company:the soufan group

100 000 combattants : c’est ce que représentent l’ensemble des groupes armés non-étatique actifs en Syrie et en Irak, selon le think tank « Soufan »

TSG IntelBrief : From Training Camps to Training States | The Soufan Group

▻http://soufangroup.com/tsg-intelbrief-from-training-camps-to-training-states

From Training Camps to Training States

Bottom Line Up Front:

• The number of people fighting for non-state actors in Iraq and Syria—running the anti-Assad spectrum from the Free Syrian Army to extremist groups like the Islamic State or Jabhat al-Nusra, as well as the pro-Assad irregulars—is well over 100,000

• In Syria, these fighters are being sorted into increasingly extreme camps, and while it is possible relatively more moderate groups might win the civil war, the presence of so many extremist fighters will compromise any lasting end to the conflict

• The number of people who have received basic military training from Western-supported rebels, designated terrorist organizations, or other militant groups dwarfs the estimated 10,000-20,000 people trained in al-Qaeda basic training camps in Afghanistan between 1996-2001, according to the 9/11 Commission Report

• The concern is that the ideology of bin Ladinism that dominated the Afghan training camps now dominates what has become two training states and laboratories of combat.

#is #isis #irak #syrie

Foreign fighters flow to Syria

An estimated 15,000 militants from at least 80 nations are believed to have entered Syria to help overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad according the CIA and studies by ISCR and The Soufan Group. Many of these fighters are believed to have joined units that are now part of the Islamic State. Western officals are concerned about what these individuals may do upon returning to their native countries.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2014/10/12/Foreign/Graphics/enablers-w1.jpg

#cartographie #visualisation #Syrie #combattants_étrangers
cc @reka

European jihadists
▻http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21614226-why-and-how-westerners-go-fight-syria-and-iraq-it-aint-half-hot-

Getting to Syria has generally been easy (...) All a fighter needs is a one-way ticket to Istanbul. From there, most take domestic flights to one of the border towns along Turkey’s frontier with Syria that runs for 822km (511 miles): locals dub these internal flights the “jihadi express”. Newcomers stay in safe houses before being smuggled across or passing through Turkish passport control using fake Syrian ID cards.

http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/20140830_MAM986_595.png

The Soufan Group, a New York-based intelligence outfit, reckons that by the end of May as many as 12,000 fighters from 81 nations had joined the fray, among them some 3,000 from the West (see chart). The number today is likely to be a lot higher. Since IS declared a caliphate on June 29th, recruitment has surged. Syria has drawn in fighters faster than in any past conflict, including the Afghan war in the 1980s or Iraq after the Americans invaded in 2003.

http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/20140830_MAC990_595.png

While the overwhelming majority of foreign fighters in Syria are Arabs, Britons make up one of the biggest groups of Western fighters. But Belgians, Danes and others have a higher rate per person (see left-hand chart above). France, which has tighter laws against extremism, has also seen more of its citizens go off to wage jihad.