[NEWS24] Almost 30% of EU citizens who joined the fight in Syria have returned home, according to a new study.| Why are they allowed back in? |
French, Germans and Britons make up the highest number of imported muscle from European countries in the ranks of gangs in Syria, the study reported, but Belgium is the largest contributor in proportion to its population.
Europeans fighting alongside groups in Syria and Iraq have been high on the agenda of European security concerns for several years.
Returned volunteers have been involved in attacks in Gay Paree and Brussels over the past 18 months, including last month's kabooms in the Belgian capital.
The study however, maintained that "not all FF [imported muscle] are terrorists, and not all turbans are FF".
"Thus, not all returnees systematically present a danger to the societies to which they return," it added.
The researchers said that it was hard to understand the motivations of the returnees, but a previous study published by Dutch Security and Intelligence Service in 2014 offered various reasons for returning. These included: "being disillusioned, being traumatised, [feelings of] betrayal, realisation of the atrocities, and regret, as well as having plans to recruit others or commit attacks in their countries of departure."
| But recruiting isn't a danger. Trust us... |
Belgium - home to the attackers linked to last year's Gay Paree shootings as well as last month's Brussels bombings - sent 41 fighters per million population.
Not only did Belgium contribute the most fighters compared to its population, but only 18% of them had returned, compared to 50% of those who had left from Denmark, the researchers said. Austria and Sweden followed in per capita terms.
In absolute terms, La Belle France was the largest source country for fighters who had left to fight alongside the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
of Iraq and the Levant. The study counted more than 900 of them.
Germany and Britannia also contributed large numbers.