two particularly bloody wars in Chechnya that claimed thousands of lives. Foreign religious extremists like ISIS have made headway into recruiting from the North Caucasus, including from the migrant communities in major cities to which Dzhalilov may have belonged. Turkey Turkey has its own fraught relationship with an ethnic minority agitating for independence.
The Kurds are an ethnic group that number between 20 million and 40 million who straddle the borders of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Armenia. Complicating matters is that Kurds in Syria are one of the most effective forces fighting both Assad and ISIS. Their success could create an independent Kurdish state inside Syria, which might encourage a larger share of Turkish Kurds to take arms with the same goal. At the same time, roughly 2,100 Turks have traveled to Iraq and Syria to join ISIS.
Jordan Rounding out the list of top sources for ISIS foreign fighters is Jordan, which has seen nearly 2,000 people join ISIS over the past few years. Like Turkey, which is hosting 2. TIME may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.
Together, Russia and the countries of post-Soviet Central Asia have seen more of their citizens and residents travel to Syria and Iraq as foreign fighters than have any other parts of the world. Russia and Turkey to investigate Russian-speaking foreign fighters. Foreign fighters from the North Caucasus have played an outsized role on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria, serving in leadership positions for both ISIS and AQ. Out of the estimated 8,500 individuals who have traveled from Russia and Central Asia to the battlespace, roughly 900 have returned to their countries of origin. 4 However, among the rest are an unknown number of Russian-speaking militants that have gained skills and credibility in the battlespace, many of whom may seek refuge in large Russian-speaking diasporas in Turkey’s Istanbul, Ukraine, and across Europe. Some are also finding themselves in Egypt, among other destinations. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan.
First name This field is required. Last name This field is required. Many of the thousands of Russian Muslim men who joined ISIS were killed in the fighting. Young people take a photo in front of the Akhmad Kadyrov Mosque, known as the “Heart of Chechnya,” and large letters reading “I love Grozny” in central Grozny, Russia, in 2017. Thousands of Russian Muslim men joined the Islamic State and brought their families with them to Iraq and Syria. Russian government is desperately searching for their lost wives and children.
Hundreds if not thousands of children born or brought to the region by their families are missing or being held prisoner along with their mothers. Those who have been rescued face challenges reintegrating into Russian life, officials say. It’s almost as if these Russian women and children in the Middle East have fallen into a black hole, says Tim Whewell of the BBC. He says the only names known were discovered in December when voice messages were smuggled out of an Iraqi prison. The one thing we do know is that 1,400 foreign women and children, foreign ISIS women and children, were said to be in a jail in Iraq. The Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, the Russian republic where most of the foreign fighters came from, is spearheading an effort to bring these women and children home. Ramzan Kadyrov says between 70 and 120 children are still in orphanages in Mosul, while almost 400 may still remain in Iraq and Syria, according to Anna Kuznetsova, the country’s children’s rights commissioner.
