German Isis guest says weapons won’t defeat them
A GERMAN publisher has returned from an extraordinary odyssey in Syria, where he was a guest of the Islamic State, to declare that the West cannot defeat the jihadists militarily.
Jurgen Todenhofer, 74, who posted an image of himself on Facebook with two Isis fighters, says the group plans to kill ‘‘several hundred million people’’ and is a far more durable enemy than is realised.
Todenhofer, a former MP for Angela Merkel’s CDU conservative party who quit politics in 2000, has travelled widely in the Middle East. He spent 10 days in the self-declared caliphate, including time in the Isis stronghold of Raqqa.
‘‘The West is drastically underestimating the power of Isis,’’ he group to said, comparing the a ‘‘nuclear tsunami preparing the largest cleansing in history’’.
religious
‘‘They are much stronger than we believe. They now control land greater in size than the UK and are supported by an almost ecstatic enthusiasm, the like of which I’ve never encountered before in a war zone.
‘‘The beheadings have been established as a strategy to spread fear and terror among their enemies. This worked well – look at the capture of Mosul, taken with fewer than 400 fighters.’’
Questions have been raised about how a white Christian man from a country opposed to Isis survived, when other westerners have been captured and beheaded. He said the trip came about after intense negotiations with ‘‘the leadership of the caliphate, via Skype, over several months’’.