Terrorist recruits in America? New study shows ISIS recruits return to attack their home countries

People who travel to the Middle East and join ISIS are little more than guns-for-hire.

A recent report indicates higher ISIS recruitment this year than ever before, with many likely to return to their home countries intent on conducting terror attacks.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The report came from the anti-terror Soufan Group, which advises world governments on terror.

According to the Soufan Group, ISIS recruitment falls between 27 and 31,000 from a minimum of eighty-six countries. The highest number of recruits are from Russia and Central Asia, with up to a 300 percent since June last year. 

North America recruitment remains steady at roughly 280 ISIS volunteers each year, while Tunisians lead with 6,000 annually.

Russian Defense Ministry deputy head Anatoly Antonov believes people who travel to join ISIS are little more than mercenary "guns for hire," adding, "Should they return home, carrying the potential for violence and extremism, they will be preaching radical ideas in our countries or will organize subversive activities."

The Soufan Group agrees and reported 30 percent of all ISIS recruits will return to their home countries to carry out terror attacks. Excellent examples of the reality this figure indicates are the Paris terror attacks, which were led by nine people, all of whom were trained in Syria before returning to Belgium and Paris.

Terror expert Peter Chalk, who is part of anti-terror think tank RAND, told MailOnline many impoverished people in the Middle East join ISIS in hopes of living better lives, while others join due to discontent with their current social standing. The promise of money, adventure and women is enough for most to join the terrorist group.

"ISIS pays fighters $200 a month salary, which is a lot of money for unemployed Muslims coming from poor, underdeveloped states where the prospect of a well-paying job is effectively zero. 

"ISIS has also devoted a lot of attention to recruiting women, exhorting females to fulfill their religious duty to the caliphate by being mothers and helping to populate a future Islamic State in the Middle East. This message has clearly resonated, both in the Arab world as well as wider in a field in central, south east Asia and the West."

ISIS continues to grow, and with 280 North Americans joining this year, at a 30 percent return-with-intent-to-kill-rate, that means eighty-four North Americans can return to America in the future to carry out terror attacks.

Colin Clark, another member of RAND, believes "the west is losing - and losing badly - the battle of the narrative against Salafist jihadist ideology. Western countries dedicated so much money and resources to hard power and kinetics and not enough on the 'soft side' of counter terrorism."

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