December 3, 2014 | The Telegraph

Jihadist Training Camps Expand Across Syria and Iraq

A report from the Long War Journal has identified dozens of training camps belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Qaeda's branch in Syria), and several other smaller hardline units.

Compiling video footage, messages posted by jihadists on social media and US military press releases, the Journal has determined the location of 34 camps in Syria and 12 in Iraq.

A map shows the locations of the identified camps.

In August, in one of its first attacks in Syria, the coalition killed Abu Yusif al-Turki, in strikes against the so-called Khorasan, a group that the US says had been plotting attacks against the West.

Al-Turki was, according to the Long War Journal, a Nusra Front commander who had also fought in Afghanistan and who was training fighters to become snipers. The jihadist, whose real name is reportedly Umit Yaşar Toprak, was also implicated in a plot to assassinate George W Bush, the former US president, during a Nato summit in Istanbul.

Read full article here.

Issues:

Syria