What this document is
Foreign Fighters in Syria was published by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC), an Israel-based research body, in January 2014. The study examines the rise in non-Syrian nationals who joined the fighting against the Assad government during the civil war's first three years, most of them enlisting with groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and the wider global jihad movement.
The report focuses on the two organizations that had by late 2013 become the main channels for foreign recruits: the Al-Nusra Front, then al-Qaeda's official branch in Syria, and a rival group calling itself the Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria, an outgrowth of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Together the two were estimated to have around 9,000 fighters. The document builds on the center's earlier September 2013 study of Al-Nusra and states that country-by-country breakdowns of the fighters' origins would follow in separate reports.
ITIC frames the phenomenon as a risk reaching beyond Syria's borders: fighters who gain combat experience and undergo radicalization abroad are, in the center's assessment, liable to carry that experience home once the fighting ends.
Where to find it
Available from Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.