Syrian Kurds join ISIS

03.02.2014 – Taha Hussain – BasNews, Syria – A number of Syrian Kurds in the Kurdish region of Syria have joined the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS).

In a video released on Facebook by ISIS, a bearded man appears with a group of militants holding ISIS flags. The man speaks in the Kurdish dialect Kurmanji and states that he is from Afrin, a Kurdish town close to Aleppo. The man is shown to call on Kurds to join ISIS and fight against the The video is the first piece of evidence of Syrian Kurdish presence in ISIS. There are currently no reliable statistics on the number of Syrian Kurds fighting with the group. In the last 12 months hundreds of young Iraqi Kurds joined ISIS to fight against Syrian forces, but this is the first example of Syrian Kurds fighting for extremist groups.