Top US general says foreign fighters still flocking to Syria to join IS

WASHINGTON — Foreign fighters continue to flow into Syria to join the Islamic State terror group despite its forces being largely decimated, Pentagon Joint Chiefs chairman Joe Dunford says Tuesday.

Even though the jihadist group’s territory has shrunk to a fraction of what it once was, new followers arrive, mostly over the Turkish border, at a rate of about 100 a month, Dunford says.

While that is down from a peak of about 1,500 a month three years ago, it shows that Islamic State’s ability to attract followers remains potent, he says.

“It’s the flow of foreign fighters, the ability to move resources, and the ideology that allows these groups to operate,” Dunford says, opening a conference on countering violent extremism.

Dunford also says that the inflow adds to the mounting problem of how to handle hundreds of captured foreign fighters whose home countries will not take them back.

Dunford says not dealing with the captured foreign fighters correctly will make it harder to eventually extinguish the attraction of the Islamic State ideology.

A critical factor, he says, “is how we identify, prosecute, deradicalize and reintegrate foreign fighters.”

“We need to find a way to address this challenge and prevent the detainees from becoming the leaders of tomorrow’s extremist organizations,” Dunford says.

— AFP