{"id":89,"date":"2016-03-31T12:37:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-31T12:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=89"},"modified":"2016-03-31T12:37:00","modified_gmt":"2016-03-31T12:37:00","slug":"when-i-got-a-friend-request-from-islamic-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/?p=89","title":{"rendered":"When I Got a Friend Request from \u201cIslamic State\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"container page-content\">\n\n<span class=\"dropcap\">L<\/span>\n\nast month, I received a Facebook friend request from a \u201cMohammad Azmi\u201d. The name was unfamiliar to me, so I went to his page. In his profile picture, he was standing in what looked like a desert, his head and face covered with a scarf. In his hand was a scary, long rifle. On his wall, a few nondescript English phrases, photographs of other rifle-toting men, and some Arabic posts.\n\nA quick Google translate partially confirmed my suspicion \u2013 Azmi was claiming to be a soldier of the\u00a0\u201ccaliphate\u201d. I ignored the requests, but got at least five more from other rifle-carrying men over the next few days. Bearded men with Shah in their name for some reason seemed to be hot on the caliphate recruitment list.\n\nThen, just like that, the requests disappeared, as did the accounts. Facebook had taken them down.\n\nBut Islamic State\u2019s desperate attempts to woo Indian Muslims continue. In a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/india\/india-news-india\/avenge-babri-isis-video-islamic-state-indian-mujahideen-2811574\/\" target=\"_blank\">video<\/a>\u00a0released\u00a0on Thursday,\u00a0the IS says its fighters are planning to avenge the deaths of Muslims killed during the 2002 Gujarat riots. It also mocks Muslims living in harmony with Hindus and appeals them to join the caliphate.\n\nThe internet has been the nerve-centre of the group\u2019s efforts to go global \u2013 whether it\u2019s spreading its ideology through heaps of propaganda (1,100 in July and August 2015 alone), or spamming Twitter\u00a0(the Islamic State and its supporters produce as many as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/02\/17\/world\/middleeast\/us-intensifies-effort-to-blunt-isis-message.html?_r=1\">90,000 tweets<\/a> in one day). Brutal beheadings are only the beginning. A whole wave of seriously slick propaganda follows at its heels to ensure that kids get the complete picture \u2013 magazines, movies, the works.\n\nFrom May 24 to June 6, the Dabiq was being sold on Amazon for $22. The quarterly, published by the Islamic State, is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.clarionproject.org\/news\/islamic-state-isis-isil-propaganda-magazine-dabiq\">available online<\/a> (not on Amazon anymore) in English, French, and German for anyone looking for \u201cphoto reports, current events, and informative articles on the Islamic State\u201d. Named after an area in northern Syria that is expected to host \u201cone of the greatest battles between the Muslims and the crusaders\u201d, Dabiq is published whenever the IS feels like it.\n\nDabiq has the mandate to detail what life is like inside the caliphate: \u201cwheat production\u201d, \u201ccharitable works\u201d, and other such social causes often find their way within these pages,\u00a0alongside articles that encourage enslaving non-believers and taking women as concubines as tenets of Sharia.\n\nFrom the \u201crevival of slavery\u201d to invective on the \u201ccrusader NATO army\u201d, Dabiq discusses the word \u201cterrorism\u201d liberally,\u00a0not with a view to itself but to describe the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-europe-20971100\">PKK<\/a> (Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party), that\u2019s been waging war on the IS from the Turkish border.\n\nBut this is not what draws in the youngsters. Prospective recruits are more likely to be drawn to the photos of the Humvees ferrying gun-toting, flag-waving jihadists, says <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lapidomedia.com\/node\/5251\">Lapido\u00a0Media<\/a>, a centre for religious literacy. To them, descriptions of battles won and jurisdictions established are way cooler than the \u201cpolemics on political ideology\u201d.\n\nYou have to look no further than <em>Flames of War<\/em>, released in September 2014,\u00a0to know how keen the IS is to prop up its \u201clife of adventure\u201d image. With a runtime of 55 minutes, <em>Flames of War<\/em> could easily be mistaken for a <em>Die Hard <\/em>franchise, complete with car stunts and images of stuff blowing up in slow motion. Narrated in English, it appears to be a calculated attempt at soliciting recruits in the West.\n<blockquote class=\"quote--center\">Mainstream media might feed us images of harsh landscapes, scary men, and herds of goats, but the IS is keen to showcase the caliphate as a regular place, where you pay your taxes, buy your milk, and water your plants.<\/blockquote>\nLapido Media says young people who have lost loved ones to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, kids eager for a life of adventure, and adults seeking significance in a world which seems to offer little of either one, are most susceptible to this propaganda. To them the idea of a \u201ccrusade\u201d sounds sexy, offering those looking for it some solace and comfort. And nothing pulls in bigger crowds than religion.\n\nExcept maybe an alternative lifestyle. Mainstream media might feed us images of harsh landscapes, scary men, and herds of goats, but the IS is keen to showcase the caliphate as a regular place, where you pay your taxes, buy your milk, and water your plants. The hope is to entice not just desperate young men, but also men with families to come live within the \u201ccaliphate\u201d, and completely ignore all the wars and other gruesome stuff.\n\nIt purports the IS life as completely normal, putting emphasis on day-to-day activities and offering listicles on how to be the perfect jihadi, all the while emphasising that Western states and militaries do a poor job of protecting and providing for their citizens. The magazine has photos of modern medical facilities and services, and says people who live outside of IS&#8217;s purview are slaves to work hours and wages.\n\nAn interesting take on why the propaganda, especially that within the magazine, is so effective, appears in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloombergview.com\/articles\/2015-02-18\/islamic-state-of-boredom-how-jihadis-recruit-western-youth\">Bloomberg column<\/a>. \u201cSome young people,\u201d its author says, \u201cparticularly those born far away from the conflict in the Middle East and North Africa \u2013 are just bored.\u201d The columnist argues that no amount of small-business loans or education scholarships can compete with the \u201ctoxic temptation of being a part of a movement that claims to be changing history\u201d.\n\nBoredom.\u00a0There once was a time anger changed the course of history, inequality played a role, injustices launched revolutions, but now we have boredom. Dabiq with its glossy pictures of adventure and excitement that makes jihad sounds like a jello shot spiked with vodka, promises to alleviate just that. Dabiq exists so that the next time the caliphate pokes a bored, bearded Shah on Facebook, the bearded Shah will accept with alacrity.\n\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With only 23 Indians joining the caliphate, the IS seems to be having an unsuccessful run in India. No wonder bearded men with Shah in their name are hot on their recruitment list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":90,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cyber"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>When I Got a Friend Request from \u201cIslamic State\u201d<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"With only 23 Indians joining the caliphate, the IS seems to be having an unsuccessful run in India. 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