(MENAFN- Jordan News Agency) The number of fighters leaving home to join al-Qaida and Daesh gang in Iraq, Syria and other countries has spiked to more than 25,000 from over 100 nations, according to a new U.N. report.
The panel of experts monitoring U.N. sanctions against al-Qaida said in the report obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press that its analysis indicates the number of foreign terrorist fighters worldwide increased by 71 per cent between mid-2014 and March 2015.
The report said the scale of the problem has increased over the past three years and the flow of foreign fighters "is higher than it has ever been historically." The overall number of foreign terrorist fighters has "risen sharply from a few thousand a decade ago to more than 25,000 today," the panel said in the report to the U.N. Security Council.
In addition to Syria and Iraq, the report said Afghan security forces estimated in March that about 6,500 foreign fighters were active in the country. And it said hundreds of foreigners are fighting in Yemen, Libya and Pakistan, around 100 in Somalia, and others in the Sahel countries in northern Africa, and in the Philippines.
The panel said the fighters and their networks "pose an immediate and long-term threat" and "an urgent global security problem" that needs to be tackled on many fronts and has no easy solution.
With globalized travel, it said, the chance of a person from any country becoming a victim of a foreign terrorist attack "is growing, particularly with attacks targeting hotels, public spaces and venues." But the panel noted that a longstanding terrorist goal is "generating public panic" and stressed that the response needs to "be measured, effective and proportionate."
Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.