Iran Voices Regret over Europeans' Presence among ISIL Ranks

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Supreme Leader's senior advisor Ali Akbar Velayati in a meeting with Norwegian Foreign Minister Børge Brend expressed regret that a growing number of Europeans are joining the ISIL terrorist group.

"People from certain European countries have joined the ISIL, and this is a cause of deep regret," Velayati said during the meeting in Tehran on Saturday afternoon.

"Unfortunately, today the ISIL, as a Takfiri and extremist group, is acting against all the international laws with the support of certain states and is threatening the entire region and the world," he added.

Stressing that crisis and insecurity is a harm to every country, Velayati said, "The Middle-East is the crossroad of the world and should be tranquil."

The EU counter terrorism chief announced in September that the number of Europeans joining Takfiri fighters in Syria and Iraq had jumped by a third to around 3,000 in a few months.

"My own assessment is that we're about 3,000," Gilles de Kerchove said when asked how many European fighters have flocked to the extremists' cause.

In June, he said there were 2,000 such fighters from Europe.

The European fighters, he said, came mainly from France, Britain, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark but a few come from Spain, Italy, Ireland and now Austria.

"Even a country like Austria I think has now foreign fighters, which I was not aware of before," he added.