Hundreds of Isis defectors mass on Syrian border hoping to flee

Di Vincenzo Santo*

(Da The Guardian – 12 settembre 2017)

Idlib. Several dozen former fighters have already crossed into southern Turkey in recent weeks as terror group loses territory. Hundreds of defectors from Islamic State have massed in Syria’s Idlib province, with many planning to cross the nearby Turkish border and find ways back to the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. (…) Four Saudi Arabian extremists arrived in a southern Turkish community in early September after paying smugglers $2,000 each for the perilous journey past border guards who have shot dead scores of infiltrators this year alone. (…) large numbers of militants and their families are now trying to leave the war-battered states altogether – posing significant challenges to a global intelligence community that, for the most part, views them as a hostile and unmanageable threat, and sees limited scope for their reintegration. (…) Tens of thousands of Isis fighters are believed to have been killed in the battle to retain territory it seized from mid-2014, and thousands more homegrown extremists are believed to have returned to their communities. (…) French officials have said privately that they would rather that nationals who travelled to join Isis died on battlefields and have no plans to support those who now want to return. Other European states have expressed similar sentiments. (…) Isis defectors had at one point been of high interest to intelligence agencies who had made little ground in penetrating the group as it consolidated a hold on swaths of Syria and Iraq and plotted attacks in Europe and beyond. As the group has capitulated, MI6, the CIA and France’s DGSE have had increasing access to informants whom they have met within Kurdish controlled areas of Syria’s north-east and in northern Iraq. The increased access to informants with real-time information has left those who fled earlier with less leverage over governments who might otherwise have agreed to talk with them. (…)

Un jihadista

*Generale CA (Riserva)

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