Record number of foreigners fighting in Iraq, Syria: ICSR

A fifth of the foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq came from Western Europe, ICSR estimates

More than 20,000 foreign fighters, a record number, were currently involved in the Iraq and Syria conflicts, International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) said in a report.

Of the 20,730 fighters from across the world involved in the conflicts, almost a fifth (3,950), came from Western European countries ICSR estimated. However, it was not clear whose side were these people on.

“This makes the conflict in Syria and Iraq the largest mobilisation of foreigner fighters in Muslim majority countries since 1945,” the report says. “It now surpasses the Afghanistan conflict in the 1980s, which is thought to have attracted up to 20,000 foreigners.”

Internationally, most fighters came from Tunisia (3,000) and Saudi Arabia (2,500), followed by Jordan (1,500), Morocco (1,500) and Russia (1,500).

ICSR estimated that around 500 fighters involved in the conflict hail from Pakistan, the same as Uzbekistan (500), but a little less than Turkey (600). There were 300 fighters from China, 250 from Australia, 100 from Canada and 100 from the United States, according to the estimates.

With up to 11,000 fighters from the Middle East, the region remains, unsurprisingly, the dominant source of foreigners in the conflict. Another 3,000 fighters who joined the conflict came from countries of the former Soviet Union.



Western Europe

According to the report, there were around 1,200 French nationals, the highest of any nation from Western Europe, while 600 fighters from the United Kingdom and Germany each.

Taken as a proportion of the countries’ respective populations, however, Belgium and Denmark were the top contributors, with Sweden, France and Austria not far behind.

ICSR calculates figures by using government estimates, media reports, statements by militant groups and social media interactions.

The centre admitted that “no estimate of foreign fighter flows will ever be exact”, but that its figures show is the overall “extent and evolution of the phenomenon”.