Fate of hundreds who joined jihadists remains a mystery

DEAD. Captured. On the run. Those are the probable fates of the dozens of Britons who travelled to Syria and Iraq to join the so-called caliphate.

But as it crumbles, little is known about what has become of them.

“It really is shrouded in mystery and guesswork,” said Shiraz Maher, a researcher at King’s College London who has interviewed 100 foreign fighters in his research into the conflict.

“They used to be very active on social media and they would talk to researchers like me. But that stopped about 18 months ago,” he said.

British authorities estimate that about 850 people from Britain have travelled to Syria to fight. About 250 of those are believed to have returned.

A database compiled from open sources published by the BBC this summer listed 276 known British fighters, with 82 of them were listed as alive in Syria or Iraq.