US-led coalition building jihadist database: envoy

HERZLIYA

The U.S.-led coalition battling the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is building a database of foreign fighters to track jihadists returning from Iraq and Syria at home, a senior US official said June 22.

Brett McGurk, the White House envoy to the anti-ISIL coalition, told an Israeli security conference the effort aimed to help prevent attacks like those recently carried out in Europe.

“Our coalition is building a global database of foreign fighters, through information-sharing networks and Interpol, to ensure that anyone who fought with ISIS in Syria and Iraq can be identified in either routine traffic stops, border entry points or in the course of routine police work,” McGurk said, using another acronym for ISIL.
 
Speaking at the annual Herzliya security conference near Tel Aviv, McGurk said the coalition was also having success in preventing more foreign fighters from joining ISIL in Syria.

“On foreign fighters we’ve largely halted the flow into Syria from Turkey; from hundreds a week to now a handful at most a month,” he said.