Where have all the ISIS jihadis gone?

The Islamic State has been getting their collective butts kicked by U.S.-backed forces now that the rules of engagement have been relaxed by President Trump to the point where we can actually destroy them. 

But we haven't destroyed them all and of the estimated 40,000 who have traveled from all around the globe to fight for Allah a few hundred still survive and are thought to still be fighting as the terror organization lost most of its territory.

But what about the rest of the scumquats? Where did they go?

Thousands have been killed in the intense fighting, but it's believed that many survived and will continue to be a real threat in the future.

"The issue is: how many have died? How many are still there and willing to fight? How many have gone elsewhere to fight?" Seth Jones, director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the Rand Corporation said. "How many have given up? I don't think we have a good answer."

Counterterror groups are trying to answer these questions and are doing all they can to name and track foreign fighters.

In France, about 1,700  jihadists went to Syria and Iraq since 2013 to join IS. Of those, about 400 have been sent to their virgins in the sky and 250 returned to France.

Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that around 500 are still in the Iraq-Syria theater and it's now going to be very difficult for them to return to France. However, that still leaves about 500 whose whereabouts are unknown.

Terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman of Georgetown University believes that "thousands" have escaped the war zone. How he knows this is a mystery, but that's why he's the expert.

"Today, some of them are most likely in the Balkans, lying low for the time being, waiting for the opportunity to infiltrate themselves to the rest of Europe," he said.

No less than 80 IS jihadis from Russia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Yemen have joined since May, the IS-allied Abu Sayyaf fart-weasels who now fight government forces in the southern Philippines, kidnapping unsuspecting tourists and beheading them for fun and profit.

In the northern Afghanistan province of Jowzjan, local people in the area told the AFP that French-speaking IS fighters from France or northern African countries have recently arrived there. 

There remains escape routes from the battlefields of Syria and Iraq. IS militants were able to blend in with civilian refugees or bribe their way, or sneak into Turkey.

Many of the IS jihadis never planned on going home and have no choice but to continue the fight for their Sixth Century values against the civilized world where folks take regular showers and don't fool around with children or the livestock.


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