WASHINGTON, May 23 (RIA Novosti), Lyudmila Chernova - US authorities should be cautious about letting American fighters from Syria back into the country as there are many extremists among them, Gordon Hahn, analyst and Advisory Board Member at Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation, told RIA Novosti Thursday.
"To intentionally let the fighters back is suicide. <...> I don't think there are any active threats from the returning fighters but without a doubt there will be potential threats," Hahn said.
Recent US media reports suggested that there are more American extremists fighting in Syria than previously estimated. According to the latest US intelligence estimates, over 100 Americans have joined the jihad in Syria to side with the Sunni terrorists in the country.
Expert warns US authorities should take measures not to let the case with the Boston Marathon bomber Tsarnaev repeat - Tsarnaev was able to travel to Dagestan and then come back even after the tip from the Russian intelligence that he had jihadist sympathies.
"Tsarnaev never was thoroughly followed on the internet to keep track of his radicalization. I think we'll see a similar pattern this time," Hahn said.
The expert thinks the issue depends partly on how much training the fighters have gotten and what are the reasons for them to return.
"Some people are maybe returning because they are disappointed, as many jihadists are fighting among themselves, others may be returning because they've gotten training and want to engage in plots, others may be returning without training but still would like to carry out some kind of a plot. And I believe if we have some 100 men returning some will certainly pose potential threats to the United States," he explained.
Hahn noted that there are people who are disaffected in any country and the Muslim world in general is going through a period of upheaval.
"It touches almost every Muslim community around the world because of the Internet, so it's not surprising that there people travelling to Syria from the United States," he concluded.
Expert believes Syria is one of the countries where international terrorists undergo training.
"Syria is functioning as sort of an incubator for international terrorism and international terrorism plots much in the same way as Afghanistan and AfPak have done in the past," Hahn asserted, adding that for example, the connections between the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan and German citizens that produced several terrorist plots resulted from the incubator effect of AfPak.
"We are going to see the similar thing happening as a result of the civil war in Syria" Hahn warned. "All the western countries as well as Russia are going to experience the return of fighters who are going to be more combat ready and more experienced and have better connections to AL Qaeda and the global jihadi revolutionary movement, and that's going to cost major problems for everyone in the West and other places," Hahn underlined.
Fierce battles between the Syrian army and Islamist militants, including foreign mercenaries and al-Qaeda-affiliated groups have been ongoing in Syria since March 2011. Over 2.3 million Syrian citizens have been forced to flee the country; and some 6.5 million Syrians have been displaced within Syria.
