article_snippet.sent: More than 20,000 foreign fighters have fled to Syria and IraqIraq, turning the region into an ‘international finishing school’ for jihadists, an alarming report found.
article_snippet.sent: Fighters from 100 nations – more than half the countries in the world – have joined militant groups such as Al Qaeda and Islamic State, according to research by the United Nations.
article_snippet.sent: Worryingly, an alarming report warned if IS was defeated in the region then More than 20,000 foreign fighters could be scattered across the world.
article_snippet.sent: More than 20,000 foreign fighters from more than half the countries in the world have joined militant groups such as Al Qaeda and Islamic State, according to a report by the United Nations .
article_snippet.sent: The panel said the thousands of foreign fighters who travelled to both countries are living and working in ‘a veritable “international finishing school” for extremists’ as was the case in Afghanistan in the 1990s.
article_snippet.sent: said hundreds of foreigners are fighting in Yemen, Libya and Pakistan, around 100 in Somalia, and others in the Sahel countries in northern Africa, and in Afghanistan.
article_snippet.sent: A military defeat of the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq could have the unintended consequence of scattering foreign terrorist fighters across the world, The panel said.
article_snippet.sent: The number of countries foreign terrorist fighters come from has also risen dramatically from a small group in the 1990s to over 100 today, including some that have never had previous links with Al-Qaeda associated groups, The panel said.
article_snippet.sent: The panel cited the ‘high number’of foreign fighters from Tunisia, Morocco, France and Russia, the increase in fighters from the Maldives, Finland and Trinidad and Tobago, and the first fighters from some countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
article_snippet.sent: the Al-Nusra Front (pictured, a fighter from the Al-Qaeda linked militant group)
highlights_snippet.sent: United Nations report said fighters came from over half world's countries .
  
highlights_snippet.sent: United Nations report warned if IS was defeated foreign fighters could scatter across the globe .