Many of the Americans who traveled to Syria and Iraq to join the group wound up coming back because “life in jihadist-held territory did not live up to their expectations,” according to a new study from George Washington University’s Program on Extremism that provides a sweeping look at their experiences.
These Americans had seen “an idealized version of reality” in online propaganda they consumed, but that contrasted unfavorably with the harsh living conditions, infighting and menial assignments that greeted them, the report found. For Americans like Khweis — who later insisted he was not part of the group and only wanted to see the situation in Syria for himself — household chores could lead to their decisions to abandon the fight.
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(Far more people left Europe to join the Islamic State — estimates range from 5,000 to 6,000, the report says — though that flow of volunteers also plummeted as the group lost territory.)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...cid=spartandhp


From link above (in bold)


But Neumann and others said the decline in Islamic State recruiting figures — which has come almost as quickly as the rise following leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s declaration of a caliphate in June 2014 — is hardly an unmitigated success for the United States and its allies.
Instead, it may be the beginning of a new stage, one in which would-be fighters choose to carry out attacks at home rather than travel abroad, and battle#hardened veterans seek out new lands for conflict.
“It’s like after the Afghanistan war in the 1980s,” said Neumann, citing the period after Soviet troops withdrew in 1989 and legions of foreign fighters formed a diaspora of radicalized veterans that subsequently fueled the rise of al-Qaeda. “They’ll be asking themselves, ‘What’s next?’ ”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.d1f210b32af1