September 18, 2014 | Quote

Have Three Detainees Swapped for Bowe Bergdahl Now Joined ISIS?

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that while he doesn’t doubt that the ex-detainees are dangerous to United States interests, “there is literally zero evidence” that the detainees have been spotted on the battlefield with ISIS.

Gartenstein-Ross added that the claim doesn’t even make much logical sense and betrays the author’s weak grasp on the region’s nuances.

“The ex-detainees “were in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater,” Gartenstein-Ross said. “Based on these guys’ social networks and who their points of contact were, it’s pretty unlikely they’d be able to quickly find a way to the battlefield and have a command” in the Iraq-Syria border region.

“They are not native Arabic speakers, and it would be unfamiliar terrain culturally. They would face a lot of obstacles,” he said.

Read full article here.

Issues:

Syria