Putin: 7,000 left to join Islamic State

Russian President Vladimir Putin is surrounded by (from left) presidential aide for foreign affairs Yuri Ushakov, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov and press secretary Dmitry Peskov during a Commonwealth of Independent States meeting of former Soviet republics in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Friday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is surrounded by (from left) presidential aide for foreign affairs Yuri Ushakov, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov and press secretary Dmitry Peskov during a Commonwealth of Independent States meeting of former Soviet republics in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Friday.

MOSCOW -- President Vladimir Putin said 5,000 to 7,000 people from Russia and states of the former Soviet Union have joined the ranks of the Islamic State.


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Those who have left to fight for the Islamic State group "can't be allowed to apply later on at home the experience they are gaining today in Syria," Putin told a Commonwealth of Independent States summit of ex-Soviet republics in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Friday. Russia considered it a "duty to take concrete action in the fight against the so-called Islamic State and other radical groups in Syria."

Russia is in talks with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, Israel and other countries about its campaign of airstrikes in support of Syrian President Bashar Assad that began Sept. 30, Putin said. It is also trying to "establish cooperation" with the U.S. and Turkey, while Commonwealth of Independent States states should provide for an effective regional center to coordinate the fight against extremism.

A task force to strengthen the external borders of commonwealth member states would also enhance efforts to combat terrorism, drug trafficking and other crime under a proposed cooperation program that would run through 2020, Putin said.

Russia can't be left to lead efforts to end Syria's civil war, which requires "a global and comprehensive strategy" involving a "large international coalition," Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said in an interview late Thursday after a European Union summit in Brussels. "I believe that it is important to involve Russia in this coalition, but it would be a mistake to leave only Russia to lead this strategy," he said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry talked by phone on Syria on Thursday, after Putin criticized American policy as weak and lacking objectives. Kerry countered that Russia must make "good on its commitment, repeated many times, to help" the U.S.-led 65-member coalition that's also fighting against the Islamic State.

"It would be totally self-defeating to the point of farce to try at the same time to prop up Bashar al-Assad and his murderous regime, which seems to be precisely what Moscow wants to do," Kerry said Thursday in a speech at Indiana University's School of Global and International Studies in Bloomington, Ind.

A Section on 10/17/2015

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