BEIRUT, Sept 26 (Reuters) - More than 200 fighters have
joined Islamic State in Syria's northern Aleppo province since
U.S. President Barack Obama said the United States would strike
the militant group in Syria, a monitoring group said on Friday.
U.S.-led forces launched air strikes on Syria on Tuesday,
concentrating raids on the north and east to loosen Islamic
State's grip on Syria's oil and its presence along the border
with Iraq.
At least 162 people joined the radical al Qaeda offshoot in
northeast and eastern Aleppo in the week after Obama's speech on
Sept. 10, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights, which gathers information on the conflict.
Islamic State has put particular pressure on rival insurgent
groups in this part of Aleppo.
An additional 73 men had joined the group on Sept. 23 and 24
in the northeast Aleppo countryside since the start of the
strikes, the Observatory said, bringing the total number since
Sept. 10 to at least 235.
"This means these people are not scared. Even if there are
air strikes, they still join," said Rami Abdelrahman, who runs
the Observatory.
He said the pace of recruitment in September was higher than
average but below the surge in July, after Islamic State
declared a caliphate in the territory it controlled in Syria and
Iraq and called on Muslims to join a holy war.
Most of the new men came from al Qaeda's Syrian wing, the
Nusra Front, and were mostly Syrian, the Observatory said. The
men who joined in the week after Obama's speech included 15
nationalities, it added.
Islamic State recruited at a record pace in July, according
to the Observatory, which counted at least 6,300 new members
that month, a big expansion from earlier estimates suggesting
the group numbered around 15,000. Around 1,000 of the new
fighters were foreign, and the rest Syrian.
Before air strikes this week, Islamic State was believed to
hold roughly a third of Syria and large areas of Iraq, where
U.S.-led forces have also carried out strikes.
In Syria, Islamic State has seized territory from rival
Islamist groups in a belt of territory north of Aleppo,
threatening rebel supply lines into the city.
(Reporting by Sylvia Westall; editing by Andrew Roche)
© 2025 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.