Hundreds of ISIS fighters left Syria but not all got back home: leaked ISIS data

(Zaman Al Wasl – Exclusive)- Zaman al-Wasl reveals in this exclusive series of ‘infiltrating the core’ of the Islamic State's personal data. The new documents are different from the ones published before.

The most important thing in the new documents which are considered samples of leaves or exit leaves is that they confirm the credibility of the samples of ‘jihadist data’ since the names and information mentioned in the leave samples match those in the ‘jihadist data’ as Zaman al-Wasl which owns both jihadist data and leave samples investigated.

The new documents reveal different information like the different specialties and names of emirs directly responsible of those who request the leaves. The documents also assist in understanding the approach of Islamic State in managing ‘leaves’ file and its official organization and documentation.

The new documents are a unified sample that consists of 10 fields:

The name, the family name (active name), workplace, specialty, emir’s name, entrance date, exit date, the cross point, note.  In other documents, there is one added field for consignments which the fighter keeps as he leaves.

The ‘country’ field documents existent of fighters from different nationalities belonging to different countries like Canada, Tunisia, Macedonia, Libya, France, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Kirgizia, Germany, Belgium, England, Netherlands, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and others.

However, the specialty field in a sample of ‘jihadist data’ only contained three options and those are: fighter, suicide bomber. The specialty field in the new documents reveal more extensive specialties such as booties, fuel, translated manufactured, administrative, Special Forces, media officer, vehicle supervisor, nurse, and fighter.

On January 20, Zaman Al Wasl published a brief over the personal data of ISIS
fighters.

This division of specialties shows the organization’s ability of ‘assorting’ those who join its lines and ‘’filtering’ them and moving them from the first stage which includes only general specialties to more specific missions and specialties. Also, the specialty field reveals the organization’s aim to build a hierarchy in which military missions complement administrative, manufacturing, funding, and media missions. The objective is to pave the way for a foundation of a ‘’state’ core that could run extensive areas under the control of the organization in Syria and Iraq.

If we carefully consider the ‘consignment’ field, we see that the organization is keen the member would leave something that indicates member’s return. The consignment is usually a passport and might be more than one passport. In other cases, members who hold leaves put extra documents like driving licence, identification card and sometimes a mobile phone.

In contrast, there are cases indicating that members who did not leave any consignments or have not left their passports with the organization tend to be due to trust of direct chief of the member who holds the leave and its high recommendation and that justify why this member can leave without leaving any consignments.

‘Cross point’ field means the place where the member has crossed and the cross points are only those included on the Syrian Turkish borders like Tall Abyad, Jarablus, Kilis. When they write a leave sample for a member who holds a Syrian nationality, they leave the ‘cross point’ field empty since the member might be going to another region inside of Syria. Also, they indicate in ‘entrance date’ that the member is ‘Ansari’ meaning he is from inside of Syria.

The comparison between the information of entrance and exit in documents shows different time spans. Sometimes there is one year between entrance and exit and at other times more than a year. Another group of documents shows a time span of one month between exit and entrance and sometimes less than a month. These are new members who joined the organization recently and decided to withdraw from the organization under an obvious pretext or a fake one. Those also include members who want to bring their families or finish some things after they decided they will remain in Syria. The organization writes on new members’ leaves the term ’trainee’ inside the field ‘workplace’ and ‘specialty’ field.

In the ‘reason of exit’ leave, the clerk who filled the sample writes the pretext proposed by the member to get a leave or exit leave. Sometimes it is common reasons like bringing family (wife), bringing money, healthcare, family circumstances or problems, break, marriage, work and others.

Sometimes, there are uncommon reasons and might be strange like what we came across in some documents. For instance, the member prefers to join Islamic State in Libya, the member does not want military life or jihad, the member could not be patient, no reason, the member does not want to enter the camp, the member wants to join brothers in Lebanon, the member does not want to be assorted to Iraq (this one was repeated many times).

‘Notes’ field comes finally for the appointed clerk to write the sample his own perspective or proposal. The field might be empty and sometimes it would contain significant notes like; if the member returns, he will be detained, the member was in al-Nusra Front and joined the Islamic State, the member was with Junud al-Sham (Levant Soldiers led by Abu Muslim al-Shishani) and joined Islamic State, personal reasons, the member gave false information, the member returned to his country on  non-return condition by his emir, the member brought his son and returned, the member has a lack of belief (repeated many times).

Zaman al-Wasl will publish consecutively additional information about these documents including names of emirs in the organization.

The jihadist who cross the Islamic State's borders for the first time is ought to acknowledge the Borders Directorate everything about himself, even what he wants to be: a suicide bomber, a martyr, a fighter, or an administrative worker. And many of the people who join the Islamic State as administrative workers have degrees in engineering, computers and many strong majors.

Two thirds of ISIS manpower were from Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt. 25% of ISIS fighters are Saudis, the data disclosed.

Zaman has also posted 122 documents of fighters from around the world who they wanted to carry out suicide attacks. 

The documents, which issued between 2013-2014, had the word "secret" at the bottom, while on the top it had the name "Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant," or ISIL, on one top corner and the "General Directorate of Borders" on the other.

(Translation by Rana Abdul)

To download suicide bombers list Here

To view the documents click  Here