Expert: IS fighters from SEA regrouping in Deir ez-Zor in Syria

There is also word that hundreds of suspected militants are now hiding in Turkey.

PETALING JAYA: Islamic State (IS) fighters from Southeast Asia are believed to have regrouped in the Syrian governorate of Deir ez-Zor or run away to Turkey, an analyst said.

Following the fall of the group’s last self-proclaimed capital city of Raqqa in Syria, no fighters from the Asean region are believed to have returned home.

Pawel Wójcik, an analyst focusing on terrorism in Southeast Asia and other areas, said some of the fighters from the region had certainly made it back home but this was before the fall of their so-called caliphate. They were not in big numbers.

The militants from the Southeast Asian region are said to be from Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia.

Some Asean fighters, according to Wójcik, were reported to have been captured by the Syrian Democratic Forces and Iraqi forces.

“Also, there is word about hundreds of suspected militants hiding in Turkey. No doubt, those from the Asean region are among them,” he told FMT.

“There are no credible reports about them going elsewhere to fight on IS command, for example, in Afghanistan or Sinai where IS’ most capable branches reside.

“Southeast Asian fighters tend to either stay and fight to the death in Syria or leave and try to go back to their home countries.

“Most of the remaining Southeast Asian folk seem to have gathered where everyone from IS is suspected to be grouped right now — in the Euphrates valley in Deir ez-Zor governorate, near the Syrian-Iraqi border.”

On Friday, IS’ so-called al-Khair Wilayat or Province released a propaganda video featuring a Singaporean terrorist, Megat Shahdan Abdul Samad @ Abu Uqayl, and two other fighters, believed to be also from the Asean region, carrying out executions.

Wójcik said al-Khair Wilayat is in Deir ez-Zor where IS had some behind-the-line operations and had captured some towns on the right side of the Euphrates.

“The exact location where the video was made cannot be ascertained, but Abu Uqayl should be around there, judging from what we could see in the video.

“That’s where the Singaporean and all the other Asean region fighters are, most probably,” he said. -FMT