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 ranks of ISIS, the highest per capita rate in the world. Saudi Arabia The Saudi kingdom, an active promoter and sponsor of Wahhabism, russian foreign fighters in syria 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. Reports have suggested more than 100 fighters supporting the regime led by Syrian President Bashar Assad may have died in the recent clash. Hmeymim base in Syria’s Latakia on December 11, 2017. Moscow acknowledged for the first time Thursday that five Russian nationals may have been killed in the U. Syria last week but denied reports the loss of life among its citizens was significantly higher.
