ISIL’S ‘CALIPHATE’ MAY BE HISTORY, BUT ITS WAR OF IDEAS WILL CONTINUE
▶ Online recruiters are now terrorists’ shock troops and young, isolated and disenfranchised Muslims are their targets, seminar in Abu Dhabi hears
ISIL has created a virtual presence that will continue long after the final shot is fired on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq, security experts say.
As the last of ISIL’s fighters in strongholds such as Raqqa are killed or captured, its appeal to misguided and disenfranchised young people comes into sharp focus, a Tabah Futures Initiatives talk in Abu Dhabi was told.
“ISIL has shown the world what terrorism will look like in the future,” Dr Naved Bakali, a research analyst at the anti-extremism think tank Tabah Foundation, said of recent attacks in European cities.
“They have created this virtual space, so even if they are losing physical territory they will not go without a fight. I don’t know how much longer they will be around but their cause will be taken up by other groups, for sure.”
The world’s security services and governments are concerned about returning ISIL fighters but also, crucially, the group spreading its message to potential recruits who have never been on watch lists.
This week, Malaysia’s counter-terrorism agency said ISIL was spreading images of Rohingya refugees with calls to fight a holy war in Myanmar, while the British prime minister, Theresa May, said internet companies such as Facebook and Google had to do more to curb extremist content.
The suspects behind the London Bridge attack, which left eight dead and dozens wounded in June, reportedly tried to recruit accomplices online, including an undercover BBC reporter.
Hicham Tiflati, associate researcher at the Resilience Research Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, said groups such as ISIL had an enduring appeal among young, frustrated Muslims with a sense that they and others are subjected to injustice.
“ISIL builds this appeal based on injustices and grievances that we see as real, and these are mainly the root causes of violent extremism,” Mr Tiflati said.
“Even if we can work with young people to convince them not to sympathise or join ISIL or any other group, it is very difficult for us to convince them to disengage from the ideology and to distance themselves from the grievances.
“What we can do is work on the causes of grievances.”
Failed uprisings in Arab countries and debatable injustices in other countries, including France where Muslim dress was in part banned in public six years ago, have played into the hands of those seeking recruits, Dr Bakali said.
“A group like ISIL becomes an attractive choice,” he said. “They promote themselves as a utopian Islamic state, plus they can offer a generous salary. It is the best funded terrorist organisation in history.”
At its peak, ISIL made about US$80 million (Dh294m) a month and probably several billion dollars since its formation.
“ISIL helps recruits get married and pays dowries for their wives,” Dr Bakali said.
“For young widowed women living in extreme poverty, marrying an ISIL soldier is an attractive option.”
In 2004, the hijab was banned in public schools in France, and in 2011 the niqab was banned in public.
“And a year ago there were attempts to ban the burqini because they thought it was contradicting and alien to French society,” Dr Bakali said.
“A large number of female recruits to ISIL have come from France, because they made women feel alienated. ISIL recruiters play off these identity issues.”
He said young people should be empowered and encouraged to engage in interfaith dialogue.
“We need to build bridges and avoid heavy-handed approaches,” Dr Bakali said.
“It is not to say religions are the same but there are commonalities. If we come to together we will have a much more tolerant and cohesive society.”
After conquest, brutal occupation and defeat, extremists will reinvent themselves using any means they can find