Summary
"Over the past 12 months, a team of researchers from ICSR have
created a database which contains the open source social media
profiles of 190 Western and European foreign fighters. More than two
thirds of these fighters are affiliated with Jabhat al-Nusrah or the Islamic
State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS), the two groups that have, at one point
or another, maintained formal relationships with al-Qaeda. The social
media activity of these users reveals a unique and unfiltered window
into the minds of a population about whom much has been written
and speculated.
This is the first in a series of papers that draws on information from
the database. It examines the question of how foreign fighters in Syria
receive information about the conflict and who inspires them."--Pages 6-7.