He had been brought from the battlefields of Syria to a New York lockup, a U.S. citizen charged with serving as a sniper and weapons trainer for the Islamic State group. And even in jail, Ruslan Maratovich Asainov kept a makeshift version of the militants' black flag right above the desk in his cell, according to trial testimony this week.
NEW YORK -
Years after the fall of the extremist group's self-proclaimed Islamic caliphate, the trial is a reminder of the enduring and far-reaching fallout of a war that drew tens of thousands of foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq. Their home countries are still contending with what should become of them. Jurors have seen photos alleged to be of Asainov in camouflage, aiming a rifle, and the handmade flag that Woods said she took from his cell. Witnesses have included his flabbergasted ex-wife, who testified that he morphed from a Brooklyn family man into a zealot. She said he weighed in from Syria to complain about their daughter donning a Halloween costume and sent a photo of the bodies of what he said were comrades killed in a battle, according to the Daily News of New York.
During the height of the fighting, as many as 40,000 people from 120 countries showed up to join in, according to the United Nations. There is no comprehensive U.S. statistic on Americans among those foreign fighters; a 2018 report by George Washington University's Program on Extremism found at least 64 who had joined jihadist fighting in Iraq and Syria since 2011.
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