Foreign Fighters

The Soufan Group, a private company that provides security intelligence services to various governmental organizations, estimated from 2014 to 2015 the number of foreign fighters in the ranks of ISIS increased from approximately 12,000 to anywhere from 27,000 to 31,000 individuals. The demographics of these foreign fighters are extremely varied. From Western Europe there is an estimated 5,000 individuals in Syria as of June, 2015 with 3,700 of the total 5,000 European fighters hailing from the recruitment hotspots of France (1,700 fighters), the United Kingdom (760 fighters), Germany (760 fighters), and Belgium (470 fighters).The process of recruiting fighters or lone wolf actors from the United States relies almost exclusively on of social media as the main method of ISIS’ engagement of these individuals

Women

ISIS has begun to actively recruit foreign and domestic women to their cause by using female recruiters to reach out to generally young females. Though not nearly as developed an effort as its appeal to youth and foreign male fighters, the phenomenon of women joining the ranks of ISIS has become less exceptional and more commonplace. The benefit to using female ISIS members is that they are able to dispel any fears potential foreign female recruits have by relating their own ‘positive’ experiences with joining ISIS.