In the north-east of Syria, about 2,000 citizens of the CIS countries were detained in six months. At the beginning of 2019, 524 of them – almost all women and children – were repatriated to Kazakhstan, 156 to Uzbekistan and 84 to Tajikistan. However, the flows of foreign terrorist fighters from Central Asia to Syria and Afghanistan do not stop, the UN News Service reports.
In a new report of the Secretary-General on the threat posed by ISIS to international peace and security indicates that since 2012, about 1,500 militants from Tajikistan and approximately the same number of Uzbek citizens have joined terrorist groups.
«Member States in the region are concerned about the emergence of new militants and supporters of terrorists who are recruited and ordered to stay in their countries. In 2019, as a result of a joint operation conducted by special services in the region, 26 ISIS members were arrested, some of whom were returnees (from conflict zones)», – says in the report of the Secretary-General.
It reports that terrorist propaganda materials are distributed on the Internet on a languages of Central Asian countries, which helps recruit their residents and create underground ISIS cells in the countries of the region.
Speaking about the activities of ISIS in general, the head of the UN recalled that the capture of El Baguz in March 2019 marked the end of the military operation to combat ISIS in Syria. Many terrorists died defending the last bastion of the so-called "caliphate". A large number of militants and members of their families left the area both before and after its fall and joined the wave of internally displaced people who settled in camps and detention centers in northeastern Syria.
The practice of creating a secret network of ISIS in the Iraqi provinces in 2017 is now repeated in Syria. It is also reported that ISIS militants, including several senior commanders, have taken refuge in those provinces where clashes continue.
The report of the UN Secretary-General presents an analysis of the threats of ISIS in all regions of the world.
