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 UN Security Council.
A military defeat of the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq could have the unintended consequence of scattering foreign terrorist fighters across the world, the panel said.
It noted that the ‘watch list’ in Turkey - a key crossing point to Syria and Iraq - now includes 12,500 individuals.
And while governments are focusing on countering the threat from fighters returning home, the panel said it’s possible that some may be traumatised by what they saw and need psychological help.
Others may be recruited by criminal networks.
The number of countries the fighters come from has also risen dramatically from a small group in the 1990s to over 100 today, including some that have never had previous links with Al-Qaeda associated groups, the panel said.
It cited the ‘high number’of foreign fighters from Tunisia, Morocco, France and Russia, the increase in fighters from the Maldives, Finland and Trinidad and Tobago, and the first fighters from some countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
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