1 in 10 ISIS recruits willing to become suicide bombers, leaked documents show
Twelve percent of Islamic State recruits are willing to become suicide bombers, according to analysts who combed through a trove of thousands of leaked documents containing the personal details of some 22,000 fighters.
Dozens of British fighters can be found among the recruits, including Birmingham hacker Junaid Hussain and Reyaad Khan of Cardiff, who were both killed in a US drone strike last year.
CTC report reveals diversity of fighters in the Islamic State. Get to know them: https://t.co/m3fVDwWPc5#InsideISpic.twitter.com/0uUyfw3FM2
— CTC at West Point (@CTCWP) April 18, 2016
The leaked files, which contain the names, nationalities, addresses, telephone numbers and other personal details of jihadists who joined the terrorist network in 2013 and 2014, reveal that two thirds of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) recruits are between the ages 21 and 30, though a number were found to be in their teens and in their 60s.
The oldest person in the database was a 70-year-old father of five from Kyrgyzstan.
“The largest takeaway from these documents is the massive diversity of the population,” Brian Dodwell, deputy director of the Combating Terrorism Center at US Military Academy at West Point, told NBC News.
“We’re talking about very diverse backgrounds from an education perspective — individuals who list their education as none up to those who listed their educations as PhDs, masters degrees, MBAs … Everything from laborers to doctors and lawyers.”
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A beekeeper, a hashish dealer and a London Starbucks employee are among the recruits, according to NBC News, which, with the help of the elite military academy, translated and analyzed the files.
About 10 percent of the fighters came from Western countries, with 128 jihadists hailing from France, 80 from Germany and 57 from the UK.
The biggest feeder countries, however, were Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, with 797 and 640 recruits respectively.
The documents, which emerged last month, were leaked by a former Free Syrian Army fighter who switched over to fight for IS.