All is not simple for officials in ISIS, managing an estimated 25,000 fighters from scores of countries around the world. Despite ideological similarities, these various fighters are experiencing culture shocks, and in growing cases fighting amongst themselves.
Activists now say that ISIS has established an “immigrants’ office” aimed at managing the foreign fighters and mediating disputes among them, with a particular eye toward healing a “major fault-line” between European and Arab jihadists.
This is aimed both at trying to prevent infighting, and to prevent the frustration among some new recruits which is leading them to defect back to the West. One recent case saw ISIS having to arrest some 70 Dutch militants for getting into a fight with security forces,and killing an Iraq ISIS negotiator who tried to talk them down.
The anti-ISIS group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently is reporting that the situation is becoming widespread, claiming huge numbers of dissatisfied ISIS recruits, though of course there are no reliable independent figures on this. ISIS, it seems, is recognizing it as a big enough problem to need an office, however.