
UK nationals who trained and fought in Syria before returning home may pose a security risk, UK immigration minister James Brokenshire has admitted in a BBC interview.
Brokenshire told Radio 4's The World This Weekend: "A growing proportion of the security services' work is linked to Syria in some way. This is a big problem that the security services and the police are actively focused on."
Whitehall security sources believe most of the fighters, some of whom travel to Syria by taking EasyJet flights to Turkey and crossing the border, spent time in training camps affiliated to al-Qaida while in the Middle East. Some are veterans of the war in Afghanistan.
Since civil war erupted in Syria in 2011, around 400 UK extremists have travelled to Syria. Around 20 have died in the country, including Abdul Waheed Majeed, a 41-year-old from Martyr's Avenue, Crawley, who is suspected of being the first UK suicide bomber to die in Syria. Majeed was filmed looking relaxed moments before he carried out the attack on Aleppo prison, joking that he couldn't speak Arabic because his tongue had a "knot in it".
Around 100 UK fighters are thought to remain in Syria and 250 have returned home, though not all are thought to pose a threat.
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