Almost 1,500 French citizens have traveled to Syria to join jihadi groups - putting the number of Europeans fighting in the Middle East at around 6,000.
However this figure, according to Czech European Commissioner for Justice, Věra Jourová, could be a big underestimate.
Sputnik News — April 13, 2015
Věra Jourová told French newspaper Le Figaro that despite official estimates, between 5,000 and 6,000 EU nationals had traveled to Syria, and that number could be "highly undervalued" because of the difficulty of tracking foreign fighters abroad.
Related: French PM Says 10,000 Europeans could be Fighting for ISIL by Year-End.
EU Must Understand Extremism
Recently, Turkish security officials were handed a list of ten thousand potential names of people who might attempt to use the country's border to enter Syria.
And it's Turkey's geographical position and long border it shares with Syria and Iraq that makes the country such a convenient transit point for western foreign fighters crossing the border to join Islamic State extremists.
Counter-terrorism expert, Professor Hamed El-Said from Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK, says controlling the border "requires enormous amount of human, financial and military resources, which no one country alone can bear and countries must share intelligence."
However, in order to tackle radicalization and prevent more European citizens from traveling to Turkey to join Islamic State, Professor El-Said says that European countries need to: "develop a better understanding for conditions conducive to radicalisation and extremism that lead individuals to commit a violent extremist act, either nationally or in foreign countries."
Read the full article at Sputnik News.
