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I rather clearly shouldn't have included the link about the Kurds-- it's a distraction from the question I'm more interested in, which is why organizations like Al Qaeda and ISIS exist and are able to recruit worldwide.
Unless I've missed something, most eras don't have anything comparable.
Well, to be clear, ISIS-actually-in-Iraq-and-Sryia seems quite different from modern Al-Qaeda and self-declared-ISIS-affliate-abroad.
The Spanish Civil War might be the closest match for the foreign support for ISIS-actually-in-Iraq-and-Syria. In addition to direct foreign involvement as a proxy war, it attracted significant foreign volunteers from foreign countries whose government officially opposed their citizens going to fight (like Ireland), and whose identity partially overlapped with a particular faction, (Catholics, socialists, separatists broadly ... (read more)