‘More than 4,000 European jihadists fighting against Assad’
Source: Jerusalem Post
Belgian daily reports of spike in number of radical foreign fighters partaking in efforts to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The Syrian civil war continues to serve as a magnet for radical foreign jihadists to oust President Bashar Assad’s regime.
The French-language Belgian daily La Libre Belgique on Friday cited a Belgian security source saying that “four to five thousand” European jihadists were waging war in Syria. This number far exceeds the figure in a late November study by Norwegian counterterrorism specialist Thomas Hegghammer, which said that “at least 1,200 European Muslims have gone to Syria since the start of the war.”
John R. Schindler, a professor of national security affairs at the US Naval War College and a prominent counterterrorism expert, drew attention to the Belgian figure on his widely respected and popular intelligence blog The XX Committee.
“The figure of 4,000 to 5,000 EU passport holders fighting in Syria is a shocking one and quite a bit higher than anything previously seen in the European media,” Schindler wrote. “However, I’m not ready to discount it out of hand, as I’ve worked with Belgian intelligence on counterterrorism matters in the past, and I’ve found them to be professionals who have a good understanding of the serious threats they’re dealing with. Additionally, the figures I’ve been given on European jihadists fighting in Syria by intelligence officers and counterterrorism experts... is not much out of the range cited today by La Libre Belgique.”
Read more: http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/More-than-4000-European-jihadists-fighting-against-Assad-336501
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