More Than 12,000 Foreigners Fighting with ISIS and Rebel Groups

Associated Press reports that more than 12,000 foreigners from 74 countries have gone to fight with rebels in Syria. Of those, the wire says that 60 to 70 percent hail from other Middle Eastern countries and that 20 to 25 percent are from the West.

Peter Neumann, who directs the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King’s College London, told AP that the Syrian conflict has “sparked the most significant mobilization of foreign fighters since the 1980s war in Afghanistan against the Soviet occupation … With over 12,000 foreigners taking up arms in Syria in just three years, he said, ‘that conflict is well on track to becoming the most significant mobilization of foreign fighters that has ever taken place in living memory.’”

“‘I am confident … that out of that foreign fighter mobilization, over the course of the next generation there will be terrorist attacks’,” he said.

Fears of Refugee Abuse Grow as Turkish Men Purchase Syrian Brides

The Guardian reports that on the Turkish border, an increasing number of Syrian refugee women are opting to marry Turkish men, concerning women’s rights groups.

“A lot of women agree to these marriages out of sheer desperation. All they think about is how to feed their family, how to make ends meet. These arrangements might seem like the only way out, and men exploit this,” one Gaziantep activist tells Constanze Letsch. “At the same time, local women feel helpless and anxious about their own families breaking apart. Women on both sides of the border become victims this way.”

U.S. Courts Skeptical Arab Allies in ISIS Fight

Reuters reports that the U.S. “will court skeptical Gulf Arab allies this week and consider expanding training and arming of moderate Syrian rebels to lead the fight against the jihadists.”

With Secretary of State John Kerry in the region on Tuesday, “a meeting between the White House and top lawmakers in Congress is expected to discuss a slow-moving $500 million initiative, announced in June, to strengthen a loosely organized group of rebels who have struggled in their fight against the Syrian government and Islamic State.

“Sources with direct knowledge of the matter said lawmakers have questions over how the money would be spent and whether the United States will end a ban on shipments of powerful weapons to the rebels, such as surface-to-air missiles, due to fears they could be captured or used against the U.S. and its allies.”

The wire also reports that the fight against ISIS “could at last win Syria’s Kurds the Western help they have sought, but they must first clarify their relationship to President Bashar al-Assad and reassure Turkey that they won’t cause trouble on its border.”

In Iraq, the Kurds are one of the main Western allies against ISIS. But in Syria, they have yet to win Western acceptance as partners.