Written question asked by Jim Cunningham (Labour) on Tuesday, 8 March 2016, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Friday, 11 March 2016 (named day). It was answered by Tobias Ellwood (Conservative) on Friday, 11 March 2016 on behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Middle East: Islamic State
- Question
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To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 7 March 2016 to Question 29560, what assessment he has made of trends in the number of active Daesh fighters in (a) Iraq, (b) Libya and (c) Syria in each of the last 24 months; and if he will make a statement.
- Answer
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As outlined in our response to PQ 29560 the latest available public figures on the number of Daesh fighters in Iraq and Syria come from the US. These put the number at approximately 19,000 – 25,000, compared to 20,000 – 31,000 fighters in 2014.
Our current estimate for the number of Daesh fighters in Libya is between 3,000 – 6,000. We do not have earlier estimates from which we could extrapolate a trend. The vast majority of Daesh fighters in Libya are foreigners rather than Libyans. While some Daesh figures have called for foreign fighters to go to Libya rather than Iraq/Syria, we have not seen any evidence to suggest this has happened.
Secondary information
- Type
- Written question
- Reference
- 30296
- Session
- 2015-16
- Related items
- Subjects
- Iraq Libya Syria Islamic State
- Contains statistics
- Yes
- Link
- View this Written question on www.parliament.uk
Librarians' tools
- Timestamp
- 2025-07-30 10:55:42 +0100
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