Eight Kyrgyz nationals fighting in Syria in the ranks of Islamist forces against government troops have been killed.
A spokesman for the Interior Affairs Directorate in Kyrgyzstan’s southern region of Osh, Jenish Ashyrbaev, told reporters on September 29 that, in all, some 100 Kyrgyz citizens have joined the Islamist insurgency in Syria.
According to Ashyrbaev, the majority of the Kyrgyz citizens fighting as jihadists in Syria traveled there through Russia and Turkey.
Officials in Russia and in countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus say that hundreds of their citizens have joined Islamists in Syria fighting against Syrian government forces.
Last week, the United States placed Georgian citizen Tarkhan Batirashvili, aka Omar al-Shishani, on a list of individuals accused of working with extremist organizations to provide financial and material support to terrorist fighters in Syria.