Deutsche Welle quotes Rafik Hariri Center Resident Fellow Faysal Itani on the flow of foreign fighters joining the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham:
“It’s an easy diplomatic gain and good optics because obviously everybody in the Security Council has an interest in seeing something like this pass”, Faysal Itani, a Middle East specialist at the Atlantic Council, told DW. “You can hardly disagree with it on principle.”
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“I imagine that the main target here is Turkey because there is the perception that they have been lax and irresponsible in their management of foreign fighter flows,” said Itani.
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“It’s not completely cynical, it’s just indicative of the fact that these are the easy things to do”, added Itani. “It’s relatively easy to use financial counterterrorism means and it’s relatively easy to try to stop people from migrating to Syria and coming back. That’s been policy all along.”