More than 1,000 “terrorists” have returned from conflict zones to Tunisia, according to one of the country’s top security officials.
Mokhtar Ben Nasr, head of the National Commission on Counter-Terrorism, said the figure accounts for the number of terror suspects who have come back since 2011, according to Mosaique FM radio.
The news comes as the UK and other European countries are debate how to deal with its citizens who were captured abroad on suspicion of being members of Isis.
Thousands of men and women left Europe to join the Isis caliphate when it was declared in 2014. At that time, it stretched across two countries for thousands of miles, but over the past few months Isis territory has been reduced to a tiny pocket in eastern Syria, and all but a few hundred of its former members have been killed or ended up in the custody of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
More than 800 Europeans are currently being detained in northern Syria, but their governments are refusing to repatriate them over fears they would present a security risk.
The home secretary, Sajid Javid, has previously said that he would move to block any British citizen suspected of joining Isis from returning.
Mr Javid said of her case: "My message is clear: if you have supported terrorist organisations abroad I will not hesitate to prevent your return.”
“The United States is asking Britain, France, Germany and other European allies to take back over 800 Isis fighters that we captured in Syria and put them on trial. The Caliphate is ready to fall. The alternative is not a good one in that we will be forced to release them,” he wrote on Twitter this weekend.
By comparison, UK intelligence services estimate that around 900 Britons left for Syria, and around 40 per cent of them have returned. Most have been placed on government rehabilitation schemes, while only a handful have faced prosecution.