Large numbers of foreign fighters are abandoning Islamic State and trying to enter Turkey, with at least two British nationals and a US citizen joining an exodus that is depleting the ranks of the terror group.
Stefan Aristidou from Enfield in north London, his British wife, and Kary Paul Kleman, a resident of Florida, last week surrendered to Turkish border police after more than two years in areas controlled by Isis, sources have confirmed to the Guardian.
Dozens more foreigners have fled in recent weeks, most caught as they tried to cross the frontier as Isis’s capacity to hold ground in Syria and Iraq collapses. Some, although it is not known how many, are thought to have evaded capture and made it across the border into Turkey.
Aristidou, who is believed to be in his mid-20s, surrendered at the Kilis crossing in southern Turkey, along with his wife – said to be a British woman of Bangladeshi heritage – and Kleman, 46. The American had arrived at the border with a Syrian wife and two Egyptian women, whose spouses had been killed in Syria or Iraq, Turkish officials said.
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