Reporters from the Dubai-based Al-Aan TV channel said in a news broadcast on Monday that a raid of Islamic State headquarters in Syria revealed over 30 passports of different nationalities, including the US and European Union countries.
"Having these passports is a huge advantage to the Islamic State, it will allow them to move freely," an analyst told the channel. "Bearing in mind of course you can drive all the way from Turkey to Paris, for example."
"So if they get stopped on the side of the road by a police officer, that document won't come up necessarily as something that is forged or something that has been stolen.
The 34 documents which the TV station obtained copies of included the passports of six Albanian citizens, four French, two each from Holland, Germany, Sweden, Poland and Denmark, and others from the US, UK and other countries of the European Union, as well as Israel, and Kosovo. Six Kosovan ID's were also among the documents recovered.
Here Czech passport found with #ISIS in #Syria. Passport issued in Prague. See pic + my story https://t.co/jMYouBgTxW pic.twitter.com/n111My5iNC
— Jenan Moussa (@jenanmoussa) 13 мая 2015
Upon investigation of the passports and ID's, it was found that some of the documents were from people fighting for the Islamic State, while others had been stolen from citizens of western countries who had no links to the organization, or to Syria.
The channel cited the case of an Illinois woman who confirmed when contacted that she and her husband had had their bag containing their passports and other valuables stolen when they were on holiday in Paris.
A French citizen, when contacted, also expressed shock that his documents were in Syria, and explained that his passport had been stolen in France.
Members bearing a resemblance to the person pictured on the identity documents are chosen by the Islamic State to travel using the documents, said Al-Aan, which also cited the case of Cherif Kouachi, one of the terrorists who carried out the January attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris, who was able to use the passport of his elder brother Said to travel to Yemen and undergo training from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
