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Turkey increasingly vocal against YPG’s foreign recruits

Turkey is growing increasingly angry because foreign individuals, including some from the United States, are joining the ranks of Kurdish forces in Syria.
Kurdish fighters from the People's Protection Units (YPG) rest in Raqqa, Syria June 18, 2017. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic - RTS17KQ9

A Turkish report about foreigners, including Americans, joining Kurds in Syria to fight against the Islamic State (IS) is attracting lots of media attention. The Turkish government fears these "non-Salafi/jihadi foreign fighters" might be strengthening the Kurds' war within a war: the effort to create a Kurdish state while simultaneously battling IS. 

The report, prepared by the Turkish Police Academy and released in May, also warns that these fighters — who aren't necessarily motivated by religious or financial goals but rather by ideology — eventually will return to the West and pose as much danger as "radical 'Islamist' returnees."

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