Brussels: The Islamic State group is hiring its supporters up to $10,000 per person that they recruit to wage jihad in Syria and Iraq, UN experts said on Friday, after they visited Belgium, one of the main countries of origin for “so-called foreign fighters”.
Elzbieta Karska, who chairs a UN group studying the issue said, IS is social media and informal network of friends and family with many of them in Syria, to recruit new jihadists in Belgium.
The experts of UN from Belgian contacts that 500 foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria originated in Belgium, the highest per capita of any EU country, she added.
“We have heard about situations where recruiters were paid from two, three thousand to 10,000 dollars depending on who was recruited,” Karska told a press conference in Brussels, adding that the findings were preliminary.
“If employee was well educated like computer specialists or doctors, then they were paid more,” the Polish human rights lawyer added.
In the last year, “the key method of recruitment is reportedly through informal networks of friends and family, and through social media”, Karska said.
“A significant degree of recruitment currently occurs through friends and family in Syria, who are also paid on the basis of the number of persons they recruit and on whether the recruits subsequently marry,” she said.
An increasing number of women or girls are leaving Belgium to marry jihadists or care for those who are ill or wounded, while few may actually fight, Karska and Arias added.
The number of boys and men departing for jihad had declined from about 10 per month three years ago to about four or five per month today. Their average age is 23 years old and declining, Karska said.
