MESOP : HOW MANY FIGHTERS ISIS REALLY HAS

 

MESOP Arguments & Analysis : How Many Fighters Does the Islamic State Really Have?’ (Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, War on the Rocks)

“The figure of 200,000 ISIL fighters advanced by Fuad Hussein includes support personnel (ansar), police-style security forces (hisba), local militias, border guards, paramilitary personnel associated with the group’s various security bodies (mukhabarat, assas, amniyat, and amn al-khas), and conscripts and trainees. The actual number of ISIL front-line and garrison fighters is much lower, which are divided between their regular forces (jund), the elite paramilitary (inghimasiyun, which alone may have up to 15,000 members), and death squad (dhabbihah) personnel. Unless one is able to objectively evaluate these bodies, merely throwing out raw numbers is meaningless.” www.mesop.de