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Foreign Fighters In Syria Stir US, EU Terror Fears

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  • Foreign Fighters In Syria Stir US, EU Terror Fears

    FOREIGN FIGHTERS IN SYRIA STIR US, EU TERROR FEARS

    Tue Jul 30, 2013 4:6

    TEHRAN (FNA)- A rising number of extremists with western passports are
    traveling to Syria to fight against the government of Syrian President
    Bashar al-Assad, raising fears among American and European
    intelligence officials of a new terrorist threat when the fighters
    return home.

    More westerners are now fighting in Syria than fought in conflicts in
    Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia or Yemen, according to the officials, The
    New York Times reported.

    The extremist militants go to Syria under the pretext of helping
    people but there is growing concern that they get orders from
    affiliates of al-Qaeda to carry out terrorist strikes al-Alam
    reported.

    "The concern going forward from a threat perspective is there are
    individuals traveling to Syria, becoming further radicalized, becoming
    trained and then returning ... to western Europe and, potentially, to
    the United States," Matthew G. Olsen, the director of the National
    counterterrorism Center, told a security conference in Aspen, Colo.,
    this month.

    Classified estimates from western intelligence services put the number
    of militants from Europe, North America and Australia who have entered
    Syria since 2011 at more than 600. That represents about 10 percent of
    the roughly 6,000 foreign militants who have poured into Syria by way
    of the Middle-East and North Africa.

    Most of the westerners are self-radicalized and are traveling on their
    own initiative to Turkey, where rebel facilitators often link them up
    with specific groups, terrorism experts say.

    Many have joined ranks with the al-Qaeda-aligned al-Nusra Front, which
    even American officials have designated as a terrorist group.

    "The scale of this is completely different from what we've experienced
    in the past," Gilles de Kerchove, the European Union's
    counterterrorism coordinator, said at the conference in Aspen.

    So far, terrorism experts say, there have been no documented terrorist
    plots linked to European or other western fighters returning from
    Syria, but France's interior minister, Manuel Valls, recently called
    the threat "a ticking time bomb".

    Security services across Europe are stepping up their surveillance
    efforts and seeking ways to make it more difficult for people
    suspected of being radicalized to travel to Syria.

    European and other western intelligence agencies are rushing to work
    together to track the individuals seeking to cross the border into
    Syria from Turkey, though several American officials expressed
    frustration that Turkey is not taking more aggressive steps to stem
    the flow of Europeans going to fight in Syria.

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