IS reels in the young and disaffected online

Published Apr 12, 2015

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Cape Town - A terrorist formation using the worldwide enforcement of Islamic law as its justification for unbridled killing, torture, rights suppression and cultural genocide has found its way from the killing fields of the Persian Gulf into a sedate Cape Town suburb, where it has groomed and recruited a 15-year-old girl.

Since the Kenwyn teenager was taken off a British Airways flight – which, according to evidence found in her room and information from friends, she had boarded to fly to Turkey and then travel to Syria to join Islamic State (IS) – there has been a tide of condemnation of the militant group and its targeting of impressionable young people.

This case has raised red flags about youths being recruited into terrorist organisations.

The train of events that culminated in the retrieval of the teenager from the aircraft at Cape Town International Airport is being investigated by the State Security Department and has drawn strong reactions from the Muslim Judicial Council, academics and others.

One of the strongest reactions has been from the Muslim Judicial Council, which warned, after an emergency meeting, that “IS is not an Islamic state, it is a political terrorist group”.

Almost 100 imams affiliated to the council dedicated Friday prayers this week to making Muslims aware of the true nature of the organisation.

Analysts say militant groups using religion as a cover are alluring to young people because they present their activities as a legitimate campaign to establish religious principles.

 

“The grooming and recruitment of impressionable young women and men by IS is of deep concern precisely because it raises the possibility that predators are targeting vulnerable youth for participation in terrorist structures,” said Bernadette Muthien, of the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities, a chapter nine institution.

 

It is understood the teenager was groomed by IS recruiters through social media such as Twitter.

Muthien said there was a need for “effective measures to protect young people from predatory elements who may even have the same modus operandi as paedophiles”.

She compared the rise of IS, its methods and its appeal, to the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany during the 1930s, a time of widespread distress and dissatisfaction.

“During these times of social crisis people tend to seek security in these kind of structures.”

Some warn that decoding how the teenage became trapped in the IS net may be more difficult than a simple patrol of social media.

“We are dealing with some of the most dangerous and devious people, who have absolutely no scruples,” said one security source.

An intelligence operative specialising in tracking the cyber activity of pseudo-religious paramilitary groups in Middle East and Persian Gulf based said: “Many young people are opposed to the destruction (caused) in places such as Palestine, or the role of the US in the Persian Gulf, so they venture on to the internet for information.

“They access underground websites through which they make contact with people using IP addresses that are difficult to track. Once inside this network, seemingly innocuous communication can end in the situation like this teenager’s.”

Professor Farid Essack, chairman of the University of Johannesburg School of Islamic Studies, said IS was a dangerous phenomenon because it differed from such groups as al-Shabaab in Somalia, Boko Haram in northern Nigeria, and al-Qaeda in the Middle East, whose primary aims were the resolution of regional disputes or rebelling against US hegemony.

“Islamic State is primarily interested in establishing an Islamic state without borders, through a perpetual struggle that expands (its) frontiers, for the entire world to become an Islamic state.”

Essack has said “most South African Muslims view IS with disdain, embarrassment and anger”. It used Islamic language to win support.

A fairly small number of South Africans had joined the group. By comparison, IS would have drawn an estimated 20 000 recruits from Europe by year-end.

A factor contributing to the appeal of IS was “the collateral damage of wars primarily engineered by the US, in which several million people died”. Some people carried anger and resentment from these events, Essack said.

 

He said that the route through which people eventually found themselves travelling to join IS was social media.

“They connect with people who share relatively the same kind of fundamentalist views of religion and society, which then goes through stages where the fellow travellers serve as enablers, to find what they are looking for.”

To end this trajectory one had to challenge the notion “that religions and people cannot live in harmony and that one religion, to conquer all others, (may) use political power and physical force”.

Weekend Argus

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