CIA underestimated: Islamists have more than 200,000 fighters

The Islamic State has recruited hundreds of thousands of people, far more than the CIA estimated, according to Kurdish official Fuad Hussein in an interview with the British Independent, reports the Bosnian news agency Patria.  

He claims that IS has at least 200,000 fighters, while the CIA estimated that number at around thirty thousand. IS has seized an area of 250,000 square kilometers, where 10 to 12 million people live, making it easy for them to recruit a large number of fighters.

Hussein supports his claims with the fact that the Islamists are rapidly expanding the battlefield in northern Iraq, near Baghdad, and in Syria.

"It is impossible that they could do all this with only about twenty thousand fighters," Hussein adds.

The Independent recalls that in September the CIA reported that the Islamic State had between 20,000 and 31,000 fighters.