Trip Advisor for terrorists
Where to buy Nutella in the war zone. What kind of trainers to wear. And how it feels to chop off infidels’ heads. The twisted online chatrooms recruiting British teens for jihad...
AS iS the modern way, 19-year-old Mahdi Hassan doesn’t hold back when it comes to sharing details of his day-to-day life. No matter that he is currently abroad, thanks to Twitter and the other social network sites he frequents, we know the former public schoolboy misses Coco Pops, Coronation Street, sliced bread and ‘that full-fat milk with the blue cover’.
And it does not stop there. Hassan is having such a great time on his travels that he has set up an online advice service to encourage others to join him. ‘Pack light. Most clothes can be found here, bring a spare charger with your phone, and to be honest there’s nothing that important you need to bring except good trainers,’ he writes.
Asked about electrical sockets — are they two or three-pin — he replies: ‘Two, but don’t get the USA 2 pin types, they’re different.’
When a girl says he looks like Zac Efron — ‘that guy from High School Musical’ — there is even time for a bit of flirting. ‘Yeah?,’ writes Hassan, who comes from Portsmouth, before modestly adding that ‘someone said that once but i don’t really see the resemblance.’
But read on and it quickly becomes clear that the advice being offered is less Lonely Planet and more like a Terrorists’ Trip-Advisor.
There are details on how much it costs to buy an AK47 assault rifle for example — £1,000. And instructions on whether or not to bring a knife: ‘Knives here aren’t that great but you can get by or possibly look around in Turkey if you have time.’
Then there are the ‘inspirational’ quotes: ‘History is being written. Do not be someone who watches or joins when the work is done. May the eyes of the cowards never sleep.’
Then the martial observations: ‘insha’Allah Tabqa airbase will be ours within the next 48 hours.’
Because far from being some gapyear student on a round-the-world jolly, Hassan is a jihadist fighting in Syria for islamic State (iS), the terror organisation wreaking bloody chaos across the Middle East.
And he is far from alone. Experts estimate some 500 British Muslims are fighting in the region. Among them is 24-year- old London rapper, Abdel- Majed Abdel Bary, whose music was once played on Radio 1. As revealed in the Daily Mail yesterday, Bary is thought to be behind a Twitter account featuring sickening images of the carnage in Syria.
in one shot Bary, whose family live in a £1 million council flat in Maida Vale, West London, posed in a balaclava with a severed head and wrote: ‘Chillin’ with my other homie, or what’s left of him.’
The fear is that many more will follow the likes of Bary and Hassan, who are doing their best to paint a picture of a ‘five-star jihad’ where life is good, food is plentiful and the risks minimal. Of course, the reality could hardly be more different.
it is believed that 19 British jihadists have now been killed in Syria, with the death toll likely to rise as the fighting spreads across iraq.
Like Hassan, two of those to have died came from Portsmouth, travelling to the Middle East via Turkey, a journey they were encouraged to make by others already out there.
‘The three top travel items that jihadists are saying are needed for Syria are toilet paper, a first aid kit and an iPad,’ said Shiraz Maher, an analyst from the international Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, who has been closely following the jihadists’ online activity.
‘Many of these guys have come from Western societies and are used to using Twitter and other media. Twitter is a useful instant platform through which they share information. They put a lot of stock on media and public engagement.’
LAST weekend, news of the horrific fate facing tens of thousands of Yazidi men, women and children in northern iraq was beamed across the world.
Warned by iS that if they did not convert they would be slaughtered, this embattled ethnic group sought refuge on a mountain top in a lastditch attempt to save themselves.
Responding to the impending humanitarian disaster, the Americans announced they would launch air strikes to break the siege.
On the same day, Reyaad Khan, a 20-year- old originally from Cardiff, updated his Twitter feed with a couple of new pictures.
One showed a table laden with food — steaming plates of rice and stewed meat surrounded by yoghurt dips. He captioned it: ‘While the U.S. think they are causing havoc and damage to iS, we kick back & keep moving. #iS’
A second picture showed him posing in a supermarket with a giant jar of chocolate spread. Beneath it is written: ‘i was so terrified by the U.S. air strikes i had to buy myself Nutella to comfort my brittle heart.’
When i t comes to propaganda, Khan is no shrinking violet. He first came to worldwide attention in June when he appeared in an iS video, wielding an assault rifle and urging other Britons to join the group ‘in these golden times’.
BUT for all the attention that carefully-staged footage obtained, Khan and his fellow Western jihadists know that more subtle and targeted forms of propaganda are literally at their finger tips.
Using smartphones, day and night, they update their social networking pages with a cocktail of comment and pictures that run from banal posts about cats to images of the bloated faces of enemy soldiers apparently tortured to death with acid.
‘Anyone want to sponsor my explosive belt? Gucci give me a shout,’ is one of the posts on his Twitter account.
The light-hearted tone persists irrespective of what horrors he may be spouting off about.
‘Probably saw the longest decapitation ever,’ he wrote in July. ‘ And we made sure the knife was sharp. Brother who was next decided to the use the glock [pistol] lol.’
When some of Khan’s 1,400 Twitter followers asked for photographs, he glibly replied: ‘ Don’t hav pics. Just vids. Not allowed to post. Bros unmasked in vid having fun.’
But the British jihadists do more than just comment on their day-today life, acting as points of contact for people who want to join them in Syria and iraq.
These discussions tend to take place on sites which afford extra anonymity to the potential jihadist. Among them is Ask.fm, a Latvian-based questionand-answer platform, which in the past couple of months has seen thousands of questions directed towards the British members of iS.
Also popular are phone- based instant messaging apps such as Kik and Sure-spot, the latter promising the latest in encrypted communication. The questions asked highlight the worrying naivety of those seeking to travel to the Middle East — and the ease with which they can be persuaded to go.
One Briton using the name Abu Farris has been particularly prolific on Ask.fm. The following selection of questions and answers gives a flavour of the topics he has covered recently.
Q: How much British have you met over there? A: Soo many. Q: Shall I bring pounds???? A: Yeahh if you want, its got strong currency lol.
Q: Would you advise people going over to learn arabic first?
A: Come here, you’ll pick it up here inshallah u can even study here. Q: Are nikes sufficent footwear? A: i brought one pair of Adidas high tops. You’ll get what you need here . . . You wnt enter the battle field unless ur kitted up and you have enough ammo etc.
Q: Brother I wanted to know are bulletproof vest hard to get where you
are would a person be better buying it in turkey and then crossing over with it?
A: You can buy it here easily, like any random military store u’ll find it . . . they’re like a 100$ as well.
Q: Since u left have ur family been more understanding or still confused?
A: To be honest, my family think IS are extreme lol. They think I was brainwashed. By the grace of allah im not upset. I know that if allah accepts me ill interceed for them and show them who was right on judgement day. Maybe 10/1000 families are happy with their children doing hijrah [an Arabic term meaning emigration].
Q: Basically i have a gym membership that ends in january, shall i make hijrah after it ends? Cuz i dnt want to make my fam get into legal/ financial probs since iv gone?
A: Cancel it, or give it to your family member to cancel when january comes Thats what alot of us bros did.
Q: I have a bad feeling I can’t hack it there . . .
A: We’re all bros here . . . trust me dnt be scared . . . 15 yr olds can hack it bro, so why cnt u . . . Ask allah for help.
While most of the questions posted appear to be from men, a not insignificant number are f rom women. Experts believe the number of British women that have travelled abroad now runs i n to double figures, with many more offering support in other ways.
This was highlighted by the trial at the Old Bailey of Amal el-Wahabi, a 27-year-old from London who this week became the f i rst British woman to be convicted of terror offences since the Syrian conflict began. She was found guilty of arranging to smuggle £16,000 to her husband, Aine Davis, who last year travelled to Syria to fight.
Wahabi had been put under pressure by Davis to join him in Syria, her husband telling her that if she did not he would take another wife.
While she ultimately refused to go, others have travelled there and married IS fighters. They in turn have begun using social media to encourage others to follow in their path. According to analysts at SITE Intell i gence Group, a U. S.- based organisation that tracks online activity by terrorists, the recruiting efforts may have had some success.
‘By creating content specifically targeting female jihadi supporters, the Islamic State is able to establish a pipeline to assist Western women in travelling to Syria to marry jihadi fighters and contribute to the formation of their new society,’ the analysts argue.
‘ Significantly, these online networks have expanded in prominence and sophistication during the summer of 2014, suggesting that the Islamic State has already been successful in recruiting foreign women to leave their lives in the West, and is looking to build upon this strength.’
Among those in Syria encouraging others to join her is a woman from Scotland using the name Umm Layth. Her blogs about her experiences there contain seemingly innocuous practical advice about what anyone going should expect.
‘The shoes here are bad quality,’ she wrote. ‘ In addition they only seem to have three sizes here lol so maybe bring trainers with you.
‘The winters here are freezing, trust me I’m from North of Britain and even still I found it cold. You can find shampoos, soaps and other female necessities here, so do not stress if you think you will be experiencing some cavewoman life here. I have experienced far too much luxury than I was expecting.’
SHE added: ‘Your day will revolve around cooking, cleaning, looking after and sometimes even educating children . . . We are created to be mothers and wives.’ That hasn’t stopped Layth calling for terror atrocities to be perpetrated against both Britain and America.
In a reference to the killers of Lee Rigby in Woolwich, South East London, the Boston marathon bombers and the perpetrator of a massacre at the Fort Hood U.S. army base in Texas, she recently Tweeted: ‘Follow the examples of your brothers from Woolwich, Texas and Boston. If you cannot make it to the battlefield then bring the battlefield to yourself yourself.’ ’
For the security services in the UK, the threat of an attack on home soil is top of their list of concerns.
They are particularly worried that individuals who have fought for IS will return to this country with the skills and motivation to carry out such an attack.
Back on the social networking sites and these are fears that British jihadists are quick to exploit.
Nasser Muthana, 20, a second young man from Cardiff who also appeared in the notorious recruitment video alongside Khan, recently posted an image of a stack of improvised explosive devices in a garage.
‘So the UK is afraid I come back with the skills I’ve gained,’ he wrote alongside it.
More recently still he posted a photo of a building next to an image of a pile of rubble. ‘Army base buildings before and after, I’m getting good with these bombs,’ read the comment.
Such boasts are chilling enough seen through the medium of the internet. But what is most worrying is that with every gullible young man and woman whose heads are turned by such material — and who go abroad to join IS — so grows the chance of one of them making it back to this country.
And with them bringing a taste of the terror, the bloodshed and the carnage currently being visited upon Syria and Iraq.