Thousands of men, women and children have travelled from the UK and Western Europe to join forces with ISIS…and a shocking number have returned home as well, according to a new report.
The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation released a report entitled “From Daesh to ‘Diaspora’: Tracing the Women and Minors of Islamic State”.
Westmonster spoke to the people behind the report, and they confirmed 5,904 people travelled to Iraq or Syria to join ISIS, 1,023 of those were women and 1,502 were minors.
Of those, 1,765 have returned – 138 women and 834 children.
This should be particularly worrying to people considering the threat these potentially radicalised people now pose.
The report states: “Women and minors affiliated with and inspired by IS have already demonstrated their prominence as security threats, with numerous foiled and successful attacks plotted and carried out globally.
“First, there are the physical security roles and related training that women have undertaken in IS-held territory and the potential to transfer or apply skills or practices learned to other locations.”
The report notes that women have been filmed fighting alongside men on battlefields in Syria and Iraq.
It adds that Europol noted that 96 women were arrested for terrorism related charges in 2014, 171 in 2015, 219 in 2016 and 123 in 2017.
In Paris, in September 2016, five women in a terrorist cell were arrested after a faulty car bomb near Notre Dame was found.
And, regarding the children, often known as ISIS ‘cubs’, the report states that ‘between September 2014 and December 2016, at least 34 plots involved 44 teen and pre-teen participants in seven Western European countries’.
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These numbers of returnees need to be understood and dealt with. It poses yet more danger to the public from those who believe in or have been brainwashed by radical Islam.