If ISIS if is defeated 65,000 jihadists may stand in its place
By focusing its anti-terrorist efforts on ISIS alone the West makes a mistake claim British experts from Tony Blair Faith Foundation. Sixty percent of Islamist fighters in Syria have the same goals as ISIS while not actually being part of the so called Islamic State.
The jihadists from at least 15 non-ISIS groups are mostly ignored in the West, the British experts say.
Up to twenty-five percent of those non-Isis groups have no clear Ideology or goals. Yet they are ready to fight with other Islamist forces in Syria and even follow their orders.
The report, as cited by the Guardian states “The West risks making a strategic failure by focusing only on IS. Defeating it militarily will not end global jihadism. We cannot bomb an ideology, but our war is ideological”
The report comes days after the UN Security Council passed a roadmap to a political transition in Syria. The resolution adopted on Friday lists only two militant groups in Syria, IS and the Al Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda branch, as banned from negotiating the future of the country under UN aegis.
British experts made their report a few days after UN Security Council passed a roadmap to a political transition in Syria. The resolution lists only two terrorist groups in Syria, ISIS and the Al Nusra Front ( branch an al-Qaeda)
If ISIS is to be defeated, it may give a start for terrorist attacks outside of Syria under a rallying cry that "the West destroyed the caliphate." say the British experts.
The report claims that if the government of President Bashar Assad is defeated the war will not stop, but rather will be fueled.
The highlights of the report are somewhat similar to those voiced by Russian officals. Moscow has been calling for a long time on the oponents of Damascus to provide a list of militant groups that are considered “moderate”.