Nearly 5,500 Tunisians are jihadists: UN experts

Tunis

UN experts said today that almost 5,500 Tunisians are fighting alongside jihadists abroad, urging Tunis to adopt a "national strategic plan" to curb the flow.

"The number of Tunisian foreign fighters is one of the highest among those travelling to join conflicts abroad such as in Syria and Iraq," said Elzbieta Karska, current head of a UN working group on the use of mercenaries.

"Sophisticated travel networks operate to take recruits across the porous borders, and sometimes through areas where trafficking in people and illicit goods may not be effectively controlled," Karska said after an eight-day mission to Tunisia.

"Testimony has documented that the routes taken entail travel through Libya, then Turkey and its border at Antakya, and then Syria," she said.

Karska also pointed to possible links between mercenaries and foreign recruits to groups such as the Islamic State group battling in Iraq and Syria.

"It was reported to us that recruiters in these networks are well paid –- one figure given is that of $3,000 to $10,000 per new recruit, depending on the person's qualifications," she said. 

She said an estimated 4,000 Tunisians were in Syria, between 1,000 and 1,500 in Libya, 200 in Iraq, 60 in Mali and 50 in Yemen. Around 625 who have returned from Iraq are being prosecuted, the expert said.