Foreign Legion: 17,000 men and women from more than 90 countries wage Muslim holy war for ISIS

ISIS actively recruits thousands of people to join their fight.

The Islamic State continues to round up and recruit foreign fighters to join their "Muslim holy war." During the past three and a half years, ISIS has gained between 16,000 and 17,000 men and women from 90 countries, according to The Jakarata Post.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The amount of ISIS foreign fighters more than doubles the amount in the French Foreign Legion.

This includes around 3,300 Western Europeans and about 100 Americans, according to the International Center for the Study of Radicalization.

"We all share the concern that fighters will attempt to return to their home countries or regions, and look to participate in or support terrorism and the radicalization to violence," stated Nicholas Rasmussen, director of the U.S. government's National Counterterrorism Center, explaining the fear linked with the foreign fighters who return home after battles.

"Just like Osama bin Laden started his career in international terrorism as a foreign fighter in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the next generation of Osama bin Ladens are currently starting theirs in Syria and Iraq," ICSR director Peter Neumann told a White House summit.

According to German security officers and Associated Press, there is no specific profile for those who leave their homes to join ISIS.

"Every person can contribute something to the Islamic State," Andre Poulin, an ISIS fighter from Canada explained in an online recruitment video. "You can easily earn yourself a higher station with God almighty for the next life by sacrificing just a small bit of this worldly life."

Fighters include people born into the Islamic faith, converts, adventurers, educated professionals and people struggling with life.

Sixty-five percent are believed to have prior criminal records and the foreign fighters are between the age of 15 and 63. Sixty-one percent are German-born, and there are nine men for every woman, according to the study obtained by AP.

Typically, American recruits are people in their late teens or early 20's who are trying to find their place in the world. "They certainly describe themselves as people who are struggling with conflict. They are trying to reconcile this dual identity of being a Muslim and being a Westerner, or being an American," expressed John Horgan, a psychologist for the Center of Terrorism and Security Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. "What they have in common is that they are young, they are impressionable and they are hungry for excitement."

"Before I came here to Syria, I had money, I had a family, I had good friends, it wasn't like I was some anarchist or somebody who just wants to destroy the world, to kill everybody," Poulin continues. "Put God almighty before your family, put it before yourself, put it before everything. Put Allah before everything."

Although ISIS manages to make their life seem glamorous, 15 percent of enlistees have died in action and some recruits have reached back out to parents expressing how they aren't paid and have to do laborious grunt work for the militants.

Poulin was reported dead last August, however, he managed to recruit five other Canadians before his demise.

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