Pan said many ISIS fighters were found to have come from Western countries, including the US, the UK and France. China's Xinjiang province, the report said has become one of the main sources of ISIS fightersChinese official media on Friday dismissed as "groundless" a US think tank report that claimed China's policies in the northwest Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region have driven local Muslims to join the ISIS. Does it mean "they (the fighters) join the ISIS because of their governments' repression?" According to the report, 37 fighters were from France, 53 from the UK, 24 from Germany, nine from the US and 194 from Russia. The Washington DC-based New America Foundation on Wednesday released a report based on leaked registration documents of ISIS fighters provided by a defector from the jihadist organisation, which include 3,500 foreign recruits, among whom 114 came from Muslim-majority Xinjiang province.

Source: dna July 22, 2016 08:38 UTC