700 Britons fighting in Syria terror groups, warns Hollande

François Hollande, the French president, says up to 700 Britons are in Middle Eastern country - twice as many as previously feared

Twice as many British fanatics may be fighting in Syria as previously feared.

After talks with David Cameron on the conflict, François Hollande, the French president, told a press conference that up to 700 Britons were in the Middle Eastern country.

Mr Hollande said Britain and France shared the “same level” of young people who had headed out to join extremist groups.

Downing Street played down his comments immediately, and stood by estimates that 350 Britons are fighting in Syria. However, senior Whitehall sources accept that the numbers are increasing constantly and that estimates are based only on those the police and intelligence services know to have travelled out.

Syria is the biggest attraction for would-be jihadists, and MI5 and counter-terrorism police fear Britons will be trained in terror techniques there. Last month, an al-Qaeda defector in Syria told The Daily Telegraph that Britons were being encouraged to return home to carry out atrocities. Fighters are trained in how to make and detonate car bombs and suicide vests and are sent back to set up terror cells, the defector from the Islamic State of Iraq and al–Shams (ISIS) claimed.

The security and intelligence agencies fear that as the genuine Syrian opposition fades, the influence of extremist and terror groups such as ISIS will grow, allowing them to target more foreign recruits.

There were 15 terror arrests in Britain connected to Syria in January alone, compared with 24 in the whole of last year. Andrew Parker, the director-general of MI5, has said Syria is taking up a “growing proportion” of his agency’s work.

Syria was a key topic in talks between David Cameron and Mr Hollande at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire. Mr Hollande said afterwards: “We have young people who live in our respective countries who are being manipulated, and they are going off to the combat areas. Today we were exchanging figures. I am not going to teach you anything but it is the same level: 600 to 700 young people are involved in each of our countries.”

A Downing Street source said: “Clearly we share the same problem, it’s just not the same number.”

Britain and France agreed to intensify joint efforts to identify and find nationals heading to join extremist groups.

Mr Cameron said: “We have agreed to work together to tackle the security risk posed by UK and French nationals who have travelled to Syria for jihadist fighting and then seek to return here.”

This week, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, warned that the radicalisation of British nationals who leave to fight in Syria was a danger to national security.

Last weekend it was reported that two brothers from north London, Akram and Mohamed Sebah, had died fighting for al Qaeda–linked groups in Syria. Photographs of Akram, 24, and Mohamed, 28, were circulated on social media. Last month two 15–year–old French boys were reported to have left Toulouse for Syria.

- Six people appeared at the Old Bailey on Friday for preliminary hearings on offences all connected to Syria.