Foreign Recruits Are Islamic State’s Cannon Fodder

Military forces fighting the Islamic State militants are reporting the terrorist group’s extensive use of foreign recruits, about 20,000 in all. Iraqi and Syrian Arabs are more likely to win safer, higher-ranking positions in the terrorist organization, while foreigners – especially the unskilled – are sent to the front lines of combat or dispatched as suicide bombers, reports Eli Lake, a Bloomberg columnist. Ali al-Wazir Shamary, a general in the Iraqi Army, confirmed this phenomenon to Lake: “We often see the foreign fighters in the first wave of attacks and then the Arab fighters will come in after an area is cleared.” The foreign fighters come primarily from Central Asia, but some also hail from Europe, North America, and China. IS reliance on foreign fighters may minimize demoralization among the local forces while suggesting a level of support for the rigid interpretations of Islam. Governments worry about citizens returning skilled in terrorist operations, though few of the group’s foreign fighters are expected to survive long. – YaleGlobal