"Western Jihadists" Are Leaving ISIS in droves

The AFP news agency, citing informed sources, wrote that heavy military strikes against the ISIS group in Syria and Iraq have scattered Western jihadists who joined the group's ranks, forcing many of them to return to their countries. The AFP agency stated that these returns have become a major issue for Western counter-terrorism services.

Over the past months and weeks, the Islamic State group has been the target of intense fighter-bomber attacks from Western countries and Russia, to the point that the group is unable to prevent the withdrawal of some of its thousands of foreign forces from Syria and Iraq.
According to research by Imperial College London, the motivations of foreign forces leaving the ranks of ISIS in Syria and Iraq vary, including fear of airstrikes, disillusionment, corruption among local ISIS leaders, and the group's persecution of Sunni Muslims.

According to research from Imperial College London, the jihadists who are now seeking to leave the ranks of ISIS in Syria and Iraq have not become staunch supporters of Western democracies. Some of them have committed crimes.
Some jihadists who have returned to the West say that the Islamic State is more interested in fighting other Muslims than the Assad regime, and that life under ISIS is very difficult and frustrating. One of them told a researcher at the London Institute of Technology that ISIS will sometimes destroy a building with women and children inside to eliminate one person.

Didier Loubre, the national coordinator of intelligence in France, told the country's news agency: "Jihadists in Western countries feel that the final phase has begun and many of them are sending messages asking how they can return to their countries." The same source added that in the eyes of these people, the era of great victories of the self-proclaimed caliphate of the Islamic State is over and many who try to secretly leave the ranks of ISIS are being killed.

Patrick Kelver, the director general of France's internal security agency, said in a speech to the country's National Assembly in mid-May: "244 jihadists from Syria and Iraq have returned to France and we are seeing more and more of them leaving the ranks of ISIS. However, many of them are considered traitors by ISIS as soon as they declare their desire to leave Syria and Iraq, deserving of execution."

Source: rfi