POLL: One in Five Syrians Think ISIS Are Good, 82 Per Cent Think America Created It

raqi Sunni and Shiite fighters pose for a photo with an Islamic State (IS) group flag in t
Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images
Liam Deacon

One in five Syrians think that Islamic terrorist group ISIS are a positive influence in their country. Twenty-two per cent of the population, around 4.5 million people, believe that the terrorist group is a good thing. A stunning 82 per cent said that they subscribe to the conspiracy theory belief that ISIS was created by the US and her allies.

The statistics come from a recent survey of 1,365 Syrians from all 14 governorates of the country – including those controlled by ISIS. The research was conducted between the 10th June and the 2nd July by British-based market research firm ORB International.

The terrifying revelations come as a Lebanese government minister warned, when traveling with David Cameron on his recent visit to the nation, that 1 in 50 Syrians entering Europe could be members of ISIS, The Belfast Telegraph reports.

Asked if ISIS might be sending terrorists into Europe disguised as refugees, Minister Elias Bou Saab said: “Yes, they bring some people, the smugglers. They organise groups and send them out.”

“You may have, let’s say, 2 per cent that are radicals,” he added. “That is more than enough. We have had that also with our camps here. You find 2%-3% of them.

“When the Lebanese army were kidnapped in Lebanon, the people who kidnapped them came out of the camps. We had them in camps in Lebanon and we were taking care [of them] and all of a sudden they came out of the camps, they went against the army, they kidnapped the soldiers and they took them to the mountains,” said Saab.

In May, Italian police arrested a “refugee” suspected of the deadly attack on tourists at a museum in Tunisia. At the beginning of this month, five terrorist suspects with ISIS beheading videos on their phones were caught crossing borders on the so-called Balkans route into Europe. And just last week, French police were reported to be searching for an ISIS terrorist hiding among migrants in Calais.

Yesterday, even the Pope warned that there is a “danger” of terrorists using the ongoing refugee crisis to infiltrate Europe. UKIP leader Nigel Farage has been warning of such danger since last year.

The survey also revealed that the majority of Syrians believe that the situation there is worsening, and that only 21 per cent preferred their life today than when Syria was under the control of Bashar al-Assad.

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