The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS

by Robert Spencer

  IRRESISTIBLE ISIS

  While a disturbing number of Muslims in America and Europe are heeding the call to make their jihad at home, a much larger number are flocking to the Islamic State.

  Did you know?

  •Over twenty thousand jihadis from more than ninety different countries have flocked to join the Islamic State

  •ISIS posts a hundred thousand pieces of propaganda to the internet every day, including bloodthirsty recruiting materials, but also jihadi fitness programs and computer games

  •According to a Rand Corporation expert, terrorists are “more rather than less educated than the general population”

  ISIS is so appealing to many young Muslims that by the end of May 2015, nearly thirty thousand from one hundred countries had joined it in Iraq and Syria, with five thousand joining its Libyan wing.1 These numbers included as many as 150 Muslims from the United States.2

  The foreign jihadis in the Islamic State are a gleam in the eye of any Director of Diversity and Inclusion worth his (or her, or their, etc.) salt. They include a former Catholic altar boy from Belgium, a rapper from Tunisia, three teenage girls and nine physicians from Britain, and even former military men from the United States.3

  A significant and growing number of these foreign jihadis are coming from Europe. As of April 2015, there were at least 1,430 Muslims from France waging jihad in the Islamic State—almost half of the European Muslims who had gone to the caliphate. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said in an early 2015 interview that three thousand Muslims from Europe were already in the Islamic State, and estimated that that number would reach five thousand by mid-summer and ten thousand by the end of 2015.5

  EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

  John Horgan of the Center for Terrorism and Security Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell has said that the Islamic State “is an equal opportunity organization. It has everything from the sadistic psychopath to the humanitarian to the idealistic driven.”4

  Though possibly it has a little more to offer to the sadistic psychopath.

  In February 2015 Nicholas Rasmussen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, put the total of Muslims from the West in the Islamic State at thirty-four hundred and noted: “The rate of foreign fighter travel to Syria is unprecedented. It exceeds the rate of travelers who went to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen or Somalia at any point in the last 20 years.”6 This is the lure of the caliphate.

  The estimates of both Valls and Rasmussen could be low. In August 2014, Khalid Mahmood, a Muslim Parliamentarian in Britain, estimated that as many as fifteen hundred young Muslims from Britain had gone to the Islamic State—more than twice the number of Muslims in the British military.7 Three months later he revised that estimate up to two thousand—which if true would make the total number of Muslims from the West in the Islamic State much higher than Valls’s estimate, since Muslims have gone to the Islamic State in large numbers not just from Britain and France, but from all over continental Europe.8 Intelligence officials from outside Britain estimated in April 2015 that there were sixteen hundred Muslims from Britain in the Islamic State.9

  “BORN N RAISED IN YOUR LANDS, & NOW HERE THIRSTY FOR UR BLOOD”

  In March 2015, a Muslim woman from Australia named Zehra Duman posted on Twitter photographs of a group of women wearing niqabs covering their faces and holding machine guns while standing under the Islamic State’s black flag of jihad and next to a white BMW. Duman boasted of the “five star jihad” she was enjoying in the Islamic State, and bragged: “Can’t mess with my clique. From the land down under, to the land of Khilafah [caliphate]. Thats the Aussie spirit.” She also added a threat: “US + Australia, how does it feel that all 5 of us were born n raised in your lands, & now here thirsty for ur blood?”10

  ISIS on Social Media: They R Callin U 2 #Jihad

  Many analysts have attributed the attractiveness of the Islamic State to young Muslims in the West to ISIS’s sophisticated social media campaigns. The UK’s Daily Mail reported in September 2014 that “ISIS has shown remarkable sophistication with its online presence. When the group released its video showing the execution of journalist James Foley, it was simultaneously posted on dozens of online forums, Twitter accounts [and] other social media sites. A slew of Twitter and Facebook accounts spread the group’s message by posting pictures of the brutal executions and torture that ISIS terrorist bestow [sic] on their enemies—all while staying a step ahead of Silicon Valley’s attempts to shut them down.”11

  Said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki: “There’s no question what we’re combating with ISIL’s propaganda machine is something we have not seen before. It’s something we need to do a lot more work on. We are seeing 90,000, I think, tweets a day that we’re combating.”12 Even more than that: “Islamic State sympathisers,” the Australian reported in March 2015, “produce about 100,000 pieces of online propaganda every day, including fitness programs for jihadis, smartphone apps and ideological computer games.”13

  The Islamic State is proud of its social media acumen. An ISIS supporter wrote on his Twitter page in June 2014: “Praise be to Allah, who gave Twitter to the mujahideen so that they may share their joys and not have listen to [sic] the BBC.”14 Not having to listen to the BBC is indeed a consummation devoutly to be wished, but the Islamic State’s alternative offered little to those who were not young, Muslim, and angry.

  For that targeted demographic, however, they offered plenty. The Center for Terrorism and Security Studies’ Horgan noted that the Islamic State has “become so adept at social media that they are reaching out to disaffected individuals on a global scale.”15 According to CNN, this campaign specifically targets young people in their native online habitats: “UK surveillance chief Robert Hannigan has said ISIS and other extremist groups use platforms like Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp to reach their target audience in a language it understands. Their methods include exploiting popular hashtags to disseminate their message.”16

  According to an October 2014 report in the German publication Spiegel about their media effectiveness, the Islamic State jihadis “even market themselves to kids, manipulating popular video games such as Grand Theft Auto V so that Islamic State fighters and the group’s black flag make an appearance.” Life in the Islamic State is portrayed as superior to life in the West:

  In short videos from the series “Mujatweets,” an apparently German fighter talks about his supposedly wonderful life in the Caliphate. Such scenes, depicting the multicultural Islamic State brotherhood, are clearly meant for Muslims in the West. “Look here,” the message is, “everyone is equal here!” The images suggest that jihad has no borders; that it brings people together and makes them happy. Other blogs include women gushing about family life in wartime and the honor of being the widow of a martyr.

  “Their propaganda is unusually slick,” said FBI Director James B. Comey in November 2014. “They are broadcasting their poison in something like 23 languages.”17 Nazir Afzal, the United Kingdom’s former Chief Crown Prosecutor, agreed: “What is happening with ISIL, ISIS, Deash [sic]—they are very evil people, but they are very good at propaganda, they are good at marketing.”18

  It’s All about the Islam

  The Western analysts who note the Islamic State’s propaganda skill generally fail to observe the obvious fact that the substance of all this slick propaganda is wholly and solely Islam. The Islamic State bases its appeal on Islamic teachings, and its propaganda demonstrates an intimate knowledge of Islamic tradition—an appealing feature to the young and devout. The Islamic State’s professionally designed, lavishly illustrated online magazine, for example, is called Dabiq, after the name of a town in Syria where a hadith records Muhammad as predicting that an apocalyptic battle between the Romans—that is, the Christians—and the Muslims will take place.

  The Islamic State is thus positioning itself as the harbinger of the end times—of the final and decisive battle between the Muslims and the enemies of A
llah, from which the Muslims will emerge victorious, after which peace—the peace of total Sharia adherence—will prevail all over the earth.

  It’s this religious content that appeals to young Muslims far more than the slick and highly professional presentation—the deep knowledge of Islam, the fanatical loyalty to it, and the unapologetic claim of the Islamic State to be the fulfillment of the desires of so many Muslim hearts for so long. Not only does it embody the restoration of the caliphate; it is also a harbinger of the end times.

  As we have seen, al-Qaeda’s Zawahiri warned ISIS founder Zarqawi not to build his strategy on public atrocities even if they could be justified by a rigorist application of Islamic principles, and not to let his head be turned by the plaudits of the “zealous young men” demographic that those atrocities and that rigorism appealed to most strongly. The al-Qaeda position was that jihadis should stick with tactics more “palatable” to the Muslim population in general, not rush to implement harsh elements of Sharia that could turn off supporters. But the phenomenal success of the ISIS media campaign is a testimony to the power of the unapologetic, full-bore Islam that Zarqawi and his successors have insisted on.

  Western analysts in the Obama years, however, who have been trained to ignore and downplay the Islamic aspects of the Islamic State’s appeal, are compelled to find other sources for the group’s appeal. Thus they fasten on the gloss and slickness of the Islamic State’s media approach, mistaking the medium for the message.

  It may seem strange that a group that has become notorious, hated, and feared for its videos of beheadings and of the burning alive of a captive would be noted for its media savvy. Would the Islamic State win over even more young Muslims to its cause if it weren’t so bloodthirsty and so exhibitionistic about its savagery and violence? Its propagandists obviously don’t think so; they appear to believe that it is preferable to use contemporary means of communication to “strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah” (Qur’an 8:60)—that doing so will appeal to young Muslims who know what the Qur’an says but don’t see other Muslims acting upon it to their satisfaction.

  The authorities of the Islamic State clearly believe that devout Muslims want to see these gruesome videos because they’re documentations of how ISIS is obeying Islamic law to the letter. Islamic State supporter Abu Bakr al-Janabi explains: “The beheading, execution in public are messages to ISIS enemies, but also part of Sharia law and shows that they implement it fully.”21

  PREACHING TO THE CHOIR

  Maybe it’s easier for our media to think the Islamic State media are clever because ISIS takes care to echo their own biases. In late 2014, the Islamic State’s slick propaganda included a multi-episode “news” program hosted by British hostage John Cantlie, a photographer and a friend of Prince William and Prince Harry, who articulated (willingly or not) the Islamic State’s view of the contemporary global situation. Cantlie’s analysis coincided perfectly with the Left’s preoccupation with the wrongheadedness of American military interventions, and with the lack of good sense and prudence in carrying them out—as the many Westerners now working for ISIS had to have known it would.19

  Cantlie mocked “Obama’s under-construction army” against the Islamic State, pointing out (quite correctly) that the “moderate” Free Syrian Army that Obama had hoped would lead the charge on the ground against the Islamic State was an “undisciplined, corrupt and largely ineffective fighting force.” The British hostage called Obama’s response to the Islamic State “disappointingly predictable” (his colleagues in the Western media might have phrased it as “lacking in nuance”), caricaturing the American administration’s position as “America is good, the Islamic State is bad” and ridiculing Obama’s apparent belief that the Islamic State would be defeated and eradicated “using aircraft and a motley collection of fighters on the ground.”20

  Al-Janabi added that the common perception that the Islamic State was made up of grim, humorless, bloodthirsty fanatics was false: “We are friendly! Unless you are an enemy, of course, I mean, just because people are in ISIS doesn’t mean that they go around on a killing rampage. They are humans, they laugh they joke, they goof with each other.”22

  Not Just Media Savvy, but Technically Skilled

  In January 2015, at the precise time when Barack Obama was speaking to the nation about cyber security, Islamic State hackers took over the Pentagon’s Middle East Twitter account. The hackers also took over the United States Central Command’s YouTube page, posting jihad videos there, and they added links on the United States Central Command’s Twitter page to “confidential data from your mobile devices,” and boasted, “ISIS is already here, we are in your PCs, in each military base. With Allah’s permission we are in CENTCOM now.”23

  Two months later, as we have seen, the “Islamic State Hacking Division” (ISHD) published the names, photographs, and home addresses of a hundred members of the U.S. military, gleefully boasting:

  O Kuffar in America, O You who worship the cross, O You Crusaders that fight the Islamic State, we say to you, “DIE IN YOUR RAGE!”, die in your rage because with the grace of Allah, The Islamic State Hacking Division (ISHD) has hacked several military servers, databases and emails and with all this access we have successfully obtained personal information related to military personnel in the United States Air Force, NAVY & Army . . . With the huge amount of data we have from various different servers and databases, we have decided to leak 100 addresses so that our brothers residing in America can deal with you.

  Then came the obligatory Qur’an quotes:

  O you who believe! Fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you harshness, and know that Allah is with the righteous . . . (9:123).

  Fight them; Allah will punish them by your hands and will disgrace them and give you victory over them and satisfy the breasts of a believing people . . . (9:14).

  And then the direct call to murder:

  O Brothers in America, know that the jihad against the crusaders is not limited to the lands of the Khilafah, it is a world-wide jihad and their war is not just a war against the Islamic State, it is a war against Islam. These Kuffar that drop bombs over Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Khurasan and Somalia are from the same lands that you reside in, so when will you take action? Know that it is wajib [a religious duty] for you to kill these kuffar! and now we have made it easy for you by giving you addresses, all you need to do is take the final step, so what are you waiting for? kill them in their own lands, behead them in their own homes, stab them to death as they walk their streets thinking that they are safe, and remember that the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) said: “A disbeliever and a believer who killed him will never be gathered together in hell.” – Sahih Muslim – Hadith No: 466124

  Apparently the ISHD’s claim to have obtained the addresses from hacking “several military servers, databases and emails” was just propaganda. In actuality the information seems to have been garnered from publicly available sources online.25 But the fact that ISIS was able to hack into accounts owned by the U.S. military—and that someone claiming to be from ISIS also managed to break into the Facebook and Twitter accounts of the wife of a Marine who had served five deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan—was a disturbing indicator of Americans’ vulnerability to ISIS cyber attacks. The Marine wife, Liz Snell, whose social media accounts were hacked in February 2015, seems to have been targeted because she had been interviewed for a story about the January hacks into the Pentagon and CENTCOM accounts. The hacker warned Snell—from her own Twitter account—“You think you’re safe but the IS is already here, #CyberCaliphate got into your PC and smartphone.”26

  Why Join ISIS? To Win Friends and Massacre People

  Western analysts differ on what makes ISIS so attractive to Muslims the world over, but one thing they’re sure about: whatever it is, it has nothing to do with Islam. Max Abrahms, a terrorism expert at Northeastern University, summed up the prevailing view when he said, “If you ask terrorists why
they joined an organization after they have been in it, they will pair it with the official line of the group. But in reality they don’t join the group for that reason.” He said that Islamic State jihadis “would probably fail the most basic test on Islam.”27

  So why do they join it? Here are some of the “anything but Islam” explanations Western “experts” have offered for why young Muslims join the Islamic State:

  •Poor education: the failure of “Arab education systems” in fostering an “us-versus-them mentality along ethnic, ideological, and sectarian lines, making youth vulnerable to external influence”;

  •Joblessness and poverty: “a lack of economic opportunities and weakened welfare systems”;

  •Anger at oppression: “bad governance” that “has created an entrenched feeling of injustice”; plus the “brutal clampdown” on the “Arab Awakenings”;

  •Let down by Uncle Sam: a lack of trust in the West.28

  •To redress injustice: ISIS recruits feel “a sense of disparagement and discrimination, a not uncommon experience of many immigrants. And it can come from a sense that one’s brethren in faith are being humiliated and disgraced around the world.”29

  •The thrills, the chills: ISIS recruits simply wanted to “belong to something special. They want to find something meaningful for their life. Some are thrill seeking, some are seeking redemption.”30 The Islamic State “provides these deluded young men and women with an adventurous trip.”31

  •To make friends: “The general picture provided by foreign fighters of their lives in Syria suggests camaraderie, good morale and purposeful activity, all mixed in with a sense of understated heroism, designed to attract their friends as well as to boost their own self-esteem.”32

  •To help the downtrodden: ISIS recruits “erroneously believe they are going out to help people. And they don’t think ISIS is doing anything wrong because they think ISIS is helping people in their sort of warped thinking.”33