Sourced : The Telegraph
By Josie Ensor
From an experienced electronic engineer at a British company to a Turkish Nato officer and a Norwegian helicopter pilot, leaked “CVs” of some of Isil’s most elite fighters reveal just how experienced the group’s foreign command are.
The files contain the names of 368 Islamic State fighters enrolled at a training camp for senior leaders near Raqqa in Syria.
The documents entitled “Camp Database” and dated June 2014 – around the time Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq – reveal an extraordinarily organised group from the moment of its inception.
They show how rather than being a ragtag army like many of its rival opposition groups, Isil had a large number of educated, highly skilled and militarily competent jihadists, which they trained together in an attempt to combine their expertise.
A 62-year-old British jihadist using the assumed name Abu Ismail al-Indonesi said he worked as an electronic engineer in a “leading” British company where one of his tasks was monitoring communications.
According to the files, which were leaked along with thousands of others to the Syrian opposition newspaper Zaman al-Wasl, dissatisfied with his life in the UK he left to join Isil in early 2014.
Also selected for training at the camp was Abu Musa al-Kanadi, a Canadian, who had been working as a chemical engineer in the city of Toronto. Another who had been living in Canada said he had a degree in electro-mechanical engineering and had trained as an airplane mechanic for 11 months.
A Norwegian calling himself Abu Amir al-Russi wrote that he was a competent helicopter pilot, and under language skills put English, Russian, Norwegian and “some Arabic”.
Abu Huthaf al-Azari served in the Saudi army for 10 years, while Chechen fighter Saleemeh al-Chechani gained military experience in Russia’s naval artillery force, where he served for two years.
One of the most alarming is a Turkish jihadist using only the name Abu Bakr who had gained his fighting experience by “serving in the ranks of Nato as an officer for 18 months”.
More than 30 per cent of the jihadists listed in the documents had military knowledge which most of them gained by serving in their countries’ armies, including Russia, Turkey, China, Algeria and Saudi Arabia.
Some showed off their sporting prowess, including the German who said he was a professional kickboxer and a fighter from the Tatarstan republic in Russia who said he holds the title of karate champion.
It is estimated that nearly 30,000 foreigners have travelled to the region since fighting broke out in Syria in 2011 – more than the total who travelled to Afghanistan during its 10-year war.
While the most senior positions within Isil are usually held Syrians and Iraqis, trusted foreign fighters with expertise move up the ranks.
For example, British jihadist Mohammed Emwazi or “Jihadi John”, who studied computer programming at Westminster University, became the group’s posterboy and appeared in may of their propaganda videos.
The files reveal that roughly a third finished sixth form and a quarter had a university education – a level of education higher than the average for many of the countries the men came from.
Brian Dodwell, deputy director of the Combating Terrorism Centre at West Point, said: “Those who listed their educations had Ph.D.s, master’s degrees, MBAs.
“They are perhaps more educated than we would expect and come from all walks of life.”