“Picking a Side,” The Western Muhajirat of ISIS: What the Women Want, What ISIS Wants with Them, and What Western Governments Can Do About It
By: Katherine M. Kelley
B.S. in Computer Science and International Relations, December 2002, The College of William and Mary
A Thesis submitted to
The Faculty of The Elliot School of International Affairs of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts
May 15, 2016
Thesis directed by
Joanna Spear Associate Professor of International Affairs Table of Contents
1. Introduction and Literature Review ...... 1
- Defining Terms ...... 3
- Women in Past Conflicts ...... 5
- Literature Review ...... 11
- Overview of Paper ...... 15
2. A Closer Look at the Muhajirat of ISIS ...... 19
- General Characteristics ...... 22
- Case Studies of Women Fighters ...... 28
- Conclusion ...... 35
3. Why ISIS Wants Western Women ...... 41
- Mixed Messages ...... 43
- The Benefits the Muhajirat Provides to ISIS ...... 45
A. Media Coverage of the Muhajirat ...... 45
B. Building the Caliphate ...... 48
C. Depicting a Normal State ...... 51
D. Exploiting the Commitment of the Muhajirat ...... 53
- The Future of the Muhajirat in ISIS ...... 57
4. Western Efforts to Stop the Flow of Recruits to ISIS ...... 63
- State-Sponsored Counter Messaging Programs ...... 67
- Community-Based Prevention Programs ...... 71
- Individual (One-on-One) Interventions ...... 75
ii - Methods of Radicalization… ...... 79
- Addressing the Returnees ...... 81
- Conclusion ...... 84
5. Conclusion and Recommendations ...... 88
- Recommendations for Improvements in Government Programs ...... 89
- Recommendations for Future Study… ...... 92
6. Works Cited ...... 95
-- Appendix A: Spreadsheet of the Western Muhajirat Associated with ISIS
iii List of Tables
Table 1: Western Women Affiliated with ISIS ...... 22
iv
Chapter 1: Introduction and Literature Review
Thousands of foreign fighters have flocked to Syria and Iraq since the beginning of the hostilities in this region; while figures vary and may be somewhat unreliable given incomplete intelligence on this issue, some studies indicate that as many as 30,000 foreign fighters have traveled to Syria since 2011. A significant number of these fighters, approximately 7,500, have come from Europe and Turkey, and over 250 have traveled from the United States.1 The Global Terrorism Index, which provided those statistics in mid-2015, indicated that the flows of foreign fighters into Syria and Iraq was not slowing down, as approximately 7,000 foreign fighters had arrived in that region during the first
2 six months of 2015.
Many of these fighters are joining the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), the organization that has taken control of large sections of territory in both Iraq and Syria.
After securing these sections of territory in 2014, ISIS also declared the re-establishment of the Islamic Caliphate under the leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, aka Caliph
Ibrahim al-Baghdadi, and called for Muslims around the world to travel there and take part in this new and utopian society. The ISIS spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, claimed “it is a dream that lives in the depths of every Muslim believer… it is the
3 caliphate.”
As shown by the estimated figures of foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq, this call to travel to join the Caliphate has clearly resonated among Muslim communities worldwide.
Foreign fighters joining Islamic extremist organizations is not a new issue; as many as
20,000 foreign fighters are believed to have traveled to Afghanistan over the course of
1 the conflict in the 1980s.4 The conflict in Syria and Iraq has introduced a new dimension to the foreign fighter issue, however, in that approximately 10-12% of the individuals traveling to Syria and Iraq from western countries are women. This includes approximately 70 women from France, 60 from the United Kingdom, 30 from the
Netherlands, and even several from the United States.5 The introduction of western women migrants into this conflict leads to several questions including what the motivations are for western women to join ISIS and also why ISIS is trying to attract western women. This paper will seek to address both of these questions, and will highlight the differences that exist in the expectations of the migrant women and the realities ISIS has planned for them when they arrive in Syria and Iraq.
While this paper will seek to use first-hand statements from both ISIS and western women fighters when possible, it is currently not possible to obtain direct access to women involved with ISIS given legitimate security concerns. Many of the western women cited in this work are currently or have been heavily involved with social media propaganda efforts for ISIS, but this is at times an unreliable mechanism for tracking these women. First, these accounts are likely sanctioned to some degree by ISIS, even if they are not official ISIS accounts, and therefore provide a biased view of life in ISIS territory. Given the view that ISIS generally holds of the role that women should play in society coupled with ISIS’s control over their territory, ISIS authorities would be able to halt the online activities of women who were not aligning to their general messages.
Further, social media accounts are often disabled by the social media sites (Twitter,
Tumblr, Facebook, among others) when they are known to be directly advocating violence, making it difficult to find accounts that may have been used in the past by
2 women associated with ISIS. Also, the hacktivist group known as “Anonymous” has been disabling social media accounts they believe are affiliated with ISIS following the attacks in Paris on 13 November 2015.6 Some academic researchers and journalists have attempted to engage with the western women who have traveled to ISIS-controlled territory directly on social media, and those works are included because they provide some key insights that are not available in public statements made by these women on social media. In general, however, the literature on women terrorists relies heavily on
7 “theory, secondhand data, or sources that cannot be verified.”
Defining Terms:
Before delving into the issue of western women and foreign fighters, it is important to define key terms that will be used throughout this paper. First, as the central part of this work, the western women traveling to ISIS-controlled territory will be referred to as women migrants or muhajirat, a Qu’ranic name referring to “one who avoids or abandons bad things” or “migrant.” Most reporting from ISIS-controlled territory indicates that women are not being encouraged to fight upon their arrival in
Syria and Iraq, and therefore the term “foreign fighters” would inaccurately suggest that these women are actually participating in the fighting. Further, the western women identify themselves using the term muhajirat on social media, “indicating in this way a discontent with their previous living environment (the West), an impellent drive to move to a place of ideal perfection (the Caliphate), and the religious motivation for seeking change.”8 As this is both the most accurate description of these women and also how these women refer to themselves, it is the most appropriate term to describe them in this work.
3 Several terms have been used to describe ISIS in the media, political discourse, and academic literature including ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and the Islamic State. While ISIS currently refers to itself as the Islamic State, this term is somewhat ambiguous; many states in the Arab world, such as Saudi Arabia and
Kuwait, claim to be based on Islamic ideals. Also, for the purposes of this paper, ISIS will generally be considered a non-state actor with ambitions of statehood.9 For clarity, this paper will use the term ISIS, which also aligns with the majority of the works that have been authored on the group in the media and academic circles.
While the western women migrants will not be referred to as foreign fighters as discussed previously, the media and political discourse often conflate the concepts of
“foreign fighters” and “international terrorists.” By confusing these two groups, politicians and the media indicate that foreign fighters or migrants joining groups like
ISIS will have designs on returning to their home country or other countries to conduct attacks. In actuality, foreign fighters create a distinct group with some overlap with the international terrorist group. According to Thomas Hegghammer, an academic specialist on violent extremism, only one out of every nine foreign fighters ends up returning to their home country with designs to conduct attacks.10 Hegghammer accounts for this by noting that many of the foreign fighters travel out to the conflict zones with no intention of returning and some of them are killed in the fighting. Further, some individuals will return disillusioned, struggling with the trauma that they experienced in places like Syria and Iraq, and others would not want to conduct an attack in their home countries because of the fear that it could have damaging impacts on family and friends. Finally, some of the foreign fighters will come to the attention of the security services, and will be
4 monitored closely to ensure that they are not posing a threat upon their return.11 So, it is important to realize that while the numbers of foreign fighters going to Syria and Iraq are larger than in some past conflicts, this does not mean that all of those individuals traveling to Syria will pose a threat to their home countries upon their return – not all foreign fighters become international terrorists, and not all international terrorists start out as foreign fighters.
This paper not only seeks to define the problem of western women traveling to join ISIS, but it also seeks to identify appropriate solutions. Western governments currently use the phrase “Countering Violent Extremism” (CVE) to refer to the programs that combat radicalization. Because these programs will be addressed in more detail later in this paper, the definition that will be used for CVE is “the use of non-coercive means to dissuade individuals or groups from mobilizing towards violence and to mitigate recruitment, support, facilitation, or engagement in ideologically motivated terrorism by
12 non-state actors in furtherance of political objectives.”
Women in Past Conflicts:
To fully understand the implications of the western women migrants currently traveling to support ISIS in Syria and Iraq, one must first examine how women have been used in the past by Islamic extremist organizations. This paper is focusing solely on
Islamic extremist organizations, while recognizing that women have also been involved in the past with other terrorist groups. Those groups, however, have different goals and different perceptions of women than the Islamic extremist organizations, which is why this paper is focusing solely on how the roles of women have been defined in the past in
Islamic extremist organizations. Women’s roles in previous conflicts have been
5 generally separated into two categories: the first is active participation in combat and/or martyrdom operations, and the second is involvement in support functions. These support roles include financial, logistics, or propaganda support to male fighters, but also include influencing husbands, sons and other family members to continue contributing to the organization’s goals.13 The tradition of women’s involvement in conflict in both roles goes back to early Muslim women in seventh-century Arabia. During this time, Muslim women nursed the wounded fighters, protected their homes when men left to fight in the early battles, and trained and fought alongside men to ensure the faith’s survival.14 These cases where women are documented to have participated in fighting in early Islamic history are rare, however; a woman’s primary role in classical Islamic literature is “that
15 of mother, sister, daughter, and wife of Muslim men at war.”
More recently, Islamic extremist organizations have been using women in both of these types of roles. Women have been taking active roles in combat and martyrdom operations in the Palestinian, Chechnyan, and even the early Iraqi conflicts. Most of the groups that use women in more combat-centric roles do this because women offer a clear advantage in the fighting. Women can, at times, access areas that men cannot, and their attacks carry significant shock value.16 Farhana Qazi suggests that women play a larger role in terrorist operations where the “jihad is more akin to an insurgency…” and where the leadership of the terrorist group is attempting to mobilize the entire population against an aggressor or occupier of Muslim territories.17 As the fighting in Iraq from 2003-2008 was considered more of an insurgency against a foreign occupying power, this might be the reason why women were so heavily used by al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI).
6 Even though it was technically under the umbrella of al-Qa’ida, AQI leadership began to support the idea of women acting as suicide bombers, when Abu Mus’ab al-
Zarqawi called for Muslim women to take an active role in jihad on 5 July 2005.18
Following this announcement, a Belgian convert to Islam, Muriel Degauque, conducted a suicide attack in Iraq on 9 November 2005.19 One of the motivations for Zarqawi’s announcement may have been to shame Muslim men into participating in suicide attacks, since having women take part in these operations also demonstrates that AQI may have been running out of options.20 A case study of AQI’s use of female suicide bombers authored by Jennie Stone and Katherine Pattillo noted that “female suicide bombers embody the very characteristics that allowed al-Zarqawi and AQI to mount such a successful campaign against coalition forces… [they were] largely unexpected, generate a great deal of media attention, demonstrate the power and reach of al-Qaeda in Iraq by challenging cultural norms, and successfully employ asymmetric means.”21 As of 2011, fifty-one women in Iraq had successfully attacked U.S. troops and coalition forces in
22 Iraq.
Research conducted by Lindsey O’Rourke suggests that AQI’s tactic of using women as suicide operatives was also a sound tactical decision, as women bombers are more lethal than their male counterparts. According to data pulled from the Chicago
Project on Suicide Terrorism (CPOST) in 2009, attacks by women have killed on average
8.4 individuals, while suicide attacks perpetrated by men have killed on average 5.3 individuals.23 O’Rourke gives several reasons for this, including that women generate less suspicion, they are better able to conceal themselves, and they face more relaxed security measures. Women in traditional Islamic clothing can easily conceal large
7 quantities of explosives, approximately twelve pounds, and even more if the woman pretends to be pregnant. There have been documented cases in the Palestinian,
24 Chechnyan, and Kurdish conflicts of women feigning pregnancy to conduct attacks.
While women were used in this more active role by AQI, the al-Qa’ida senior leadership continued to reject the idea of active involvement by women in combat operations. In his online question and answer forum in 2008, al-Qa’ida deputy Ayman
25 al-Zawahiri stated that women should not be involved directly in combat operations.
Both ‘Abdallah ‘Azzam, the mujahideen coordinator for the Afghan jihad, and Yousef al-
‘Ayiri, a key ideologue in Saudi Arabia addressed the topic of women participating in jihad. In ‘Azzam’s fatwa discussing jihad as a fard ayn [religious obligation], ‘Azzam noted that it was an obligation for both men and women. Because of this, neither men nor women needed the permission of their parents, husband, or male guardian to wage jihad against the “infidels,” particularly when Islamic lands are being threatened from invaders.26 While ‘Azzam did indicate that it was permissible for women to participate in combat operations in defense of Islamic homelands, his perception of the utility of women is perhaps best articulated by his wife Umm Muhammad’s comments addressed to Muslim women: “I ask my Muslim sisters to encourage their husbands and sons to continue with the jihad.”27 Umm Muhammad’s comments suggest that she views the primary role of women to be encouraging their male family members to continue fighting for the cause. While ‘Ayiri specifically stated that women should not become involved in the actual fighting, he does highlight the power that women hold over men, and therefore claims that women have a critical role to play in jihad. He specifically noted “when a
8 woman is convinced of something, no one will spur a man to fulfill it like she will…
28 behind every great Mujahid stood a women.”
Hamas similarly rejected the idea of using women to conduct suicide operations, at least initially, arguing that according to Islamic law women should not be recruited to be these types of operatives. Hamas leader Shaykh Yassin argued against the use of women in combat operations at the beginning of the al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000, noting that “a man who recruits a woman is breaking Islamic law… taking the girl or woman without the permission of her father, brother, or husband.”29 Like AQI, however,
Yassin and Hamas eventually accepted the use of women in this role; Hamas became the first religious organization to employ women as suicide bombers in 2002. Likely recognizing the utility that women could provide in this role, Yassin modified his previous comments by claiming that it was permissible for women to participate with these groups in combat operations if a male chaperone accompanies her, especially in
30 cases where she will be required to be absent for longer than a day.
ISIS evolved out of AQI, which had “established” the Islamic State of Iraq on 15
October 2006. Rather than waiting to establish an Islamic state until after the foreign
“occupiers” had withdrawn, which was advocated by al-Qa’ida senior leaders Usama bin
Ladin and Ayman al-Zawahiri, Zarqawi had advocated for re-establishing the caliphate immediately. The new leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, Abu Umar al-Baghdadi, was called the “commander of the faithful,” a term that up to that point had been reserved by al-Qa’ida to refer to Mullah Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban.31 While this clearly demonstrated that AQI had started to depart from al-Qa’ida leadership’s statements and ideals, AQI’s leaders attempted to maintain their ties to al-Qa’ida senior leadership until
9 2013. AQI’s leader at that time, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, split with the Syrian branch of al-Qa’ida known at the Jibat al-Nusrah (JN), partly given his concern that the JN’s Syrian fighters were more loyal to their leader, Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, then they were to
Abu Bakr.32 Al-Qa’ida publically renounced ties to the ISIS on 2 February 2014.
As ISIS has evolved from AQI, it might be reasonable to assume that ISIS would look to employ women in the same way that its predecessor did and possibly encourage women to participate in suicide attacks. ISIS has clearly shown that it values the role that women have played in the past, possibly best exemplified by the way that ISIS attempted to secure the release of Sajda Mubarak al-Rishawi in early 2015.33 Rishawi was a woman who attempted to conduct a suicide attack on hotel in Amman, Jordan as part of a larger attack plot in 2005; her suicide vest malfunctioned, however, and she was arrested by
Jordanian authorities. ISIS requested Rishawi’s release in return for the release of two hostages, Moaz al-Kassasbeh and Kenji Goto, but she was executed by the Jordanian government after confirmation that ISIS had killed both of the hostages. ISIS has been very clear in public statements, however, that it believes the primary role of women to be wives and mothers to ISIS fighters, building the Caliphate through primarily support roles. Many of the western women who have traveled to join ISIS have been advocating that women who cannot leave the west for any reason should plan to conduct attacks against their home countries.34 One of these women was Umm Layth, who wrote on
Twitter that those who “cannot make it to the battlefield… bring the battlefield to yourself,” which indicates that ISIS is not completely against the idea of having women conduct attacks.35 This, coupled with the history of AQI, suggests that ISIS may be willing to use women in more combat roles in the future, particularly if ISIS begins
10 losing significant ground or if ISIS experiences significant military setbacks. ISIS leadership has shown that it does not hesitate to use extremely brutal tactics, much like
Zarqawi did in the past, and therefore using women to conduct attacks in the future is not outside of the realm of possibility.
As shown above, women involved with Islamic terrorist organizations in the past have played both support and active roles in these organizations. While primarily encouraged to provide support to their male family members, women have also conducted attacks and participated in combat operations in the past. ISIS has evolved out of AQI, which has been known to use female suicide bombers, possibly indicating that this is a tactic that might be used in the future by the organization. ISIS currently has focused the women in the organization on purely support roles, which will be explored in more depth later in this paper.
Literature Review:
ISIS has continued to evolve since the ISIS leadership announced the formation of the Caliphate in 2014, making it difficult for academic literature to keep pace. The prior academic papers touching on this topic can be separated into two main categories. First, some previous academic literature has focused on women’s involvement in terrorist organizations including the reasons that these women join the groups, the roles that they play within the groups, and the views of the leadership specifically regarding these women. The second category of literature is more recent and focuses on the women currently tied to ISIS. These works focus on the women who are joining ISIS and the reasons why they are attracted to ISIS. These works, however, do not specifically
11 address the question of why ISIS is trying to attract these western women to travel to
ISIS-controlled territory. Both of these categories will be discussed briefly below.
One of the main topics that has been discussed by the academic literature on the topic of women’s involvement in terrorist organizations is why women make decisions to join these groups. Mia Bloom argues that women primarily join extremist organizations because of personal reasons and lumps these personal reasons into four main categories:
“Revenge, redemption, relationship, and respect.”36 As an example of women being motivated by a desire for revenge, she cites the black widow bombers in Chechnya, many of whom had been subjected to sexual assault by Russian fighters or had close family members who were killed by the Russians. This also ties into the desire for redemption, according to Bloom, as women may view involvement in terrorist activities as a way to
“wipe clean” disgraceful past activities. Women also may get involved with these groups because they are encouraged to do so by a close friend or family member.
While some women do likely have personal reasons for wanting to join these extremist organizations, Bloom’s argument ignores the political and ideological motivations that may also contribute to women joining these groups. Lauren Sjoberg and
Caron E. Gentry’s book entitled Women, Gender, and Terrorism, questions whether looking at these women solely through a gender lens causes scholars to overly attribute motivations to personal reasons when it comes to women. In comparison to this, the majority of the literature focused on the men who join these groups discusses their political and ideological motivations for conducting attacks and becoming foreign fighters.37 One of the sections of this book attributes some of these differences of interpretation to the fact that there is a general perception of women as nurturers and
12 “life-givers” that is perceived to be at odds with goals of these extremist organizations.38
In regard to western women joining these groups and conducting attacks, she notes further that the perception of women in the West is that they “want to stay in the West; do not betray (Western) religious beliefs; have children and want to raise their children in
39 the West; and do not betray country and culture by joining and working for al-Qaeda.”
Therefore, women betray not only their gender but also their culture when they decide to travel to places like Syria and Iraq to join extremist organizations like ISIS.
While these works generally address why women are joining extremist groups, they were both written before the rise of ISIS, and therefore do not specifically discuss the reasons why women are joining ISIS, their roles within the group, and the significant number of western women who are traveling to Syria and Iraq. The Institute for Strategic
Dialogue in the United Kingdom has taken on this issue as a significant focus of research, and has published two studies dealing with this topic in partnership with the International
Centre for the Study of Radicalisation. The research on this issue by the Institute for
Strategic Dialogue is based on a database started in May 2014 that catalogues over 100 profiles of Western females joining ISIS based on their propaganda work on social media
40 networks.
In the first publication released in January 2015, Carolyn Hoyle, Alexandra
Bradford, and Ross Fernett looked specifically at the reasons western women decided to join ISIS and also the reality of life in ISIS-controlled territory for these western recruits.
The authors separated the western women traveling to join ISIS into two main categories, those traveling with male family members and those traveling alone, focusing primarily on the women who make the decision to travel by themselves. As Bloom points out in
13 her works on women involved in Islamic extremist organizations, it is clear that close family members and friends hold considerable sway over a woman’s decision to join these organizations. Hoyle, Bradford, and Fernett rightly focus on the second group of women because it is more difficult to understand why some women choose to make this trip themselves, and may actually be doing so against the express wishes of their family members. Also, the authors looked at the threat that these women might in the future
41 pose to western countries, noting that this is particularly an issue of political concern.
This work provides a solid and early overview of the western women who joined ISIS, but acknowledges that further research is required to fully address the motivations of women who are traveling to join ISIS. The second publication, authored by Erin Marie
Saltman and Melanie Smith, focused more on this topic. They categorized the reasons why western women were drawn to ISIS into broad “push” and “pull” factors. The
“push” factors are the reasons why women want to leave the west and include the following: feeling isolated both socially and culturally; feeling the international Muslim community is being violently persecuted; and feeling anger, sadness, and frustration over a perceived lack of international action in response to this persecution. The “pull” factors discussed by the authors include: holding idealistic goals of religious duty and building a ‘utopian’ Caliphate state; wanting to belong to a sisterhood; and romanticism of the experience.42 This overview of the motivations for joining ISIS was augmented by eight case studies, detailing the background of some of the women who have joined ISIS and using primarily the social media feeds to provide insights into their reasoning for traveling to ISIS-controlled territory. Anita Peresin and Alberto Cervone also address similar issues in their academic work entitled “The Western Muhajirat of ISIS.” Peresin
14 and Cervone find that the muhajirat have similar motivations to those discussed above: women seeking adventure, an attractive alternative to their current unsatisfying lives, or women who have personal psychological problems.43 These works find that there is a mix of personal and political motivations for the women who are joining these groups.
These works focus primarily on the western women joining ISIS, and specifically address the motivations that these women have for joining ISIS. While some efforts are spent discussing the backgrounds of these women, it is clear that there is no standard
“profile” for a western woman who may be attracted to or targeted for recruitment by the
ISIS. By attempting to address why western women are traveling to ISIS-controlled territory, the authors argue that western governments can be more prepared to address these issues in the programs established to thwart these efforts.
One key component that is missing from these discussions, however, is the reasons why ISIS is trying to recruit these women. As Katharina von Knop notes in her work on the women associated with al-Qa’ida, the reasons that women are joining these terrorists groups are often not the same as the reasons why terrorist groups attempt to recruit women.44 Further, if there is a disparity between the motivations of the western women to join ISIS and ISIS’s motivation for recruiting these women, western governments could potentially exploit this disparity to stop the flow of western women joining ISIS. This paper will seek to address this gap in the academic literature.
Overview of Paper:
To fully address this issue, this paper will be structured in three main parts. The first section will address the issue of why women, and particularly western women, have been joining ISIS. This section will focus on several of the western women migrants
15 currently believed to be involved in ISIS, including U.S. nationals Hoda Muthana and
Shannon Maureen Conley, British national Aqsa Mahmood, and Italian national Maria
Giulia Sergio, and will highlight the reasons why these women have joined or attempted to join ISIS. This section will also look at the differences between women who are converts to Islam as compared to those who were born and raised as Muslims. This could be particularly important in looking at appropriate intervention strategies for preventing radicalization.
The second section of this paper will address the issue of what ISIS gains from recruiting western women, and how these women are part of ISIS’s overall strategy. This section will show that the three main benefits that ISIS derives from these western women recruits are more publicity for the ISIS cause, the legitimization of the declared
Caliphate, and a higher level of commitment to the cause given that they have already taken drastic steps to support the cause by traveling to Syria and Iraq. This section will also look at how ISIS is tailoring its message specifically to appeal to these western women.
The third section will look at the current efforts by western governments to counter Islamic radicalization. Only the programs in the United Kingdom and the United
States will be analyzed in this section given the large number of counter-radicalization programs being implemented in western societies. This section focuses on the counter- messaging, community intervention, and individual intervention programs. The programs are generally not gender-specific, but this section will highlight the efforts that have been made to specifically target the women being recruited by ISIS, where possible.
16 After looking at these issues, the final section of the paper will provide recommendations of how policymakers should address this problem in the future, and will also provide recommendations on areas for future study.
1 Patricia Zengerle, "U.S. fails to stop flow of foreign fighters to Islamic State: study," Reuters Online, September 29, 2015. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-congress-fighters- idUSKCN0RT1VZ20150929 (Accessed 15 January 2016); Richard Norton-Taylor, "Up to 30,000 foreign fighters have gone to Syria and Iraq since 2011 – Report," The Guardian, November 17, 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/17/30000-foreign-fighters-syria--iraq-2014-terrorism-report (accessed 10 December 2015). 2 Institute for Economics and Peace, “ Global Terrorism Index, 2015: Measuring and Understanding the Impact of Terrorism,” http://economicsandpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Global-Terrorism-Index- 2015.pdf (Accessed on 1 May 2016) 48. 3 Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, “Hadha wa’d Allah,” Al-Battar Media Foundation, 29 June 2014, available at Jihadica, http://www.jihadica.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Hadha wa’d Allah.pdf, Quoted in William McCants, The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State (New York, New York: St. Martin's Press, 2015),122. 4 Institute for Economics and Peace, “Global Terrorism Index, 2015: Measuring and Understanding the Impact of Terrorism,” 45. 5 Edwin Bakker and Seran de Leede, "European Female Jihadists in Syria: Exploring an Under-Researched Topic," International Center for Terrorism - The Hague, April 2015, http://www.icct.nl/download/file/ICCT-Bakker-de-Leede-European-Female-Jihadists-In-Syria-Exploring- An-Under-Researched-Topic-April2015(1).pdf (accessed 14 March 2016) 1. 6 Katie Rodgers, “Anonymous Hackers Fight ISIS but Reactions are Mixed,” in New York Times, 25 November 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/26/world/europe/anonymous-hackers-fight-isis-but- reactions-are-mixed.html?_r=0 (Accessed on 10 December 2015). 7 Farhana Qazi, "The Mujahidaat: Tracing the Early Female Warriors of Islam." In Women, Gender, and Terrorism, Edited by Lara Sjoberg and Caron E. Gentry, (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2011) 31. 8 Anita Peresin and Alberto Cervone. "The Western Muhajirat of ISIS." Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 38, no. 7 (2015): 495. 9 Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger. ISIS: The State of Terror, (New York, New York: Harper Collins Books, 2015) 10. 10 Thomas Hegghammer, " Should I Stay or Should I Go? Explaining Variation in Western Jihadists’ Choice between Domestic and Foreign Fighting." American Political Science Review, February 2013, 9. 11 Daniel Byman and Jeremy Shapiro, “Homeward Bound? Don't Hype the Threat of Returning Jihadists,” in Foreign Policy, November/December 2014, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iraq/2014-10- 01/homeward-bound (accessed on 4 December 2015). 12 Humerra Khan, "Why Countering Extremism Fails." Foreign Policy, February 18, 2015. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2015-02-18/why-countering-extremism-fails (accessed 22 March 2016). 13 SITE Intel Group, "The Role of Women in Jihad." SITE Intel Group. 2009; Jennie Stone and Katherine Pattillo, "Al-Qaeda's Use of Female Suicide Bombers in Iraq," In Women, Gender, and Terrorism, by Laura Sjoberg and Caron E. Gentry (Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press, 2011) 172. 14 Qazi, 32. 15 Ibid, 35. 16 Laura Sjoberg, Grace D. Cooke, and Stacy Reiter Neal, "Introduction: Women, Gender, and Terrorism," In Women, Gender, and Terrorism, by Laura Sjoberg and Caron E. Gentry, (Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press, 2011)
17
17 Qazi, 49. 18 SITE Intel Group, "The Role of Women in Jihad." 19 Mia Bloom, "Bombshells: Women and Terror," Gender Issues 28 (2011) 2. 20 Stone and Pattillo, 161. 21 Ibid, 163. 22 Bloom, 3. 23 Lindsey O'Rourke, "What's Special About Female Suicide Terrorism?" Journal of Security Studies 18 (2009): 687. 24 Ibid, 690 25Ayman al-Zawahiri, as quoted in The Site Intel Group, “The Women of Jihad,” 2010, http://news.siteintelgroup.com/blog/index.php/about-us/21-jihad/225-the-women-of-jihad. 26 Abdallah Azzam, Defence of the Muslim Lands, https://space.crono911.net/EBook/553_Religioscope_Azzam.pdf (accessed on 28 March 2011), as cited in Farhana Qazi, 37. 27 Mohammad al-Shafey, “Al-Sharq al-Awsat Interviews Umm Muhammad: The Wife of Bin Laden’s Spiritual Mentor,” in Asharq al-Awsat, 30 April 2006, http://english.aawsat.com/2006/04/article55266896/asharq-al-awsat-interviews-umm-mohammed-the-wife- of-bin-ladens-spiritual-mentor (Accessed on 30 April 2016). 28 “Bin Ladin’s Fatwa,” in PBS Newshour, 23 August 1996, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/military-july-dec96-fatwa_1996/ (Accessed on 30 April 2016). 29 O’Rourke, 696. 30 Ibid, 698. 31 McCants, 15. 32 Ibid, 90. 33 Ray Sanchez, "Who was Sajida al-Rishawi? And why did ISIS care about her?" CNN. February 4, 2015. http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/24/world/isis-jordan-sajida-al-rishawi/ (accessed March 17, 016). 34 Carolyn Hoyle, Alexandra Bradford, and Ross Frenett, "Becoming Mulan? Female Western Migrants to ISIS," Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2015, 34. 35 Umm Layth, tweet quoted in “UK-born private school girl joins Syria Militants,” in Al Arabiya News, 2 September 2014, http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/09/02/Scottish-private-school-girl- joins-Syria-militants.html (30 April 2016). 36 Bloom, 11. 37 Sjoberg, Cooke, Neal, 7. 38 Caron Gentry, "The Neo-Orientalist Narratives of Women's Involvement in al-Qaeda," In Women, Gender, and Terrorism, by Lauren Sjobery and Caron Gentry, (Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press, 2011) 179. 39 Ibid, 179. 40 Institute of Strategic Dialogue, “Policy and Research,” http://www.strategicdialogue.org/policy-work/. 41 Hoyle, Bradford, and Frenett, "Becoming Mulan? Female Western Migrants to ISIS." 42 Erin Marie Saltman and Melanie Smith. "'Till Martyrdom Do Us Part': Gender and the ISIS Phenomenon." International Center for the Studies of Radicalization, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, London. 43 Peresin and Cervone. 44 Katharina von Knop, "The Female Jihad: Al Qaeda's Women," Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 30, no. 5 (March 2007): 400.
18
Chapter 2: A Closer Look at the Muhajirat of ISIS
As noted in the introduction, it is difficult to definitively determine the number of western women who have traveled to join ISIS since the hostilities began in 2011/2012.
Estimates of the number of western women currently associated with ISIS range between
450 and 600.1 These women are coming from the United States, Australia, and various countries in Europe; the Institute of Strategic Dialogue’s database of western women affiliated with ISIS contains details of women from fifteen countries who are operating online and primarily using English to disseminate ISIS’s propaganda messages.2 Many media outlets label these women as “jihadi brides,” likely due to the fact that they either arrive in ISIS-controlled territory married or are married soon after their arrival. As one example of this, the Telegraph newspaper in the United Kingdom released a story in
September 2015 entitled “British Muslim mums are key to stopping their daughters becoming ‘jihadi brides.” This story provides insights into how parents and families can help keep women from traveling to join ISIS, but it is clear that the Guardian newspaper used the term “jihadi brides” synonymously with all the western women who have traveled to join ISIS, suggesting that all women travel for this reason.3 According to
4 Laura Sjoberg, a Google search of the term “jihadi brides” yielded over 200,000 hits.
By labeling them in this manner, it is assumed that young women, particularly adolescents, are attracted to ISIS because of a strange “sexual allure.” This description, however, ignores the fact that many of the western women are actually recruited by other women on these social media sites, and becoming a wife of a fighter is often not a
5 primary reason these women have for joining ISIS.
19 Using the label “jihadi brides” may be an attempt by media outlets to understand why western women would give up the freedoms that they enjoy in the west to join a group that in many cases minimizes the rightsof women, and may even mistreat or abuse women.6 The Institute of Strategic Dialogue and other academics have explored in greater depth what motivates these women to make the decision to join ISIS. According to these works, the motivations for joining ISIS include feelings of alienation and inequality in western societies; interest in marriage; romanticism of the adventures they will encounter upon their arrival; and the pull of the cause.7 These motivations will be explored in more depth in this section.
For the purposes of this paper, information was gathered from media articles and, when possible, social media accounts, to create a list of women who have either traveled to ISIS-controlled territory or who were arrested en-route to ISIS controlled territory. The dataset used as the basis for this discussion contains the details of 40 western women who have traveled to join ISIS or were arrested for their intent to travel or because of their association with ISIS. The information collected includes the name of the woman where available; the nickname that they use online or with other ISIS associates, which is known as a kunya; the age of the woman at the time of travel; the name of their husband; whether or not they are a convert to Islam; and how they traveled to Syria. Given the way that this data was collected, it is not meant to be representative of all the western women who have joined ISIS, but is instead meant to provide a general snapshot of some of the women who have been traveling and their backgrounds. The women included in this dataset are primarily from the English-speaking countries because the searches for these women were conducted primarily in English.
20 Prior to looking into the dataset and some case studies of the western women who have joined ISIS, it is important to highlight some of the limitations of this data. The women included in this dataset are either those who have been particularly vocal on social media websites, those who have also come to the attention of the western media, or those who have been arrested by western security services. Therefore, these women likely exhibit some extreme dedication to the cause that might not be as apparent in the entire body of western women who have traveled to ISIS-controlled territory, particularly those who are choosing not to take a more active role in ISIS recruitment efforts. Given the restrictions imposed on women in these areas, ISIS would likely only allow the most extreme supporters to continue their efforts on social media. This also aligns with the social media strategy that ISIS has publically disseminated, which called on ISIS supporters to “deliver the message of the Caliphate to the entire world.”8 Clearly, members of ISIS’s media centers expect online supporters to be aligning to ISIS’s central messages and encouraging others to join the Caliphate. Further, some of the women in this dataset are known only by their online nicknames or kunyas, and therefore details on their family and education history may not be available.
This section will be separated into two main parts. First, the general biographic characteristics associated with the women in this dataset will be discussed. Following this discussion, the second part of this section will look at four of the women included in the dataset in more depth, exploring the statements they have made online both before and after their travel to attempt to better understand the reasons these women have for joining ISIS. The four women were chosen because they come from different countries and have different educational and family backgrounds. While this paper generally
21 discusses western women migrants as one group, these case studies help to more fully
portray the fact that differences exist in these women. As noted in previous literature,
there is no single profile that can be developed to determine who will decide to travel to
join ISIS, and there is no single motivation. By understanding who has been traveling in
the past and the motivations that these women exhibited prior to traveling, however,
western governments may be able to better tailor programs and interventions to identify
and thwart efforts by women seeking to join ISIS in the future.
General Characteristics:
The 40 western women identified in the dataset as either traveling to Syria or
having plans to do so have diverse family backgrounds, educational history, and ages. A
version of the dataset has been included below, but the complete dataset with sourcing
and additional notes has been attached as Appendix A.
Table 1: Western Women Affiliated with ISIS
Age - At Date
Departu Departed Convert Name Kunya (s) Nationality re for Syria (Y/N) Education Umm Husayn al- Sally Jones Britani UK 43 2013 Y Salma Attended Walley Halane Umm Handhia UK 16 9-Jul-14 N Range High School Umm Jafar, Jafar Zahra al-Britani, Umm Attended Walley Halane Bakr UK 16 9-Jul-14 N Range High School Former Medical Student -- was attending a diagnostic Aqsa radiotherapy Mahmood Umm Layth UK 20 Nov-13 N degree course Bethnal Green Amira Umm Uthman Academy School, Abase Britaniya UK 15 Feb-15 N Tower Hamlets
22 Bethnal Green Shamina Academy School, Begum UK 15 Feb-15 Tower Hamlets
Kadiza Bethnal Green
Sultana Academy School, (Khadiza) UK 16 Feb-15 Tower Hamlets Bethnal Green Sharmeena Academy School, Begum UK 15 Dec-14 Tower Hamlets Received Education to be a Shams UK 27 Feb-14 N Doctor Gave birth to a Zaynab child in Sharrouf Umm Hafs Australian 13 Dec-13 N September 2015 Zehra Umm Abdullatif, Duman Rose Muminah Australian 21 Dec-14 N Umm Khattab UK Umm Ubaydah UK Rawdah Abdisalaam Umm Waqqas US mid-20s Media studies, film studies, sociology at Khadija Muhajirah fi University in the Dare Sham, Maryam UK 22 2012 Y UK Was attending University of Alabama, Hada previously Hoover Muthana Umm Jihad US 18 Nov-14 N High School Umm Anwar/Umm Faris UK UkhtiB UK Umm Talib; Qad Af-Iahal Shuhada UK GreenBirds22 UK Khanssa UK Nicole High school drop Lynne out, later returned Mansfield US 33 Y to get her GED Tareena Shakil UK 25 Oct-14 Mina Khan US 17 Sep-14 N Tara Nettleton Australian 2014 Y Umm Farouk
23 Karen Umm Khalid US 18 Y Umm Umar UK 16 N Umm Abbas UK Received her secondary education in a Umm Kulthum UK state school. Umm Hamza Sweden
Shannon
Maureen Halima, Early 2014 Conley Amatullah US 19 (Attempt) Y Ariel Bradley Umm Aminah US 29 Early 2014 Y Asia Siddiqui US 31 Noelle Velentzas US 28 Y Keonna YoungLioness Thomas (Twitter) US 30 Umm Muthanna al-Britaniya UK 21 Maria Giulia University of Sergio Fatima Italy 27 Sep-14 Y Milan Sophmore at Mississippi State Jaelyn University Delshaun studying Young US 20 Y chemistry
The ages range from 13 to 45, clearly indicating that ISIS’s message resonates with more
than just young women; however, approximately two-thirds of the women whose ages
were known were in their teens and early 20s when they either traveled or attempted to
travel. The youngest individual identified was Zaynab Sharrouf, an Australian national
who traveled to ISIS-controlled territory in December 2013 at the age of 13 with her
parents and siblings. Just one year later, Sharrouf had married an Australian foreign
fighter, Mohammad Elomar aka Abu Hafs al-Australi, who subsequently died in the
fighting. She also gave birth to a child in September 2015.9 As highlighted in the al-
24 Khanssaa Brigades manifesto, getting married at this age is not considered unusual or taboo in ISIS-controlled territory, as it is considered “legitimate for a girl to be married at the age of nine…” while most of the girls will be married by age sixteen or seventeen.10
The oldest woman examined in this dataset is 43-year old British national Sally Jones, aka Umm Husayn al-Britani, who traveled to Syria with her now deceased husband,
11 Junayd al-Husayn, in 2013.
These women also come from a variety of educational and socio-economic backgrounds. At one end of the spectrum, the four young women from Bethnal Green
Academy School in Tower Hamlets in East London, Amira Abase, Shamina Begum,
Khadiza Sultana, and Sharmeena Begum, were from middle class families and were described as hardworking and conscientious students.12 Aqsa Mahmood, another British woman from an affluent family who traveled to Syria in November 2013 was a former medical student, and the woman known as Shams in online discussions also received training to be a doctor.13 There are also women at the other end of the educational and socio-economic spectrum, however. For example, Noelle Velentzas had significant economic and family struggles in her past, which appeared to have contributed to her conversion and ultimately, her strong commitment to her Muslim faith.14 Before converting to Islam and joining ISIS, Sally Jones reportedly lived on welfare and played
15 guitar in a punk-rock band.
The women who were not married prior to their arrival in ISIS-controlled territory appear to have been married soon afterward. At least two of the “Bethnal Green girls” who traveled to Syria in February 2015 were married to ISIS fighters by July 2015 and were living in the area surrounding Raqqah. The women were reportedly shown a
25 “catalogue” of fighters who were looking for brides, and were married to them soon after the women arrived in ISIS-controlled territory.16 This is similar to other descriptions of the way women find partners upon their arrival in ISIS-controlled territory. One separate account highlights that women are initially housed in youth hostels for unmarried women and then a woman will write down what sort of “brother” she wants to marry. The local emir would then match that woman to a suitable spouse after taking into account her preferences.17 Another British woman, known only as Umm Umar, described a similar pragmatic approach to marriage in ISIS-controlled territory. A British Bangladeshi,
Umm Umar was matched to a man with the same national and ethnic background, and noted that “life without a mahram [close male relative] here can be quite difficult.”18
While women are permitted to travel and live in ISIS-controlled territory and remain unmarried if they have useful skills that can benefit the Caliphate, such as Shams who is a physician, even she noted the difficulties she had experienced prior to getting married.
She stated that after just two months of living in Syria without a guardian, she eventually made the decision to get married, finding mobility difficult as an unmarried woman.19
Some of the women who were thwarted in their attempts to travel, such as Shannon
Maureen Conley, also had developed online relationships with ISIS fighters who they were hoping to marry, indicating that it might have been a contributing factor in their motivations for traveling to ISIS-controlled territory although as shown below, likely not as central a motivation as the media portrays.20 Not all the women in the dataset had intentions of becoming a jihadi bride prior to their travel or attempted travel to ISIS- controlled territory.
26 Ten of the women included in the dataset were converts to Islam. A study conducted by Lorenzo Vidino and Seamus Hughes of ISIS activity in the United States, noted that approximately 40% of the individuals from the United States with known ties to ISIS were converts.21 According to a study by Robin Simcox, of 58 individuals linked to the 32 western ISIS-related plots between July 2014 and August 2015, 29% of these individuals were converts to Islam. While converts comprise only 20% of Muslims throughout the entire United States, 67% of American Muslims involved in committing an ISIS-related attack are converts. Converts also seem to be disproportionately involved in terrorist incidents and terrorist convictions in the United Kingdom, according to these
22 studies.
A variety of explanations for Muslim convert’s high level of involvement in terrorist activities exist in both the academic and media publications. One possible explanation is that converts are not as familiar with the details of their faith as individuals who have grown up in the Muslim faith, making them more susceptible to the interpretation of Islam that is espoused by radical Islamist organizations, such as ISIS.23
While this may be a problem among recruits to ISIS in general, it does not appear to be a phenomenon solely portrayed by converts. One journalist who engaged online with women associated with ISIS, both converts and Muslim-born women, noted that very few of them appeared well-versed in Islamic religious texts, interpretations, or traditions.24
Therefore, this would not explain why converts may be attracted to joining ISIS more than other Muslims. A more likely explanation is that converts to Islam in the west become outsiders, belonging neither to the Muslim communities or their home communities. 25 Converts are sometimes dismayed to find that they not only have to cope
27 with the prejudices from western society, but also from western Muslims who may
26 exclude them from taking leadership roles in mosques or religious organizations.
Radical Islamist organizations offer converts not just a sense of belonging, but also the ability to prove their commitment to their new faith. 27 According to Robert
Cialdini’s principles of social influence, once an individual makes a choice or a stand, that person is more likely to encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to “behave consistently with that decision.” In the case of these converts to Islam, they would likely want to make commitments to their faith and to defend their faith that would be consistent with that initial decision to convert.28 In this case, that may explain their willingness to travel or even to become martyrs upon their arrival in ISIS-controlled territory. As Katrina von Knop notes, “especially for female converts who converted to radical ideology, active participation is a logical consequence of their commitment.”29
Case Studies of Women Fighters:
While a general overview of some of the characteristics of the western women being recruited by ISIS is provided above, these characteristics by themselves cannot explain why these women were attracted to ISIS or what prompted their decisions to travel to ISIS-controlled territory. In order to begin answering those questions, this paper will provide an overview of four of the women who have traveled and highlight key motivations for their recruitment. These questions have been explored in depth in other academic studies on this topic; however, it is important to establish this general baseline before looking at some of the other questions this paper seeks to address.
The four women highlighted below include two women from the United States and two women from Europe. Two of the women, Aqsa Mahmood and Hoda Muthana,
28 were raised in Islamic families, while the other two, Shannon Maureen Conley and Maria
Giulia Sergio, are Muslim converts. Only one of them, Maria Sergio, was married prior to her travel to Syria. Three of them have some university education, although none of them completed their university studies. One of these women, Shannon Conley, was arrested before she could even start her journey to Syria. While they come from different backgrounds and family situations, they do exhibit some key similarities and general themes explaining why they wanted to travel to ISIS-controlled territory. Their case studies are presented below:
1. Aqsa Mahmood aka Umm Layth – Mahmood left her home in Glasgow,
Scotland in November 2013, and notified her family four days after her departure that she was about to cross the border into Syria from Turkey. While it is not entirely clear how
Mahmood was recruited by ISIS, authorities believed that she watched sermons online and met individuals through online forums who encouraged her to join ISIS. Mahmood had a typical “western” upbringing. Her parents noted that she became increasingly concerned about the situation in Syria as the civil war unfolded, and began to follow the situation closely online. She also became more devoted to her faith when she went to
30 university.
In a post that she made prior to her travel to Syria in late 2013, Mahmood discussed how she started to become serious about her faith. She stated that she first became interested in such an “amazing religion” when she watched a Muslim man throw his shoe at U.S. President George W. Bush as a sign of contempt during a press conference in 2008. Her early 2013 social media posts portray a woman who is interested in taking a moderate Islamic approach, arguing that Islamic women should not
29 be judged if they do not decide to wear a headscarf. By April 2013, however, her posts provide evidence that she was undergoing inner turmoil, noting “my current self is constantly at war with my former self… the two are fighting for control of my future
31 self.”
Her blog posts provide a window into her personality; while she is clearly ideologically committed fully to ISIS, she still portrays an affinity for the family she left behind in Scotland. In discussing her communication with her parents in the United
Kingdom, she noted:
…when you hear them sob and beg like crazy on the phone for you to come back
it’s so hard. Wallahi it’s so hard to hear this and I can never do justice to how
cold hearted you feel. But as long as you are firm and you know that this is all for
32 the sake of Allah then nothing can shake you inshaAllaah.
From an affluent family who she obviously loved and with no clear indications of feelings of isolation in western society, Mahmood’s motivations to join ISIS seem to stem more from her identification with the broader Islamic struggle and hope that she could take part in ISIS’s efforts to protect Islam in some way. Aqsa Mahmood’s online posts chart a journey from her struggles to understand her religion to complete radicalization after joining ISIS. While her online blogs have been removed by the social media outlets she used, some of her last posts showed her full-commitment to the ISIS violent cause:
If not you then your grandchildren or their grandchildren. But worry not,
somewhere along the line your blood will be spilled by our cubs… this Islamic
30 empire shall be known and feared worldwide... This is a war against Islam…
either you’re with them or with us, so pick a side33.
2. Hoda Muthana aka Umm Jihad– Muthana was raised in a strict Muslim family in Hoover, Alabama. Her parents were naturalized American citizens who fled from
Yemen in 1992. Muthana was the youngest daughter in the family, completing high school, and then attending the University of Alabama in Birmingham and studying business. Over the year and a half before she left for Syria, Muthana became increasingly devoted to her faith and started isolating herself from the people in her community who did not share her interpretation of Islam; she claimed that her life felt
“bland” before she started becoming more interested in religion and noted that “life has much more meaning when u [sic] know why ur [sic] here.” According to Muthana, she had been watching scholars lecture about Islam on YouTube, and she had set up a secret
Twitter account unbeknownst to her father who had forbidden her from using social
34 media.
Muthana posted on Twitter updates about her life following her arrival in ISIS- controlled territory, highlighting how she had joined up with a group of British and
Australian migrants including Zahra Duman aka Umm Abdullatif. On 7 January 2015, she tweeted “who knew my fate would be living among a bunch of Australians, full on m8 [mate]. Love my Aussie family xo.”35 Given previous reports that Muthana had become more secluded in her life in the United States, her posts about her “Aussie family” indicate that Muthana’s travel to Syria may have been partly prompted by her desire to be among like-minded individuals. She even acknowledged that she had purposely isolated herself during her last year in America, noting that she did not want to
31 be associated with anyone who did not share her interpretation of Islam. She noted that as she “grew closer to [her] deen [faith], [she] lost all of [her] friends.”36 In this sense, the draw of the “sisterhood” of ISIS may have been a key factor in her decision, as she likely believed that she would not be able to have similar bonds among her family and friends in the United States. Her frustration with and emotional separation from the
United States was further exhibited in her tweet earlier that same day, “Allahumma barik there are sooo many Aussies and Brits here but where are the Americans, wake up you
37 cowards.”
3. Shannon Maureen Conley aka Amatullah - Conley, the daughter of a professor at a Colorado-based Catholic University, was described as “among the brightest kids” at
Arvada West High School. During her junior year of high school, she converted to Islam and began wearing the hijab and long dresses consistent with traditional Muslim conservative dress. Her conversion led her to being considered an outsider by her classmates, some of whom complained to school officials that she was kneeling on the bathroom floor three times a day to say her prayers. After these complaints, the school
38 accommodated her efforts to comply with Islamic requirements for prayer.
The FBI was contacted by the pastor of the Faith Bible Church, a local megachurch, about Conley in November 2013; Conley had been attending the church and various classes for several weeks. Prior to notifying the FBI, church officials had observed her wandering around the church campus and taking notes of various locations.
They claimed that when they confronted her on why she was taking these notes, she explained “why is the church worried about a terrorist attack?” She was asked not to return to the church after this confrontation. When interviewed by the FBI about this
32 incident, she claimed that she had gone to the church to meet people of other faiths and learn about them. Feeling like she was not welcomed at the church because of her
Muslim faith, she decided to keep the notebook and diagram the church to alarm the church members. The FBI met with her eight times between November 2013 and the
39 time of her arrest in April 2014 while she was attempting to depart to Syria.
While much of the media coverage of Conley focuses on her intention to get married to an ISIS fighter immediately after her arrival in Syria, Conley’s discussion with
FBI agents during that period portray a woman who was ideologically committed to the concept of jihad and looking to engage in something that would give her life a meaning or purpose. She noted in December 2013 that she had joined the U.S. Army Explorers to be trained in military tactics and firearms prior to traveling overseas to wage jihad. She allegedly joined this organization in September 2013.40 She admitted that she was hoping to be able to fight upon her arrival overseas, but if she was not permitted to do so because she was a woman, then she would use her training as a Certified Nurse’s Aid to help injured male fighters. She did not specifically reference her “suitor” until her discussions with FBI authorities in March and early April, suggesting that the 32-year-old
Tunisian ISIS fighter, was not one of her primary reasons for traveling to support jihad.
When she was sentenced to four years in prison in January 2015 by the Colorado judge, she noted that “even though I supported jihad, it was never to hurt anybody. It was
41 always in defense of Muslims.”
Conley’s case shows two primary motivations, neither of which are specifically related to her online relationship with the Tunisian man she planned to marry upon her arrival in Syria. As a convert, she was clearly isolated and marginalized within her
33 family, community, and school. She even noted to FBI authorities in one of her interviews that she had previously wanted to join the U.S. military, but did not think she would be allowed to because of her Muslim faith. As a Muslim living in the west, she also demonstrated a concern for the plight of Muslims, particularly those in Muslim countries. She claimed that she felt that “jihad is the only answer to correct the wrongs
42 against the Muslim world.”
4. Maria Giulia Sergio aka Fatima az Zahra – Sergio, a 28- year old Italian convert to Islam, traveled to Syria in September 2014 with her Albanian husband Aldo
Kabuzi.43 Her family was originally from southern Italy, but moved to a suburb of
Bergamo in 2000. Once there, her sister Marianna met and married a Muslim immigrant of Algerian origin. Maria Sergio studied biotechnology at the State University of Milan and converted to Islam in September 2007, after researching the religion online. After her conversion, she took the name Fatima az Zahra, which is the name of the Prophet
Muhammad’s daughter. She met and married a local pizza maker of Moroccan origin,
44 but filed for divorce in 2011, possibly due to his lack of religious fervor.
Sergio married Albanian Aldo Kabuzi in September 2014, and four days later, the couple traveled together to Syria.45 Her departure to Syria is partly explained by her feelings of religious discrimination; she signed a petition in 2011 in favor of Islamic women wearing the niqab or full veil, along with her mother and sister. She also discusses fulfilling her duty to “journey’ to the newly formed Caliphate, answering the call that ISIS had made for all true Muslims to travel to the Caliphate. Following her arrival in Syria with her husband, she took weapons training and allegedly is hoping to
46 join the fighting at some point.
34 Unlike other western women who have traveled to ISIS-controlled territory,
Sergio not only remained in close contact with her family members, but also encouraged them all to travel to join ISIS. Her family, who had also all converted to Islam, were enticed to join Sergio not just for ideological reasons, but also for promises of the benefits that ISIS offered people within their territory. In Skype conversations with her family, Sergio called life under ISIS “like paradise,” and noted that there was “food in abundance,” free healthcare, and “rigid rules even in the dress code.” 47 This may have been particularly enticing to Sergio’s father, who was unemployed at the time of his planned travel to Syria.48 Sergio’s mother, Assunta, was allegedly convinced to make the trip by the promise that ISIS would provide her a washing machine. Sergio’s family was
49 arrested in July 2015 before they could depart Italy.
Finally, Sergio, having shown her commitment to the ISIS cause by her travel to
Syria, reiterated that commitment in an interview with an Italian journalist over Skype after her family’s arrest in 2015. She justifies ISIS’s actions beheading individuals as conforming to Shariah law, noting that “The people beheaded are thieves and hypocrites spying from inside IS… they send information to the unbelievers, who then attack us.”
Further, she notes that “we don’t enslave women here. We honor them. Don’t keep on
50 with the same old arguments.”
Conclusion:
While media reports often claim that western women traveling to join ISIS are primarily attracted by the prospect of becoming jihadi brides, the case studies above show that these women are actually motivated by other reasons, both personal and ideological.
35 Three of the women highlighted above, Hoda Muthana, Shannon Conley, and
Maria Sergio, all seemed to exhibit feelings of isolation in the west, and acknowledged in subsequent online posts that they found a sense of belonging when they joined ISIS.
While Erin Marie Saltman and Melanie Smith look at these as two separate motivations, isolation in the west and attaining a feeling of belonging seem to be closely linked to one another in the women highlighted above.51 Even though western men may also feel this sense of isolation in the west, women may experience this emotion to a greater extent because of the Islamic restrictions on women’s dress, movement, and engagement with the opposite sex. Islamic women in western societies are more obvious in their religious practice than Islamic men, given that the outward demonstrations of their faith include wearing the head scarf and additional family restrictions, so they may experience more isolation and discrimination than their male counterparts. It should be noted that ISIS seems to understand the importance of “isolation” as a motivation for westerners to travel to the west, and ISIS’s online recruiters actively encourage individuals to insulate themselves against outside influences.52 This may explain why Hoda Muthana’s friends and family noted that she began to insulate herself more in the year and half prior to her travel. Whether it is an intentional isolation encouraged by ISIS online recruiters or whether it is a side effect of being a Muslim woman in a western society, isolation in the west appears to directly play into desire to join ISIS, where the women can belong to a sisterhood and family that understands them more fully.
Isolation and need for belonging is not only exploited by ISIS’s online recruitment efforts, but also demonstrates why individuals may be more susceptible to radical Islamic groups in general. Jerrold Post highlighted that European social
36 conditions may help promote feelings of alienation among young Muslims. He states that even individuals who are not initially particularly religious “drifted back to the mosque to find companionship, acceptance, and a sense of meaning and significance” making them
53 more vulnerable to recruitment by extremist elements.
As noted by Post, another personal motivation exhibited by some of these women is the drive to be part of something meaningful that will give their life “significance.”
Shannon Conley particularly exhibited this motivation in her discussions with FBI officers when she noted that she wanted to “assist Jihadi fighters in whatever manner is needed.” She clearly wanted to contribute to the Muslim cause, noting that she believed
54 that jihad referred to the war against the infidels and efforts to protect the Muslim lands.
Ideological motivations are the foundation for these women’s needs be part of something meaningful and significant. Aqsa Mahmood and Shannon Conley, in particular, both expressed concern over the way that Muslims were being treated around the world and a belief that ISIS was fighting primarily for the defense of the Muslim faith. Mahmood’s rhetoric, in particular, highlights how she has been drawn into the ideology of ISIS, stating that the west is engaging now in a war against Islam. By stating this, she puts ISIS in the unique position of being the “defender” of the Muslim faith, creating two categories of Muslims worldwide: those who support ISIS and travel to the newly declared Caliphate to fight the west in this battle, or those who do not. In a sense, she is indicating that those who do not support ISIS are not true Muslims.
By looking at these four women, as well as the western women highlighted in previous works, it is clear that they are motivated by both personal and ideological motivations to join ISIS. So, referring to them only as “jihadi brides” may cause some to
37 ignore the underlying reasons that contribute to their recruitment by ISIS. Facing feelings of isolation in the west, desiring a sense of belonging and a sense of meaningfulness in their lives, and wanting to contribute to the global ideological struggling that Muslims are facing, as shown above, seem to be more central to these western women than other personal motivations.
1 Inna Naroditskaya, "Why Do Western "Jihadi Brides" Join ISIS?" The Huff Post, 27 August 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/inna-naroditskaya/western-jihadi-brides_b_8044502.html (accessed 10 January 2015). 2 Institute for Strategic Dialogue, “Policy and Research,” http://www.strategicdialogue.org/policy-work/ (Accessed on 15 March 2016). 3 Nikita Malik, “British Muslim mums are key to stopping their daughters becoming 'jihadi brides'”, The Telegraph, 16 September 2015, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11868229/Islamic-State- British-Muslim-jihadi-brides-must-be-stopped-by-mums.html (1 May 2016). 4 Laura Sjoberg, “Why is the West Obsessed with Western Women Who Become “Jihadi Brides”?” The University of Chicago, Divinity School, 3 December 2015, https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/why- west-obsessed-western-women-who-become-jihadi-brides (Accessed on 1 May 2016). 5 Deeyah Khan, “For Isis women, it’s not about ‘jihadi brides’: it’s about escape,” in The Guardian, June 20, 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/21/isis-women-its-not-about-jihadi- brides-its-about-escape (accessed April 10, 2016). 6 Caron Gentry, "The Neo-Orientalist Narratives of Women's Involvement in al-Qaeda." In Women, Gender, and Terrorism, by Lauren Sjobery and Caron Gentry, (Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press, 2011) 179. 7 Jayne Huckerby, "Why Women Join ISIS? " Time Magazin, 7 December 2015, http://time.com/4138377/women-in-isis/ (accessed January 15, 2016). 8 Mary Chastain, "ISIS Propaganda Manual Reveals Social Media Strategy," Brietbart Online, 28 October 2015, http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/10/28/isis-propaganda-manual-reveals-social- media-strategy/ (accessed 10 January 2016 ). 9 Melissa Davey and Daniel Hurst “Tara Nettleton, Widow of ISIS Fighter Khaled Sharrouf, Dies in Syria- Reports,” The Guardian, 10 February 2016, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/11/tara- nettleton-widow-of-isis-fighter-khaled-sharrouf-dies-in-syria-reports (accessed March 15, 2016). 10 Charlie Winter, Women of the Islamic State: A Manifesto on Women by the Al-Khannssaa Brigade, February 2015, (accessed October 18, 2016). 11 Counter Extremism Project. Sally Jones. http://www.counterextremism.com/extremists/sally-jones (accessed January 15, 2016). 12 Erin Marie Saltman and Melanie Smith, "'Till Martyrdom Do Us Part': Gender and the ISIS Phenomenon," International Center for the Studies of Radicalization, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, London. 13 Susan Swarbrick, “Scots "Jihadi bride" talks of "revenge" in hate-filled blog,” Herald Scotland, 05 July 2015, http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13415875.Scots_jihadi_bride_talks_of_revenge_in_hate_filled_blog/ (accessed December 15, 2015). 14 Ray Sanchez, “N.Y. women accused of ISIS-inspired bomb plot plead not guilty,” in CNN, 7 May 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/07/us/new-york-terror-court-pleas/ (accessed January 15, 2016). 15 Counter Extremism Project, Sally Jones. 16 Vikram Dodd and Nadia Khomami, “Two Bethnal Green schoolgirls 'now married to Isis men' in Syria,” in The Guardian, 3 July 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/04/two-bethnal-green- schoolgirls-now-married-isis-men-syria (accessed January 1, 2016).
38
17 Nabeelah Jaffar, “The secret world of Isis brides: 'U dnt hav 2 pay 4 ANYTHING if u r wife of a martyr',” The Guardian, 24 June 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/24/isis-brides-secret- world-jihad-western-women-syria (accessed October 31, 2015 ). 18 Jaffar, “The secret world of Isis brides: 'U dnt hav 2 pay 4 ANYTHING if u r wife of a martyr'.” 19 Saltman and Smith, "'Till Martyrdom Do Us Part': Gender and the ISIS Phenomenon." 20 Michael, Martinez, Ana Cabrera, and Sara Weisfeldt, “Colorado woman gets 4 years for wanting to join ISIS,” in CNN Online, 24 January 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/23/us/colorado-woman-isis- sentencing/ (accessed October 18, 2015). 21 Lorenzo Vidino and Seamus Hughes, "ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa," George Washington University, 2015 https://cchs.gwu.edu/sites/cchs.gwu.edu/files/downloads/ISIS%20in%20America%20- %20Full%20Report.pdf (Accessed on 3 December 2015) 7. 22 Simon Cottee, “Reborn Into Terrorism: Why are so many ISIS recruits ex-cons and converts?” in the Atlantic Online, 25 January 2015, http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/01/isis-criminals- converts/426822/ (accessed April 5, 2016). 23 Cottee, “Reborn Into Terrorism: Why are so many ISIS recruits ex-cons and converts?” 24 Jaffar, “The secret world of Isis brides: 'U dnt hav 2 pay 4 ANYTHING if u r wife of a martyr'.” 25 Cottee, “Reborn Into Terrorism: Why are so many ISIS recruits ex-cons and converts?” 26 Kate Zebiri, British Muslim Converts: Choosing Alternative Lives, (Oxford: Oneworld Press, 2008) 62. 27 Cottee, “Reborn Into Terrorism: Why are so many ISIS recruits ex-cons and converts?” 28 Robert Cialdini, Influence: Science and Practice (Boston: Pearson Publishing, 2009) 52. 29 Katharina von Knop, "The Female Jihad: Al Qaeda's Women," Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 30, no. 5 (March 2007): 399. 30 Ashley Fantz and Atika Shubert, “From Scottish teen to ISIS bride and recruiter: the Aqsa Mahmood story,” in CNN Online, 24 February 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/23/world/scottish-teen-isis- recruiter/ (accessed November 15, 2015). 31 Swarbrick. “Scots "Jihadi bride" talks of "revenge" in hate-filled blog.” 32 Ellie Hall, “Inside The Chilling Online World Of The Women Of ISIS,” in BuzzFeed, 14 September 2014, http://www.buzzfeed.com/ellievhall/inside-the-online-world-of-the-women-of-isis#.bnMBDE6M54 (accessed November 16, 2015). 33 Swarbrick. “Scots "Jihadi bride" talks of "revenge" in hate-filled blog.” 34 Ellie Hall, “Gone Girl: An Interview With An American In ISIS,” in BuzzFeed, 17 April 2015, http://www.buzzfeed.com/ellievhall/gone-girl-an-interview-with-an-american-in- isis?utm_term=.xbeX2V40ya#.uekOW2Y9QX (accessed October 18, 2015). 35 MEMRI, “American ISIS Member Joins Women's Clique In Syria,” 22 April 2015, http://www.memrijttm.org/american-isis-member-joins-womens-clique-in-syria.html (accessed January 30, 2016). 36 Hall, “Gone Girl: An Interview With An American In ISIS.” 37 MEMRI, “American ISIS Member Joins Women's Clique In Syria.” 38 Jenny Deam, “Colorado woman's quest for jihad baffles neighbors,” in LA Times, 25 July 2014, http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-high-school-jihadi-20140726-story.html (accessed November 23, 2015 ). 39 United States of American v. Shannon Maureen Conley, 14-mj-01045-KLM (United States District Court for the District of Colorado, April 9, 2014). 40 Ibid. 41 Kirk Mitchell, “Arvada Tean Jihadist Wannabe Sentenced to Four Years in Prison,” in Denver Post, 24 January 2015, http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_27380614/arvada-teen-jihadist-faces-sentencing- federal-terrorism-case (accessed October 18, 2015). 42 United States of American v. Shannon Maureen Conley, 14-mj-01045-KLM (United States District Court for the District of Colorado, April 9, 2014). 43 Thomas Williams, “5 Foreign Fighters Arrested in Italian-Albanian Terrorist Blitz,” in Brietbart, 1 July 2015, http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/07/01/5-foreign-fighters-arrested-in-italian- albanian-counterterrorist-blitz/ (Accessed on 1 April 2016). 44 Francesco Marone, "Italian Jihadists in Syria and Iraq," Journal of Terrorism Research, 5 February 2016, http://doi.org/10.15664/jtr.1205 (accessed March 31, 2016) 24.
39
45 Marta Serafina, "Italian Woman Jihadist Speaks," Corriere Della Sera. July 7, 2015. http://www.corriere.it/english/15_luglio_07/italian-woman-jihadist-speaks-48fe78aa-248a-11e5-8714- c38f22f7c1da.shtml (accessed March 31, 2016). 46 Marone, 25. 47 Michael Day, "Fatima Az Zahra: Italy's 'Lady Jihad' who joined Isis in Syria and then persuaded her family to follow on Skype," Independent, 2 July 2015, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/fatima-az-zahra-italys-lady-jihad-who-joined-isis-in- syria-and-then-persuaded-her-family-to-follow-10362165.html (accessed April 1, 2015). 48 Marone, 25. 49 Day, “Fatima Az Zahra: Italy’s ‘Lady Jihad’ who joined ISIS in Syria and then persuaded her family to follow on Skype.” 50 Marta Serafina, "Italian Woman Jihadist Speaks," Corriere Della Sera. July 7, 2015. http://www.corriere.it/english/15_luglio_07/italian-woman-jihadist-speaks-48fe78aa-248a-11e5-8714- c38f22f7c1da.shtml (accessed March 31, 2016). 51 Saltman and Smith, "'Till Martyrdom Do Us Part': Gender and the ISIS Phenomenon." 52 J.M.Berger, "Tailored Online Interventions: The Islamic State's Recruitment Strategy," CTC Sentinel, October 2015: 21. 53 Jerrold M. Post, The Mind of the Terrorist: The Psychology of Terrorism from the IRA to al-Qaeda (New York, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007) 226 54 United States of American v. Shannon Maureen Conley, 14-mj-01045-KLM (United States District Court for the District of Colorado, April 9, 2014).
40
Chapter 3: Why ISIS Wants Western Women
While it is important to examine the reasons why women are traveling from western countries to join ISIS, it is also critical to understand why ISIS is enticing these women to join the organization in Syria. According to the manifesto released by ISIS’s al-Khanssaa Brigade, ISIS leaders have noted that they do not seek to entice western women to join ISIS to augment the ISIS fighting forces, unlike the male foreigners who are being recruited to join ISIS. ISIS makes it clear in its public releases that it currently views a woman’s place as being a wife and a mother to the ISIS fighters, and does not
1 look for women to participate in the fighting.
Given the current ISIS prohibition on using women as combatants, a key question for researchers is why the leadership of ISIS would be concerned with attracting western women to travel to ISIS-controlled territory. According to Katharina von Knop, there is often a great disparity between what causes a woman to be interested in joining a terrorist group and the reasons that a group has for recruiting women.2 This section will first show that ISIS may be tailoring specific messages to appeal to western women. These messages are being disseminated primarily through the English-speaking media by western women already in ISIS-controlled territory, and provide evidence that ISIS is looking to recruit additional western women. This section will explore that question and will also highlight four primary benefits that western women provide to ISIS, which may explain why ISIS is seeking to recruit these women.
One benefit that ISIS receives from these western women migrants is that they receive higher levels of media attention than their male counterparts. This increased
41 media coverage of the women not only acts as free publicity for ISIS, but it also could further ISIS recruitment efforts by prompting other women and men in the west who are contemplating traveling to ISIS-controlled territory to take that action. Second, these women legitimize ISIS’s declaration of the Caliphate; ISIS can point to these women as evidence that ISIS has become more than just an army fighting against the Iraqi and
Syrian regimes, but is a legitimate state with territory, communities, and functioning infrastructure. Women not only become brides to ISIS fighters but also bring necessary skills and education to the area. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, women migrating to ISIS-controlled territory have, in many cases, demonstrated a stronger dedication to the
ISIS cause than local women as it takes a higher level of commitment to leave their home countries without a support system in place and travel to join ISIS. These women demonstrated that they “see a superiority of ISIS’s ideology over the Western worldview, providing an important gratification and significant morale boost for the jihadist fighters.”3 Given this demonstrated commitment to the cause, these women can be offered in marriage to foreign fighters as a “reward,” or potentially more nefariously on the part of ISIS leadership, can be paired by ISIS to individuals who may have wavering commitment to the cause. Radicalized women have a significant ability to influence their husband’s support to the cause.
Even though there is currently a prohibition on women participating in combat operations, the final part of this section will explore whether ISIS may look to use these women in the future to conduct attacks or become involved in combat operations.
Abdallah Azzam’s first fatwa that declared jihad was a religious obligation also noted that “jihad becomes a fard ayn [religious obligation] on every Muslim male and female.”
42 This statement indicates that women may be permitted to fight if it is in defense of
4 Muslim territories and there are not enough men to protect these areas.
Mixed Messages:
ISIS’s interest in recruiting westerners, in general, is depicted in the various propaganda messages that are being disseminated by the organization. There are noticeable differences between the English-language messages that are being released by the organization as compared to the ones that are being released in Arabic. The English- language messages seem to focus on the fact that westerners can obtain many of the same comforts of home in ISIS-controlled territory. These messages also stress that joining
ISIS will provide purpose to an individual’s life.5 The social media accounts of the western women in ISIS-controlled territory, many of which are specifically targeted at recruiting other western women, mimic these themes. One Facebook profile associated with a western woman who had joined ISIS included a list of ten facts about ISIS; these
“facts” focus primarily on how ISIS provides for physical needs of its recruits by giving them a monthly allowance, free medical care, and that women can survive in ISIS- controlled territory even if they do not speak Arabic.6 Other posts focus on how fulfilled women are to be working toward the establishment of the Caliphate, and how happy they are to be in a society that is free from the secularization and pressures of the west.
Women who do discuss some of the sacrifices they have to make to join ISIS will often spin these hardships in positive light, noting that all troubles that they may face are worth it to further the building of the Caliphate.7 The themes running through these posts align closely with the reasons why western women are motivated to join ISIS – ISIS provides
43 individuals a purpose in helping to establish a utopian society, but also ensures that
8 women do not have to give up all the physical comforts of their life in the west.
While the English language messages do not hide some of the dangers and sacrifices required of those who participate in the fight, the messages in these English language posts are far softer than the Arabic language videos, which often present enemy corpses splayed on the ground.9 The messages geared at Arabic women are also focused on the duty of each individual to create a perfect Islamic society, and are less focused on the personal fulfillment that comes with their ISIS recruitment. For example, the Arabic language manifesto for the al-Khanssaa Brigade published in mid-2015 specifically addressed the women in the Arabian Peninsula. It provides a comparison between the
Arabian Peninsula and life in ISIS-controlled territory, noting that the Arabian Peninsula has a “deceptive Islamic model that is intended to be an example for Muslims, not only regarding women but also economics, education, and politics.”10 It further contains statements that would likely be considered far more controversial in the west about the role of women, including that girls can be married when they are as young as nine years old. In this case, ISIS is selling itself as the perfect model of Islamic ideals, compared to other Arab countries, like Saudi Arabia, that claim their adherence to the Qu’ran and
Shari’ah law without following through on all levels.
These messages geared toward Arabic women may be particularly resonating with women in Tunisia, where ISIS recruitment is at an all-time high. According to the
Tunisian Minister of Women, Samira Merai, in December 2015, approximately 700 women from Tunisia have traveled to Syria, and women are also being held in Tunisian prisons on terrorism-related charges.11 Following the Arab Spring in 2011, Tunisia has
44 been considered one of the biggest political success stories in the Arab world, having successfully transitioned to a democratically elected government after the removal of
President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.12 While various reasons have been provided for the high level of ISIS recruitment among Tunisians, one of the primary reasons cited by Dr.
Yarib al-Marzouki, an expert on Salafist movements, is that Tunisian youths were deprived of their ability to express religious beliefs and ideas and from performing religious rights under President Ben Ali’s regime. Even religious scholars considered
“extreme” by the government during that time would be forbidden from giving lectures or meetings at mosques.13 With ISIS depicting itself as a model of a perfect Islamic society, those who felt that they have been unable to express their religious beliefs under the previous regime may be more willing to travel to join ISIS.
The fact that ISIS uses different tactics to appeal to the English-speaking demographic suggests that westerners and western women, in particular, provide ISIS with some important benefits. These benefits will be explored in more depth in the following sections.
The Benefits the Muhajrat Provides to ISIS:
Media Coverage of the Muhajirat:
One key reason why ISIS appears to be interested in enticing western women is their their hope that western women will attract more western media coverage than either the western male or domestic female members of ISIS. Of the 7,500 individuals believed to have traveled to Syria from western countries, only 10-12% were women migrants.14 Even though this is a comparatively small segment of the overall population
45 of individuals traveling to Syria from western countries, the women migrants receive a disproportionate amount of attention in the Western media and even the “jihadi” literature. As media attention is what most terrorist groups crave, ISIS likely sees these
15 western women as an avenue to increase media coverage in the west.
Von Knop stated that female terrorists in general tend to garner more media attention than their male counterparts because the “thought of those who bring forth life actually destroying it is disturbing.”16 Female terrorists generally prompt more media speculation on why women would support violent extremist activity; one example of this was the coverage of the Chechen terrorist that took over the Dubrovka Theater in
Moscow in October 2002. The women were mistakenly identified as “widows” given that they were wearing traditional Islamic Salafi robes, and this immediately prompted worldwide pity on what personal events could have led these women to perpetrate such acts. Similar speculation about how the “bearers of life” could be involved with taking innocent civilians lives occurred after the Palestinian organizations began to use women
17 to conduct suicide attacks.
One possible explanation for this disparity in media coverage between men and women is that a woman who engages in terrorism “interrupts stereotypical expectations of women as pure, innocent, and nonviolent.”18 Tasheen Malik, the female shooter in the
San Bernardino attack in December 2015, is one example of where the media seemed to struggle with understanding her role as a terrorist compared to her roles as a mother and wife. Those who knew her described her as a “modern, soft-spoken, obedient, submissive, and shy”, which the media placed at odds with her violent actions and the fact that she allegedly encouraged her husband to participate in this attack.19 Much of the
46 media coverage of the event highlighted the fact that she was a new mother and questioned how she could have made the decision to participate in these activities. Jayne
Huckerby, however, notes that similar comments were not made about Syed Rizwan
20 Farook, Malik’s husband and the father of their daughter.
Not only do women garner more media attention than men in terrorist organizations, but western women are shown to attract more coverage than domestic women. Caron Gentry’s analysis of the news coverage of women fighters in Iraq in 2007 revealed that most media attention focused on the women associated with al-Qa’ida in
Iraq who had some ties to the west. Western media reports at the time even eschewed coverage of the small numbers of non-western female al-Qa’ida operatives who took part in martyrdom operations, choosing instead to report primarily on the western females associated with the group.21 While Gentry notes that this may have partly been due to issues of access – it is easier to interview associates of Western women tied to these groups vice Iraqi locals – there does appear to be a fascination in the western media with western women joining jihadist organizations. Gentry highlights that a contributing factor is that these women do not fit into the western media narrative about the behavior of traditional women in the west. It is difficult to understand why women who have enjoyed the “emancipated” culture that western countries offer would voluntarily join an organization that promotes a lack of freedoms for these women.
Given the limited insight available into ISIS leadership decision-making processes, it is unclear if ISIS leadership fully recognizes that western women receive this level of disproportionate attention in the media, or if this is an unintended side-effect of their more general recruitment efforts. ISIS, however, does have a clear media
47 strategy, which seems calculated to increase coverage of ISIS activities in western media outlets. To do this, ISIS’s al-Hayat Media Center releases well-produced videos and messages on ISIS’s activities, and ISIS’s fighters and supporters, both internally and externally, echo these messages in a broad social media campaign. In fact, in October
2015, ISIS released a social media strategy aimed primarily at encouraging people to post online and how to increase the visibility of those posts.22 One goal of this media strategy is to increase the coverage of ISIS in the western media, which will likely attract additional western recruits.23 Further, studies have shown a link between media coverage of terrorist organizations and increased terrorist attacks.24 From the way that western women in ISIS-controlled territories are encouraged to post on Twitter and other social networks, it can be assessed that ISIS views the coverage of these activities as beneficial to their cause and, therefore, may be actively pursuing women for this purpose.
Building the Caliphate:
When ISIS declared the establishment of the Caliphate on 29 June 2014, the newly declared Caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi called on doctors, engineers, and Islamic jurists to travel to ISIS-controlled territory to join the Caliphate.25 These skills are important for the establishment of a legitimate state, as states must provide for the basic human needs of its citizens, including health care, security, education, and legal systems.
ISIS’s spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, also emphasized these points in the initial proclamation declaring the formation of the Islamic State:
The people in the lands of the State move about for their livelihood and journeys,
feeling safe regarding their lives and wealth. Wulāt (governors) and judges have
been appointed. Jizyah (a tax imposed on the kuffār) has been enforced. Fay’
48 (money taken from the kuffār without battle) and zakat (obligatory alms) have
been collected. Courts have been established to resolve disputes and
complaints… Lessons and classes have been held in masājid and, by the grace of
26 Allah, the religion has become completely for Allah.
Adnani’s proclamation, which was released in Arabic, English, Russian, French, and
German languages, also demonstrated the efforts of the ISIS leadership to appeal to an international audience. This point was further reiterated by Baghdadi when he stated
“Rush O Muslims to your state. Yes, it is your state. Rush, because Syria is not for the
27 Syrians, and Iraq is not for the Iraqis.”
Declaring the Caliphate makes ISIS different from previous iterations of jihadist organizations because it has become far more than just an army or an insurgency. ISIS claims to have created a fully functioning society, a society that promises a perfect version of an Islamic society.28 While not explicitly referencing the role of women in the
Caliphate, it is evident from Adnani’s statement that ISIS was looking to legitimize their rule in the areas they control by appointing governors and judges, collecting taxes, and establishing an educational system. The establishment of the “Islamic State” meant that
ISIS had become more than just an army or an insurgency, but has evolved into fully functioning and stable society.
ISIS appears to recognize that educated western women can also provide these skills to the Caliphate. Aimen Deen, a former jihadist, claimed that women are instrumental to the survival of the Islamic State formed by ISIS. He noted that women are “half of the society… playing an important role in many departments: the medical department, the educational department and even the tax collection department.”29 The
49 women in ISIS-controlled territory take part in managing the finances and the logistics of the operations, recruiting new fighters and female companions, collecting and disseminating intelligence, providing medical care, glorifying the struggle and spreading the jihadist ideology through Internet contacts.30 In ISIS’s first published edition of
Dabiq magazine, the Caliphate’s English-language periodical, ISIS claimed that it had needs for “judges, people with military or administrative skills, doctors, and engineers,” and asked for people with these backgrounds to come to the Caliphate.31 As ISIS seeks to control territory and build a functioning society founded on shari’ah law, women working in these professions are equally important to males, because women are only able to obtain medical and legal services or be taught by other women.
In the case of one woman migrant to Syria, who is known online as Shams, she was approached by the local ISIS emir after she arrived in ISIS-controlled territory.
Shams, whose identity remains unknown, is believed to be originally from Malaysia, but according to statements made online, she was raised and trained as a doctor in the United
Kingdom. After her arrival in Syria in February 2014, the local emir learned of her medical background and offered her a house that could be used to set up a clinic, along with some medical equipment. In Shams’ case, she was not required to marry because she offered other critical skills to the Caliphate. Women who could work as teachers, doctors, and nurses would not be forced to marry and could instead reside in all-female hostels, Shams noted in one of her online postings.32 She provided primary health care, referrals to the local hospital, and also routine check-ups to pregnant women. Shams also has been using her Twitter account to encourage other professional women to travel to ISIS-controlled territory. On 27 December 2014, she posted the following comment:
50 “We need more professional muhajirah in the Islamic State. Currently we have all- female staffs hospital in Tabqah. Feeling great AlHamdulillah.”33 Separately, in response to a question posted online asking about pharmaceutical job opportunities in
ISIS-controlled territory, Shams responded that “there are plenty of jobs available for professional esp in medical field.” She also noted that ISIS provided a monthly
34 allowance for this work.
Depicting a Normal State:
ISIS is not just using these women to provide important skills to the Caliphate, but also seems to be encouraging their travel to ISIS-controlled territory because they provide further credence to the claim that that ISIS has become a legitimate state, with a normal society. Women in ISIS-controlled territory post photographs online of the meals they have cooked and their pets, showing just how normal and free the society is. One woman, writing under the kunya Umm Muthanna, posted a photograph of a white car with the caption “Never got my license in Britain, failed it many times, haha, but here I drive this.”35 Having women depicting these scenes furthers the claim that ISIS has established a perfect state, and also shows that this state will continue to the next generation because women also bear children and can raise them to uphold the ideals espoused by ISIS.
According to Katherine Brown, an expert in Islamic Studies at King’s College in
London, ISIS views women as the “cornerstone” for this new Caliphate, particularly since they need new citizens.36 ISIS appears to be directing much of its propaganda toward women, particularly those women interested in becoming wives and mothers, which will help to build the new Islamic Caliphate.37 As one indicator of this, ISIS
51 recruitment videos are not just depicting the decapitations of its prisoners, but also broadcast images of smiling children and families suggesting that contributing to the next
38 generation of the “Islamic State” is an important “role for women who join.”
When Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi presented himself at the Nuri Mosque in Mosul, he noted that establishing the Caliphate was a “duty incumbent on Muslims, which had been absent for centuries…”39 This statement has resonated with several of the western women who have decided to travel to Syria, as many of them cite the duty required by all
Muslims to move to the Caliphate after it has been formed and announced. Hoda
Muthana, a 19-year old American woman from Alabama, claimed her decision to go to
Syria in November 2014 was prompted by her belief that “every true Muslim was
40 required to travel to the Islamic State if they wanted to go to heaven.”
The eleventh edition of Dabiq magazine included a section specifically address to the women associated with ISIS entitled “To Our Sisters.” This article addresses the women who traveled to Syria intent on becoming involved in combat efforts. The author highlights that “if the weapon of the men is the assault rifle and the explosive belt, then know that the weapon of women is good behavior and knowledge.” The article continues to encourage women to be faithful to their jihadi husbands and to have children and raise them in accordance with the ideals of the ISIS organization.41 While ISIS’s messages and social media posts encourage women to travel to Syria, even if they must travel alone to do it, they are cautioned that they will need to get married soon after their arrival.
Aqsa Mahmood, a Scottish woman who traveled to Syria and posted online under the kunya (handle) Umm Layth, urged women in her posts that they should be prepared to get married upon their arrival in Syria.42 Further, in an online post entitled “Diary of a
52 Muhajirah,” intended to provide an overview of life in ISIS-controlled territory for those individuals potentially contemplating making the journey, the author stated “you may gain more ajr [reward] by spending years of sleepless nights by being a mother and raising children with the right intentions and for the sake of Allah than by doing a
43 martyrdom operation.”
Exploiting the Commitment of the Muhajirat
Beyond their role in building the Caliphate, both in traditional and non- traditional roles, western women migrants to ISIS-controlled territory have shown a higher level of commitment than the women from Syria and Iraq, and by extension have also shown that they view the ISIS ideology to be superior to that in the west. According to Sasha Havlicek, from the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, western women play a crucial role in ISIS’s online strategy as it helps bolster the group’s claim to be fighting against a
“decadent and morally corrupt” western society.44 As the primary element in the society responsible for cultural and religious transmission, the more committed women are ideologically to the ISIS movement, the more successful the organization will be in the long-run.45 The voluntary and enthusiastic women that travel to Syria and Iraq make stronger supporters to the jihad and better wives to jihadi fighters than domestic women who may be forced to marry fighters against their will.46 ISIS may also be looking to exploit this enthusiasm in the migrant women to ensure that the male combatants remain committed to the cause.
Other Islamic extremist organizations have also highlighted the importance that women have in maintaining the commitment of the male fighters. In Usama bin Ladin’s fatwa “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy
53 Places, Expel the Mushrikeen (infidels) from the Arabian Peninsula,” bin Ladin encouraged women to continue to motivate their sons, brothers, and husbands to fight for the cause. He stated, “our women instigate their brothers to fight in the cause of Allah.”47
Yusif al-Ayyiri, one of the leading members of al-Qa’ida in Saudi Arabia in the mid-
48 2000s, also emphasized the power that women hold over men in the jihad.
Many of the western women currently located within ISIS are demonstrating this high level of commitment in their social media posts. Aqsa Mahmood wrote of how many of the women she had come across had given up lives in the west that offered the hope of a comfortable life and lots of money. She further made a direct appeal to those still living in the West – “to those who are able and can still make your way, hasten hasten to our lands… This is a war against Islam and it is known that either ‘you’re with them or with us’. So pick a side.”49 Umm Yahya, another woman associated with ISIS, showed how even with the hardships in the ISIS-controlled territory, these women still believe that their sacrifices are worth the eventual reward. She stated, “Day 2, no electricity, winter is coming. We know jihad is a hardship but the reward makes it easier.
#us and #allies u can’t kill our spirit.”50 When ISIS posts a new video online, even one with images of beheadings or battles, the women migrants often take to Twitter or other social media platforms and laud the videos. Umm Irhab even stated in one of her posts
“more beheadings please!” showing clearly the commitment that she feels toward the cause and the actions of the ISIS fighters.51 Zahra Halane, another British women who traveled to Syria with her twin sister in 2014, posted in September 2014 “Happy #9/11 happiest day of my life. Hopefully more to come Insha Allah #IS.”52 It should be noted that this commitment to the cause may not be restricted to the women affiliated with ISIS,
54 but may be a characteristic of women in other terrorist groups. According to Eileen
MacDonald, women often demonstrate a higher degree of energy and commitment to a cause than their male counterparts. She cited an MI5 official who stated that from his experience, “women terrorists have much stronger characters, more power, more
53 energy.”
Ensuring a ready supply of women motivated to support the cause of ISIS also provides a recruitment tool for ISIS to entice male fighters to come to Syria and Iraq.
According to one report, ISIS fighters were going door-to-door in Iraq asking about the numbers of married and unmarried women in the house and noting that many of the
“mujaheedin” were unmarried and wanted a wife.54 In Tunisia, one individual claimed that many of his friends were enticed to join ISIS because prospective fighters are told of the better life waiting for them in Syria, and that “there are pretty women to marry… life
55 will be easier and they will be successful.”
Domestic women – even those who may be supportive of ISIS – are hesitant to marry foreigners. In traditional Islamist societies there are strict rules dictating that men must request permission from fathers to marry daughters. As these western women often travel by themselves or without the support of their parents, they pose a convenient workaround solution for ISIS fighters looking for brides. According to Hoda Muthanna, she did not require her father’s consent to marry 23-year old Australian national Surhan
Rahman. She stated that since her father was “condemned a fardh of the deen [enemy of the faith]” his consent would not be required the way it was for most Islamic marriages.56
Therefore, the western women recruited by ISIS can be offered as brides to foreign fighters, which may also encourage more male fighters to join the group.
55 Through this effort to recruit women to become brides for male fighters, ISIS may also be attempting to address a current need in Arab countries. Cultural requirements in Arab countries dictate that marriage ceremonies are lavish affairs, usually paid for by the groom’s family. Also, grooms must secure appropriate housing before their marriage, which in major cities can become a costly affair, particularly with the rising unemployment in many Arab countries. Given the cost associated with these weddings, the housing, and with the dowries provided to the bride’s family, many men are forced to wait until their 20s and 30s before they can afford marriage.57 ISIS’s establishment of a marriage bureau in the northern Syrian city of al-Bab and provision of financial resources for those fighters who do marry suggests that ISIS recognizes addressing this need would offer an important incentive for male fighters to join the ranks of the organization. In this sense, the women become a type of reward or incentive to men contemplating joining the group.
Further, women who are married to men who eventually become martyrs can then be offered in marriage to other fighters after they complete their period of mourning.
Therefore, the women can have utility beyond their first marriage. The widows of ISIS hold such an important role that the thirteenth edition of the Dabiq magazine included a section specifically speaking to the widows, providing them with guidance on how to act during their period of mourning. At the conclusion of the article, the author comments that “some women are excessive in their adherence to ihdād [mourning], living their whole lives in mourning!”58 The author highlights that even the “Mothers of the
Believers” did not observe their period of mourning to this extent. The eighth edition of
Dabiq magazine also included an article making reference to women who were
56 undergoing hardships in ISIS-controlled territories, including those women who had already been widowed. The author of this section, Umm Sumayyah al-Muhajirah, encouraged her widowed “sisters” to be patient and also to be wary of thinking that they should return to the west. 59 Aqsa Mahmood also commented in an online post that ISIS expects women to get remarried after their period of mourning, typically lasting four
60 months and ten days, was completed.
The Future of the Muhajirat in ISIS
As has been shown above, there are four primary benefits that western women provide to ISIS. The publicity that these women provide to the cause often surpasses the media reporting of male foreign fighters or even of women who are local to the conflict.
The women not only help build the Caliphate through marrying fighters and having children, but they also bring necessary skills and education that can be exploited by ISIS.
Finally, the women can be offered as rewards to male fighters, which encourages more male foreign fighters to travel to ISIS-controlled territory to join the organization.
Subsequently, these women also ensure that their husbands and sons to remain committed to ISIS’s goals. These are roles that women can hold in ISIS without directly participating in fighting and combat operation.
It should be noted, however, that ISIS has not completely ruled out the possibility of having women participate in fighting in the future. The Al-Khannssaa
Brigade manifesto did state that women are permitted to participate in fighting “if the enemy is attacking her country and the men are not enough to protect it and the imams give a fatwa for it.”61 Precedence for using women in more active roles has been established by ISIS’s predecessor organization, AQI, and was used extensively during the
57 2007-2008 surge of American military forces, particularly in the Diyala Governorate of
Iraq. From the beginning of the surge in the spring of 2007 until November 2008, 27 women had conducted suicide attacks in that area.62 Also, in 2009, the wife of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current leader of al-Qa’ida, stated that women should aspire to martyrdom. She caveated her statement, however, by claiming that women should be prepared to carry out any of the tasks given to them by the Mujahideen, opening up the possibility that fighting is permissible only if requested by the male leadership of the
63 organization.
Statements made by both ISIS leadership and the women currently in ISIS controlled territory suggest that ISIS’s current prohibition on using women in more active combat roles may not be permanent. Shaykh Omar Shishani, one of ISIS’s commanders before his death in March 2016, stated that “for sisters [participating in fighting] is completely impossible for now… InshaaAllah in the future.” Zehra Duman stated that
“maybe one day soon, it just might happen… which I cannot wait for.”64 One of the key themes in these messages is that ISIS currently has plenty of male fighters to be involved in the combat operations; therefore, the women of ISIS still need to be focused on being wives, mothers, and support the cause by carrying out other support functions. If ISIS suffers some significant setbacks or begins to suffer a large number of casualties and finds that recruitment efforts are unsuccessful, ISIS will likely turn to the women to conduct attacks on their adversaries. Women suicide bombers in Iraq garnered a significant amount of international attention, enhancing AQI’s overall global prestige;
“women suicide bombers become an invaluable resource” in a world where terrorist organizations want to increase their media exposure and want to conduct dramatic
58 attacks. 65 Further, according to Laleh Khalili, a professor of Middle Eastern Studies, women’s involvement in these types of operations can have a shaming effect on men, imploring them to actually take part in future operations so that women will not have to
66 fill in for them.
Should ISIS eventually decide to use its women recruits in these combat operations, western women would also have the ability to potentially conduct highly visible attacks in their home countries. Women can frequently pass through security checkpoints unnoticed, and provide attack flexibility and an additional element of surprise.67 Female converts may have an even greater advantage in conducting an attack because they would be able to blend in and evade various security measures around locations that could be possible targets.68 While ISIS claims that they do not need women to become involved in fighting at this time, recruiting more women who could
“blend in” and conduct attacks in the west in the future may be another benefit that ISIS leadership believes they can get from these women.
1 Charlie Winter, “Women of the Islamic State: A Manifesto on Women by the Al-Khanssaa Brigade.” In Quilliam Foundation, February 2015. https://www.quilliamfoundation.org/wp/wp- content/uploads/publications/free/women-of-the-islamic-state3.pdf. (Accessed on 18 September 2015). 2 Katharina von Knop, “The Female Jihad: Al Qaeda’s Women,” in Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, vol. 30, issue 5 (2007): 400. 3 Anita Peresin and Alberto Cervone, “The Western Muhajirat of ISIS”, in Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, vol. 38, issue 7 (April 2015): 500. 4 Abdallah Azzam, Defense of the Muslim Lands, http://space.crono911.net/EBook/553_religioscope_Azzzam.pdf ( accessed on 28 March 2011), as quoted in Farhana Qazi “The Mujahidaat: Tracing the Early Female Warriors of Islam,” in Women, Gender, and Terrorsim, Edited by Laura Sjoberg and Caron E. Gentry, (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2011), 37. 5 Scott Shane and Ben Hubbard, “ISIS Displaying a Deft Command of Varied Media,” in NYTimes, 30 August 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/31/world/middleeast/isis-displaying-a-deft-command-of- varied-media.html?_r=0 (Accessed on 11 April 2016). 6 Ellie Hall, “Inside The Chilling Online World Of The Women Of ISIS,” in BuzzFeed, 14 September 2014, http://www.buzzfeed.com/ellievhall/inside-the-online-world-of-the-women-of-isis#.bnMBDE6M54 (accessed November 16, 2015). 7 Rafia Zakaria, “Women and Islamic Militancy,” in Dissent Magazine, Winter 2015, https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/why-women-choose-isis-islamic-militancy (2 February 2016).
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8 Erin Marie Saltman and Melanie Smith, “’Till Martyrdom Do Us Part’: Gender and the ISIS Phenomenon,” Institute for the Strategic Dialogue, 2015, http://www.strategicdialogue.org/Till_Martyrdom_Do_Us_Part_Gender_and_the_ISIS_Phenomenon.pdf (Accessed on 25 August 2015), 13. 9 Shane and Hubbard, “ISIS Displaying a Deft Command of Varied Media.” 10 Charlie Winter, 12. 11 Jayne Huckerby, “Why Women Join ISIS,” in Time Magazine Online, 7 December 2015. http://time.com/4138377/women-in-isis/ (Accessed on 3 January 2016). 12 Larry Diamond, “Tunisia is Still a Success,” in The Atlantic, 23 March 2015 http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/03/tunisia-is-still-a-success-terrorist-attack/388436/ (Accessed on 15 April 2016). 13 Asma Ajroubi, “Insecurity in 2014 Seen Behind Surge of Tunisian ISIS Fighters,” in al-Arabiyah, 15 December 2014 http://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/analysis/2014/12/15/Insecurity-in-2014-seen- behind-surge-of-Tunisian-ISIS-fighters.html (Accessed on 2 February 2016). 14 Huckerby, “Why Women Join ISIS”. 15 Anne Speckhard, “Female Terrorists in ISIS, Al Qaeda, and 21rst Terrorism,” in Trends Research and Advisory, May 2015 http://trendsinstitution.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Female-Terrorists-in-ISIS-al- Qaeda-and-21rst-Century-Terrorism-Dr.-Anne-Speckhard11.pdf (Accessed on 11 April 2016). 16 Katharina von Knop, 401. 17 Speckhard, “Female Terrorists in ISIS, Al Qaeda, and 21rst Terrorism”. 18 Laura Sjoberg, Grace D. Cooke, and Stacy Reiter Neal, “Introduction. Women, Gender, and Terrorism” in Women, Gender, and Terrorism, edited by Laura Sjoberg and Caron E. Gentry (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2011), 4. 19 Aoun Sahi, David S. Cloud, and Brian Bennett, “Tashfeen Malik was ‘modern girl’ who began posting extremist messages on Facebook,” in LA Times, 6 December 2015, http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la- me-ln-tashfeen-malik-facebook-extremist-messages-20151205-story.html (Accessed on 10 April 2016). . 20 Huckerby, “Why Women Join ISIS”. 21 Caron Gentry, “Neo-Orientalist Narratives of Women’s Involvement in al-Qaeda,” in Women, Gender, and Terrorism, edited by Laura Sjoberg and Caron E. Gentry (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2011), 177. 22 Gilad Shiloach, “Inside ISIS’ Social Media Strategy: ‘Monitor the Media for Lies’” in Vocativ Online, 27 October 2015 http://www.vocativ.com/news/243967/isis-social-media-strategy/ (Accessed on 20 January 2016). 23 Zachary Fryer-Biggs, “Are the Media Feeding the ISIS Monster?” in Newsweek, 14 April 2015, http://www.newsweek.com/feeding-isis-monster-321982 (Accessed on 23 January 2016). 24 Jamie Doward, “Media Coverage of Terrorism ‘Leads to Further Violence,’” in the Guardian Online, 1 August 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/aug/01/media-coverage-terrorism-further-violence (Accessed on 23 January 2016). 25 Jamie Dettmer, “The Terrorist Caliph as Nation Builder in Iraq, Syria, and Beyond” in The Daily Beast, 8 July 2014, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/08/the-terrorist-caliph-as-nation-builder-in-iraq- syria-and-beyond.html (Accessed on 9 April 2016). 26 SITE Intelligence Group “ISIS Spokesman Declares Caliphate, Rebrands Group as “Islamic State,” in SITE Intelligence Group Online, 29 June 2014, https://news.siteintelgroup.com/Jihadist-News/isis- spokesman-declares-caliphate-rebrands-group-as-islamic-state.html (Accessed on 24 January 2016). 27 Dettmer, “The Terrorist Caliph as Nation Builder in Iraq, Syria, and Beyond”. 28 Haras Rafiq and Nikita Malik “Caliphettes: Women and the Appeal of the Islamic State” in Quilliam Foundation, http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/publications/free/caliphettes- women-and-the-appeal-of-is.pdf (Accessed on 15 January 2016) 18. 29 Gardener “The Crucial Role of Women within the Islamic State.” 30 Peresin and Cervone, 498. 31 Dabiq Magazine, Issue 1: The Return of the Khilafah,” Published by the Clarion Project, http://media.clarionproject.org/files/09-2014/isis-isil-islamic-state-magazine-Issue-1-the-return-of- khilafah.pdf (Accessed on 3 January 2016) 45. 32 Peresin and Cervone, 500. 33 Shams, @ BirdofJannah, Twitter Feed, 27 December 2014, quoted in Saltman and Smith, 38.
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34 SITE Intelligence Group, “Female IS Recruiter Shares Insight into Career Options, Status of Prominent Recruiter,” in SITE Intelligence Group Online, 15 April 2015, https://news.siteintelgroup.com/Western- Jihadist-Forum-Digest/female-is-resident-shares-insight-into-career-options-status-of-prominent- recruiter.html (Accessed on 3 January 2016). 35 Ellie Hall, “Inside of the Lives of the Wives and Widows of ISIS,” in BuzzFeed, 17 March 2015, http://www.buzzfeed.com/ellievhall/inside-the-lives-of-the-wives-and-widows-of-isis#.sqkqwn7Ady (Accessed on 15 April 2016). 36 Frank Gardner “The Crucial Role of Women within the Islamic State,” in BBC Online, 20 August 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33985441 (Accessed on 26 October 2015). 37 Peter Alford, “Women Play Crucial Role as Families Flock to the Islamic State” in the Australian, 24 November 2015 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/paris-terror-attacks/women-play-crucial-role-as- families-flock-to-islamic-state/news-story/83d52a06953a8119b6be84b3161c1adf (Accessed on 23 January 2016). 38 Eric Tucker, “How ISIS is Recruiting a Growing Following of Young Women,” in PBSNews Hour, 6 December 2015, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/how-isis-is-recruiting-a-growing-following-of- young-women/ (Accessed on 15 April 2016). 39 William McCants, The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2015), 123. 40 Ellie Hall “Gone Girl: An Interview With An American In ISIS” in BuzzFeed News, 17 April 2015 http://www.buzzfeed.com/ellievhall/gone-girl-an-interview-with-an-american-in-isis#.xojqqYBMd (Accessed on 24 September 2015). 41 Dabiq Magazine, Issue 11: “For the Battle of al-Ahzab to the War of Coalitions,” Published by the Clarion Project, http://www.clarionproject.org/docs/Issue%2011%20- %20From%20the%20battle%20of%20Al-Ahzab%20to%20the%20war%20of%20coalitions.pdf (Accessed on 3 January 2016). 42 Peresin and Cervone, 500. 43 SITE Intelligence Group, “Girl Talk: Calling Western Women to Syria,” in SITE Intelligence Group Online, http://news.siteintelgroup.com/blog/index.php/about-us/21-jihad/4406-girl-talk-calling-western- women-to-syria (Accessed on 15 January 2016). 44 Homa Khalili, “The British Women Married to Jihad,” in The Guardian, 6 September 2014 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/06/british-women-married-to-jihad-isis-syria (Accessed on 1 December 2015). 45 Farah Pandith and Sasha Havlicek, “The Female Face of Terror,” in the Telegraph, 28 January 2015, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/11374026/The-female-face-of-terror.html (Accessed on 20 December 2015). 46 Peresin and Cervone, 500. 47 Katharina von Knop, 405-406. 48 Ibid, 406. 49 Umm Layth, Tumblr Post, September 2014, quoted in Harriet Sherwood, et al, “Schoolgirl jihadis: the female Islamists leaving home to join Isis fighters,” in The Guardian, 29 September 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/29/schoolgirl-jihadis-female-islamists-leaving-home-join-isis- iraq-syria (Accessed on 26 September 2015). 50 Umm Yahya, @ruqayyah_ru, Twitter Post, 1 October 2014, quoted in Alice Mongkongllite, “Inside The Lives Of The Wives And Widows Of ISIS - BuzzFeed News,” in BuzzFeed News, 16 March 2015 http://digest.club/article/f7817142839392f676b5d482f95632bf/ (Accessed on 18 November 2015). 51 Umm Irhab @MuslimahMujahi1, 20 August 2014, https://twitter.com/MuslimahMujahi1 (Accessed on 28 November 2014), quoted in.Carolyn Hoyle, Alexandra Bradford, and Ross Frenett, “Becoming Mulan,” Institute for Strategic Dialogue http://www.strategicdialogue.org/ISDJ2969_Becoming_Mulan_01.15_WEB.PDF (Accessed on 25 August 2015) 29 52 Saltman and Smith, 21. 53 Eileen MacDonald, Shoot the Women First, (New York: Random House, 1991), xiv. 54 Supriya Jha, “ISIS fighters need wives; start marriage bureau, honeymoon bus tours” in Z News, 29 June 2014,
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http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/isis-fighters-need-wives-start-marriage-bureau-honeymoon-bus- tours_950908.html (Accessed on 10 January 2016). 55 Janine di Giovanni, “Tunisia’s ISIS Connection” in Newsweek, 16 June 2015 http://www.newsweek.com/2015/06/26/tunisias-isis-connection-343295.html (Accessed on 4 February 2016). 56 Hall, “Gone Girl: An Interview With An American In ISIS”. 57 Hoda Rashad, Magued Osman, and Farzaneh Roudi-Fahimi, “Marriage in the Arab World,” published by the Population Reference Bureau, http://www.prb.org/pdf05/marriageinarabworld_eng.pdf (Accessed on 20 January 2016), 6. 58 “Dabiq Magazine, Issue 13: The Rafidah,” Published by the Clarion Project, http://www.clarionproject.org/factsheets-files/Issue-13-the-rafidah.pdf (Accessed on 5 January 2016) 26. 59 “Dabiq Magazine, Issue 8: Sharia Alone will Rule Africa,” Published by the Clarion Project, http://media.clarionproject.org/files/islamic-state/isis-isil-islamic-state-magazine-issue+8-sharia-alone-will- rule-africa.pdf (Accessed on 6 January 2016) 37. 60 Alastair Bell, “Active Online, Foreign Women Become Islamic State Widows,” in Reuters, 22 April 2015, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-syria-widows-idUSKBN0ND2C120150422 (Accessed on 25 January 2016). 61 Charlie Winter, 22. 62 Martin Chulov, “Violent province's 27 female suicide bombers who set out to destroy Iraqi hopes of peace,” in The Guardian, 11 November 2008, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/12/iraq- gender-suicide-bombers-diyala (Accessed on 10 April 2016). 63 Houriya Ahmed, “The Growing Threat of Female Suicide Attacks in Western Countries,” in CTC Sentinel, 3 July 2010, https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/the-growing-threat-of-female-suicide-attacks-in- western-countries (Accessed on 15 March 2016). 64 Anita Perešin, “Fatal Attraction: Western Muslimas and ISIS,” in Terrorism Research Initiative, Vol. 9, No. 3 (2015), http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/427/html (Accessed on 15 January 2016). 65 Jennie Stone and Katherine Pattillo, “Al Qaeda’s Female Suicide Bombers,” in Women, Gender and Terrorism, edited by Lauren Sjoberg and Caron Gentry, (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2011), 169. 66 Stone and Pattillo, 165. 67 Stone and Pattillo, 163. 68 Ahmed, “The Growing Threat of Female Suicide Attacks in Western Countries.”
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Chapter 4: Western Efforts to Stop the Flow of Recruits to ISIS
This paper has already explored the reasons that western women join ISIS and the motivations for ISIS’s recruitment of western women. The final issue to discuss is the programs being implemented to address this problem by western governments. Western governments have been confronted with the danger that foreign fighters pose to the security of their countries for years, long before the formation of ISIS. Each new attack, however, sparks a fresh round of debates on whether the programs being implemented by these governments are effective and are sufficient to eliminate the threat posed by foreign fighters. The recent attacks in Brussels, Paris, and San Bernardino, California have caused many to evaluate the current programs used to halt the flow of foreign fighters, particularly those from western countries, who are joining ISIS. When it comes to gender issues, most programs do not differentiate between the reasons why men and women join
ISIS. It is important, however, to understand the issues these programs are geared to address, in order to ensure that they are able to combat the motivations already addressed and the messages that ISIS disseminates to recruit western women to their cause.
Following the November 2015 attacks in Paris, western political discourse has focused on the threats that individuals pose when/if foreign fighters return to their home countries. Thomas Hegghammer points out that the term “foreign fighter” should not be conflated with the concept of an “international terrorist”. In reality, these two groups are distinct, but have some overlap.1 The Soufan group’s December 2015 overview of foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq also noted that the vast majority of individuals traveling
63 to Syria still do so with no intention of returning home.2 This is particularly evident with the western women who have been highlighted previously in this paper. Very few of the women who travel to Syria and Iraq have expressed an intention to return to the west.
Hoda Muthanna, the woman from Alabama who traveled to Syria in November 2014, posted on Twitter under her handle Umm Jihad a picture of her passport along with several other western passports in December 2014 with the caption “Bonfire soon, no
3 need for these anymore.”
Given that the vast majority of western women who travel to Syria and Iraq intend to stay there, this section will focus primarily on the efforts that have been implemented to prevent westerners from traveling. These include the state-sanctioned counter- messaging programs, community-based programs, and one-on-one mentoring programs.
It is also important to consider the different methods being used by ISIS to recruit western women; while some women are drawn in by social media, other women are encouraged to travel to Syria by their close friends and family members. The programs implemented by western governments need to not only address the messages that are encouraging women to travel to Syria and Iraq, but also the methods that are being used to do it. Programs being implemented by these countries to address the issue of returnees will also be highlighted. These programs, however, focus more on the role of law enforcement monitoring than countering ISIS’s message.
The field of Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) is still a relatively new field of practice, and prevention programs typically fall under this category. While many recognize that preventing people from radicalizing is the optimal strategy when dealing with terrorism, effective prevention programs are difficult to implement, and, once
64 implemented, it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of these programs. Since prevention programs being implemented by western governments are still in the relatively early stages, most programs do not yet take differences of gender into account.
This is a problem not just because women may be attracted to extremist groups for different reasons than men and thus may require different programs to prevent their radicalization, but also because women can play a moderating role in Muslim families and Muslim communities in western societies. The UN Security Council has even acknowledged that women play an important role in preventative counterterrorism
4 strategies.
This paper cannot cover all the programs that have been implemented by all western governments; to narrow the scope of this section, only the programs that have been put in place by the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom will be highlighted. As the majority of the women included in the dataset are from the United
States and the United Kingdom, these are the programs that will most likely impact the women highlighted earlier in this paper. While the threat of terrorist attacks in both the
United States and the United Kingdom remains high, neither country has experienced an attack yet from fighters returning from Syria and Iraq; the programs and policies in these countries, therefore, have been evolving in a relatively consistent manner, as opposed to having a sharp increase in programs and funding that would follow a significant terrorist attack. While comparisons to programs in other countries will be used to demonstrate the relative effectiveness to date of the British and American programs, the programs in these two countries will be used as the core for this analysis.
65 The CVE programs implemented in the United States are not as formalized as those in other parts of the world. Some of the challenges that the United States faces are a lack of funding, lack of lead agency for these efforts, and resistance from the Muslim communities.5 Improving CVE is part of the strategy laid out in a U.S. government- sponsored CVE summit in February 2015. A CVE pilot program has been established in three U.S. cities, Boston, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis-St. Paul, each city focusing on a different aspect of CVE: Boston’s plan focused on individual engagement, Los Angeles focused on community engagement, and Minneapolis-St. Paul focused on societal-level
6 concerns.
The United Kingdom’s programs are much more structured than those in the
United States. This is likely due to the British government’s more active role in British society in general. One of the four parts of the UK’s counterterrorism strategy is to
“prevent radicalization.”7 In 2011, the British government restructured its prevention program, known as PREVENT, to attempt to address some of these challenges.
PREVENT, as it is currently administered, operates on a three-pronged framework: to respond to the ideological challenge of terrorism, to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism, and to work with sectors and institutions who are dealing with the risks of radicalization. Like many other countries, the British government allows a great deal of latitude in how the programs under PREVENT are implemented in different areas of the
United Kingdom, recognizing that what may work in one region or community may not be effective in others. Programs operated under PREVENT, therefore, are diverse; they include educational opportunities for police and community members, town hall-style
66 meetings, youth sporting events, and the development of community centric
8 counterterrorism teams that specialize in engagement.
State-Sponsored Counter Messaging Programs:
Before discussing the counter messaging programs implemented by the U.S. and
U.K. governments, one must have a general understanding of ISIS’s propaganda efforts.
ISIS’s propaganda machine has been morphing and expanding along with the organization. In 2011 and 2012, the propaganda was more inwardly focused, highlighting the problems of the Syrian regime and attempting to recruit internal fighters and organizations to support its cause.9 Charlie Winter’s report on the status of ISIS’s propaganda efforts in 2015, however, highlighted the fact that ISIS had developed into a global brand, and was focusing on six main themes that would appeal to more of an external audience. These included brutality, mercy, victimhood, war, belonging, and utopia.10 Western recruits seem to be particularly drawn to the theme of belonging, which is regularly supported by images of fighters relaxing together and singing with each other. The vast majority of the foreign language videos that are released from the al-Hayat Media Center depict these moments of camaraderie, which is not surprising given that foreign recruits are drawn to these types of scenes.
This concept is closely tied with the idea of the utopia, which is by far the most important of all the ISIS propaganda themes. Katherine Brown of King’s College in
London compares the women joining ISIS to the individuals who traveled to the Soviet
Union in the 1950s and 1960s, looking to become citizens of a perfect society. These women believe ISIS’s message that this perfect society is possible. She notes that it is almost as if ISIS is saying “you can have this perfect world – you just need to try a little
67 bit harder.” By joining this society, Brown believes that the women think that they can become “perfect people.”11 ISIS needs to constantly remind the world and, especially its potential recruits, that the Caliphate is legitimate and a perfect example of an Islamic society.12 ISIS primarily relies on the al-Hayat Media center and other official group distributions, external supporters of group, and the individual foreign fighters themselves
13 to disseminate their messages.
As a tool to combat ISIS’s powerful propaganda machine, some governments, including those in the U.S. and U.K., are implementing counter-narrative, or counter- messaging, efforts. For the purpose of this paper, counter-narratives are defined as
“products, such as films, animations, branded merchandise, or spoken word, that present messages and ideas intended to deconstruct, challenge, or ridicule extremist ideas or the use of violence.”14 Governments can also take steps to remove content from the web, which is considered damaging and incites individuals to violence, but these methods are inexact and could create unintended consequences, such as movement of ISIS supporters to the “dark web” where they are more difficult to track.
In the United States, the counter-messaging mandate for ISIS has been assigned to the Department of State’s Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications
(CSCC), which orchestrated several media campaigns aimed at “reducing the luster of
ISIS and dissuading potential recruits from joining it.”15 The CSCC is an inter-agency platform that has been given the task of trying to influence the hardest segment of the population, those who are on the cusp of radicalization.
One of the campaigns that CSCC launched was called “Welcome to ISIS Land”, disdainfully presenting the atrocities and brutality of ISIS as the only thing that life in
68 ISIS-controlled territory offers. This video was quickly answered by the ISIS’s own video called “Run do not Walk to the U.S. Terrorist State.” CSCC’s video was not well- received, and it was taken down soon after its release. Richard Stengel, the U.S.
Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, expressed perhaps one of the biggest problems that CSCC has encountered in its counter-messaging efforts. He noted
“we are reactive – we think about ‘counter-narratives,’ not ‘our narrative.” To counter this perception, he proposed the establishment of a full-time coalition communications hub that could be conducting daily, weekly, even hourly messaging about coalition
16 activities.
The UK government has also taken a small step toward combatting ISIS’s social media presence by establishing its own Twitter account, entitled @UKagainstDaesh, which provides an ongoing overview of what the UK government is doing to combat
ISIS.17 While this may be a way to inform the population about the efforts the government is taking, it does not necessarily combat the messages and the themes being disseminated by ISIS’s social media network and broader media efforts.
When it comes to statewide efforts to counter ISIS’s narratives, it is difficult to know if these programs are successful as the goal is to dissuade young men and women from joining militant organizations; when the goal of a program is to make sure that someone does not do something, it cannot easily be determined if the program is successful.18 Statewide counter-messaging programs have also been accused of making matters worse, as messages may spark feelings of antagonism and distrust of the authorities among the targeted individuals. The individuals targeted by the counter- narratives likely do not view the governments, particularly western governments, as
69 credible voices, making it easier for these individuals to disregard the statewide programs.19 These difficulties are compounded by the fact that secular western governments, such as those in the United States and United Kingdom, cannot enter into a religious-based dialogue on potential fallacies in ISIS’s doctrine given the entrenched value of the separation of church and state in these countries.
In order to stay away from religious or ideological counter-messaging in these state-wide campaigns, western governments and organizations have focused more on counter-narratives that highlight the atrocities of ISIS and the crimes that they have committed against women and children. These programs may cause individuals to question ISIS’s propaganda claims, such as the one that ISIS is creating an utopian society. One example of this is the United Nations 2014 report showing the ISIS atrocities, highlighting that ISIS is violating international laws and is not providing the opportunities and “freedom” that it claims. For example, the report discussed two female doctors working at a hospital in Mosul who were forced to cover their faces in adherence to a strict Islamic dress code. These two women went on temporary strike, noting that it was difficult to treat their patients while wearing the veil. In punishment for this, one of the doctors was killed on 13 August 2014 at her home in Tayaran, south of Mosul in
Iraq.20 For an organization that is attempting to entice more women, and particularly professional women to travel to ISIS-territory, these examples might cause some women to rethink whether they want to be supporting this organization. These types of narratives can also help in “blunting” the message being disseminated by ISIS by showing the inaccuracies and inconsistencies in ISIS’s message as compared to their actions.
70 Community-Based Prevention Programs:
One of the ways to address the problems with statewide counter-messaging programs is to obtain the support of communities who have been hit particularly hard with ISIS-related radicalization. While targeted individuals may not feel that they can trust the government, community leaders and family members can implement programs that will resonate with individuals who may be on the cusp of radicalization.
Community leaders can also provide an effective bridge between individuals in their community and the authorities, because distrust of the federal government or the local authorities may run deep within these communities. These leaders can echo the messages that are being disseminated in statewide efforts, but in a way that will resonate with community members, including, in some cases, addressing the legitimacy of the religious claims made by ISIS. By having community leaders address these religious concerns, government organizations do not have to engage directly on religious or ideological issues, which is a key element of a society that is based on freedom of
21 religion.
The U.S. government highlighted the importance of community initiatives at the
February 2015 CVE summit, noting that “communities provide the solution to violent extremism, and… CVE efforts are best pursued at the local level, tailored to local dynamics, where local officials continued to build relationships within their communities through established community policing and community outreach mechanisms.”22 The summit highlighted that the federal government should be relegated to more of a
“support” role, providing funding and general guidance, but allowing these initiatives to be tailored specifically to the needs of the communities.
71 As one of the pilot cities in the U.S.’s CVE efforts, Los Angeles has been encouraging broader community efforts to take hold. The document governing the efforts in the Greater Los Angeles region noted that while many of the community programs are more society oriented and are not explicitly labeled “CVE”, they are naturally in line with the broader CVE efforts being implemented. These programs include: Leadership Building and Civic Participation, Faith-based Partnerships and
Collaboration, Social Service Delivery, and CVE Specific Initiatives. The CVE initiatives include “local religious scholars and community advocacy groups… to continue to raise awareness and elevate public discourse around violent extremism and
23 dangers of recruitment efforts.”
Community-based CVE programs, however, are threatened by accusations from community members that they are used only as a way for the U.S. government to gather intelligence on young Muslims. In some cases, communities must come to the realization that their youth are being targeted or at risk of being targeted by ISIS before they will try to take this level of action in conjunction with the U.S. government. In November 2014, government officials were invited to address the members of the Abu Bakr Mosque in
Denver, Colorado, after three girls affiliated with the mosque attempted to travel to Syria.
Government officials provided a community awareness briefing (CAB), designed to link the trends and statistics in terrorism recruitment with the information communities need to identify at-risk youth.24 This community had already seen the impact that the ISIS recruitment strategy was having on its youth, but the community also identified that it could trust the government partly because the girls did not face criminal charges upon their return.
72 The Somali-American community leaders in the Greater Twin Cities area have also been grappling with the best way to approach this topic with their community members. Individuals from these communities have not just been traveling to join al-
Shabaab in Somalia, but there have been several cases where young community members have attempted to travel to Syria to join ISIS. While families are clearly struggling with the best way to approach the problem of radicalization, particularly among the younger members of their community, concerns abound about the penalties young individuals could be facing if they come to the attention of authorities.25 The city has made strides to address these concerns and to build trust between the community and law enforcement officials. One way that they have been attempting to build trust is by hiring Somali-
Americans as law enforcement officers and community liaisons. Also, the Minneapolis
Police Department has convened the Somali Women and Women in Law Enforcement group to build trust with mothers and other young women in the community. Initial surveys of community members conducted by the University of Southern California’s
(USC) Homeland Security Center indicated that trust of law enforcement is increasing as a result of these programs. Of the 158 people surveyed, 97 reported positive feelings about law enforcement and a willingness to collaborate in the future.26 While the
Minneapolis program has started to conduct specific outreach toward women, the majority of the prevention programs do not take gender issues into account. This is understandable because the majority of ISIS recruits are male; however, community initiatives without gender specific programs may missing key avenues to influence both women and men to stop plans to travel to ISIS-controlled territory.
73 In the United Kingdom, one organization, which is known as Inspire, is completely gearing its message to women who may be vulnerable to recruitment.
Inspire, which was founded in 2009 with a mission of encouraging counter extremism and women’s rights, has tackled the issue of gender and extremism directly. In 2011, for example, the organization sponsored a conference entitled “Speaking in God’s Name:
Re-examining Gender in Islam.” This conference brought together prominent Muslim and women scholars and focused on five key areas geared toward empowering women: theology; patriarchal interpretations; understanding sexuality and gender; Quranic ideals around public and private roles; and knowledge, religious authority and Muslim women.27 This program recognizes that women are not only susceptible to extremist recruitment, but it also recognizes that women can play a key moderating role within their own communities. As noted above, women have the capability to influence their husbands, brothers, and especially their children; having those voices advocating for moderation vice radicalization can only prove beneficial for future prevention efforts.
While these gender-specific programs are a positive development, the Inspire program faces challenges in implementing these initiatives. Often times the women who are the hardest to reach through these programs are the ones who would benefit the most by participating. In strict Islamic households, even in these western societies, women may not be permitted to participate by the men in their lives or even other women in their families.28 Further, for individuals from immigrant countries, language or other cultural barriers may be a significant concern in reaching the most needy families. In January
2016, David Cameron announced that the UK government would be sponsoring a £20
Million initiative to teach Muslim women English, in an effort to address this issue and
74 incorporate Muslim women more into British society. According to the Prime Minister, the UK government estimated that 190,000 Muslim women in the UK spoke little or no
English, perhaps furthering their isolation and limiting the role that they could play in
29 moderating their family members.
While community-based programs do provide another tool that can be used to prevent radicalization, challenges remain. Non-governmental organizations may also face accusations of being “puppets” of the western governments, particularly if they receive money or other support from government entities.
Individual (One-on-One) Interventions:
As has been shown earlier in this paper, the paths to radicalization are diverse, therefore broad statewide programs or even community programs may not be able to address the issues that individuals are grappling with and which may lead them to radicalize. Increasingly, western countries are implementing targeted or individual interventions, which seek to highlight individuals who are particularly “at risk” for radicalization and to conduct direct interventions before their involvement reaches to the level of criminal activity. These programs are becoming increasingly popular because they are cost-effective, and individuals within these programs are being constantly evaluated to determine if they are becoming more or less radicalized.30 Authorities in the
United States are looking at interventions like this to cut down on the number of individuals who are prosecuted for preparing to join ISIS, particularly for minors. The city of Boston, for example, developed a Framework for Prevention and Intervention
Strategies in February 2015, which provides a framework to support non-governmental
75 organizations and community groups that are attempting to carry out individual interventions to address this issue.
In the framework laid out in this document, the authorities in Boston recognize that official programs, such as the CHANNEL program in the United Kingdom, will be difficult to implement and risk disenfranchising communities which may feel singled-out by these CVE efforts.31 Therefore, the framework laid out seven major problems associated with individuals who are mobilizing toward radicalization and resources and suggestions that could be used to address those problems. By laying out this program using this general framework, communities and service providers have the flexibility to choose which resources are more appropriate to the problems they are specifically facing.
For example, one of the problems highlighted was that there is a lack of understanding of violent extremism among the service providers involved with individuals on the path to radicalization.32 To address this problem, Boston recommends that training be enhanced in schools and among those who are providing psychological first-aid to public health and mental health providers. Further, Boston recognized that it is critical to introduce subject-matter experts on issues like violent extremism to these service providers, to provide important background and knowledge that could be used by the service providers directly engaging with at-risk individuals. The key to this program is the recognition that the government cannot do these interventions without the assistance of community leaders, teachers, religious leaders, and family members. Lisa Monaco, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, noted that “parents might see sudden personality changes in their children at home… religious leaders might notice
76 unexpected clashes over ideological differences… the government is rarely in a position
33 to observe these early signals.”
A law enforcement intervention was attempted in one high-profile case involving a potential woman ISIS recruit in the United States. Shannon Conley, a 19-year-old from
Arvada, Colorado, was approached seven times by law enforcement officials between
November 2013 and April 2014; these law enforcement officers questioned her on her contact with ISIS and plans to travel overseas to become the wife of an ISIS fighter, offering her ample opportunity to recognize that she was being targeted by law enforcement for her actions prior to her arrest in April 2014.34 While the intervention did not keep Conley from attempting to travel to Syria in April 2014, it does potentially signal a shift in the way that U.S. law enforcement agencies are approaching individuals who are becoming radicalized but have not yet committed a crime. In fact, the lawyers and family members of Mohammed Hamzah Khan, who is facing charges for attempting to travel to Syria with his two under-aged siblings, have questioned why similar efforts were not attempted with him prior to his arrest when leaving the country.
While law enforcement interventions may not hold appropriate weight because of the same reasons cited above such as the lack of trust that these individuals have in the government, they do potentially create a side effect that might have more impact on the situation. Family members, in particular, are often caught off guard by the departure of their loved ones, completely unaware that their family members had radicalized; however, as some of those who have traveled have noted, family members do have a significant ability to sway those who have been recruited to join ISIS, and are mentioned by women as barriers to migration far more than other statewide efforts.35 Law
77 enforcement interventions in and of themselves may not prove fruitful, but, particularly for under-aged individuals, it may “clue in” parents, family members, and other influential community members who may have an influence over the potential recruit.
In the United Kingdom, individual interventions are carried out through the
CHANNEL program. Under the CHANNEL program, individuals, whether adults or children, who are referred to the program by the program’s partners, are then assessed by the police; the police then make the initial determination about the level of vulnerability that the individual poses. This information is then presented to a panel, which decides on the best plan of action for the individual.36 The panel may recommend meetings with a religious mentor or psychiatrist, or may recommend additional government and police scrutiny for individuals considered particularly high risk. The program targets mainly
15-24 year olds at risk of being drawn into Islamic extremism, but about 10% of the cases have involved far-right extremists.37 Since 2012, 4000 people have been referred to the
CHANNEL program; the youngest was a 3 year old from London, and approximately half were under the age of 18. While the program was implemented initially in 2007, in summer 2015, the efforts were intensified by making it statutory for state schools to provide referrals for individuals who may be radicalizing; in the past only National
Health Service (NHS) programs, prisons, and community programs funded by the state
38 were under those regulations.
The CHANNEL program remains controversial, however, for several reasons.
Even with the government’s efforts to build trust in the program, there still remains concern that the program’s primary purposes is to spy on British Muslims. An unintended side-effect, particularly in the school systems, is that Muslim children feel
78 like they cannot express their opinions and beliefs, fearing that they will be referred to the police, and therefore are unintentionally isolated from the other children. Teachers warn that referrals will likely only increase now that the program has become statutory, and this problem could become worse.39 Unfortunately, this isolation, particularly among school children, could actually be pushing teenagers and young adults to ISIS. As has been shown previously, a significant motivation for western women traveling to join ISIS has been that they feel isolated within western culture. Many women, for example, feel persecuted for wearing the hijab, and while that experience alone does not turn someone into a supporter of violent extremism, it does fuel feelings of isolation within a larger community. Those who do go down this path find, particularly through online communities, a “sisterhood” within ISIS.40 Critics also caution against having the police take a central role in the program, particularly as the police provide the initial assessment on the individuals who are referred. As has been shown in the previous sections on community and state-wide programs, distrust of the government is a major concern, particularly for those already inclined to believe that the police are using the program as an attempt to spy on Muslims for arrest purposes.41 Moving away from the perception of government intervention may be the only way that these programs can truly be successful in the future.
Methods of Radicalization:
One element that has not been discussed above is the methods that ISIS has been using to target western individuals. The Soufan Group’s 2015 study of the foreign fighters traveling to join ISIS indicated that recruitment of U.S.-based individuals was reliant mostly on social media, at least in the initial phases. The study went on to
79 highlight, however, that in countries with the largest foreign fighter flows, “recruitment has been mostly reliant on family and friends playing a role.”42 Studying these methods of recruitment is the only way to ensure that the programs being implemented are adequately addressing the problem.
J.M. Berger’s study on the ISIS’s online recruitment showed that there were four main parts to an ISIS online recruitment: first contact, either by the target seeking out
ISIS or ISIS seeking out the target; create a micro-community, encouraging the target to insulate from outside influences; shift to private communications methods; and, identify and encourage pro-ISIS action suitable for the target.43 These online recruitment efforts were witnessed in the cases of both Shannon Conley and Hoda Muthanna. Given the fact that these tactics have resonated with U.S.-based individuals, the U.S. government should focus efforts to combat this online recruitment, including encouraging prominent Muslim leaders and scholars to participate in these online forums and engage with individuals who might be vulnerable to ISIS’s message.
As noted above, however, ISIS’s online recruiting tactics may not be the primary driver for recruits from other countries, and an over-emphasis on the online recruiting messages in these areas might turn much needed focus from the true drivers of radicalization. The Soufan group report highlights that hotspots of recruitment appear to be forming in several countries with significant foreign fighter flows. These hotspots are located in the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia; the Molenbeek district in Brussels, Belgium;
Bizerte and Ben Gardane in Tunisia; and Derna in Libya.44 In these areas, government efforts should therefore be focused on in-person interventions, obtaining support from
80 community leaders, and broadcasting the warning signs for radicalization to family members who can help thwart travel plans to Syria and Iraq.
Addressing the Returnees:
One issue that may impact the willingness of communities and families to assist in these prevention programs is concern that law enforcement involvement in these processes may lead to prosecution of community or family members, even if those individuals may never be successful in traveling to ISIS-controlled territory. The fear of prosecution may also deter individuals who have traveled and may have become disillusioned with ISIS from returning to their home countries, even if they would not pose a threat upon their return.
While “hard” counterterrorism policies addressing returnees may be effective at stopping returning foreign fighters intent on conducting attacks within their home countries, they also discourage disaffected fighters from wanting to return home, even if those fighters could be a critical source of intelligence information or a critical component of future counter-messaging campaigns. Since the majority of the western migrants are being recruited by other westerners who have already made the journey to
ISIS-controlled territory, western governments should realize that ISIS defectors who are disillusioned by the reality of life in ISIS-controlled territories would be a powerful counter-narrative to ISIS’s messages.45 Many foreign fighters are unprepared for the trauma they will experience in a warzone and some become discouraged with the fact that the jihadist experience has not lived up to their expectations. These individuals have the potential to completely reintegrate into society upon their return to their home countries.
One returning British foreign fighter even noted that “the whole jihad was turned upside
81 down [for me]… Muslims were fighting Muslims. I didn’t come for that.”46 Further, family members concerned for the loved ones are less likely to report their departure to the police, recognizing that they could be brought up on criminal charges if the authorities become aware of their travel.
As of late 2015, British authorities believe that between 250 and 300 of the
British fighters who have traveled to Syria have returned to the United Kingdom.47 Most western governments, including the United Kingdom and the United States, currently have laws in place that allow for prosecution of individuals who have been involved with terrorist groups while overseas. The problem is, however, that it is often difficult to prove definitively that individuals have been involved with terrorist groups while overseas or have participated in violent attacks. As of late November 2015, 25 Britons have been convicted for offenses related to combat operations in Syria and Iraq, most of whom were believed to have links to ISIS. Despite the British government’s commitment to prosecuting all those involved with proscribed organizations overseas, however, most returning fighters are put into a “limbo” category. They are unable to talk about their experiences overseas, but fear that they may be continually monitored by the
48 security services.
A continual debate among western governments is whether all returning fighters should be prosecuted, or if some of them, those who potentially would not pose a risk of conducting a terrorist attack in their country, should be allowed to reintegrate into society. UK citizens do have the option of returning to the country under the Terrorism
Prevention and Integration Measures (TPIMs) program that was established in January
2012. The TPIM has a two-year duration and involves electronic tagging, reporting
82 regularly to the police, and facing restrictions on their ability to travel abroad and participate in certain activities. While this does allow for reintegration into society, the
TPIMs are regularly cited as one of the programs that causes more tension and lack of
49 trust between the government and the Muslim community.
Countries such at Denmark and Germany have gone even further on policies of reintegration and rehabilitation. For these countries, each individual fighter is assessed upon their return to determine why they traveled to Syria and what activities they plan to undertake upon their return. Individuals who planned to join with ISIS and/or al-Qa’ida would be treated differently from those who wanted to travel to protect the lives of civilians in Syria or who did not participate in terrorist attacks when on the ground. In
Denmark, the government has shown some success in engaging with Muslim communities, both in an early prevention program and a program to encourage fighters to return, an “Exit Program.” Those fighters with a proven involvement in terrorism are prosecuted, but all others are assisted in securing “employment, housing, education, and psychological counseling” upon their return.50 While these programs do provide a more liberal approach designed to encourage fighters to “deradicalize”, they are nonetheless controversial because there are significant risks that individuals could be mis-identified as non-violent and then proceed to conduct an attack upon their return. Further, some argue that this system appears to reward those who travel to participate in terrorism- related activities; while advocates of the program stress that individuals who participated in terrorist activities are still prosecuted, determining the actions that an individual took while in Syria and Iraq may be difficult and may rely on faulty intelligence.
83 Given that women are currently discouraged from participating directly in combat operations by ISIS leadership, returning women could be placed in the “non-violent” categories defined above should they decide to return to their home countries. By being placed in this category, the women would be allowed to reintegrate, despite the fact that many of these women may be more committed ideologically to ISIS than some of their male counterparts, as has been shown previously. If ISIS decides to start using women in more active combat roles, they could look at these policies as one way to infiltrate fighters ready to conduct attacks into the west. Therefore, while “exit programs” may provide some benefits to western societies trying to discourage other women (and men) from traveling to ISIS-controlled territory, these policies come with increasing risks that
ISIS could use these programs to infiltrate fighters back into western societies who are both willing and able to conduct an attack in their home countries.
Conclusion:
Ultimately, there is no “silver bullet” to countering ISIS’s message or recruitment efforts in western countries. Each of the CVE programs described above has challenges and drawbacks, and none of these programs will be able to keep all individuals from radicalizing and traveling to join ISIS. As such, the governments in the United States and the United Kingdom are attempting to employ a combination of statewide messaging campaigns, community programs, and individual interventions. Alberto Fernandez, the
Vice President of the Middle East Media Research Institute, provides some suggestions for ways to improve the counter-messaging programs of western governments. In particular, he noted that it “takes a network to fight a network.” ISIS has managed to develop some common themes, augmented by a loose network of supporters who further
84 disseminate and propagate these messages. The volume alone ensures that these messages are highlighted to vulnerable populations of individuals. In order to counter these themes, the U.S. and UK governments should attempt to replicate this type of network.51 Flexible parameters, guidelines, and messages can be established by the government, but the most impact in fighting the ISIS message will likely come from the community members, individual interventions, and even online efforts echoing those themes.
In looking at the programs above that have been developed in both the United
States and the United Kingdom, one thing is clear, however. CVE programs in these countries have not consistently focused on gender issues in their efforts to combat ISIS’s recruitment of western men and women. Programs specifically targeting women in these countries remain in the nascent stages, and therefore it remains unclear how these programs will impact ISIS’s recruitment of western women, if at all. While this is the case, some improvements can be made to these programs by looking at both the reasons why western women are joining ISIS and the reasons why ISIS is attempting to recruit these women. These suggestions will be provided in the conclusion of this paper.
1 Thomas Hegghammer, "The Rise of Muslim Foreign Fighters: Islam and the Globalization of Jihad," International Security 35, no. 3 (Winer 2010/2011): 90. 2 The Soufan Group, "Foreign Fighters: An Updated Assessment of the Flows of Foreign Fighters into Syria and Ira." December 2015, http://soufangroup.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/12/TSG_ForeignFightersUpdate3.pdf (accessed 15 January 2016), 7. 3 Ellie Hall, “Gone Girl: An Interview With An American In ISIS,” in BuzzFeed Online, 17 April 2015. http://www.buzzfeed.com/ellievhall/gone-girl-an-interview-with-an-american-in-isis#.agm9Lg7Gm3 (accessed October 15, 2015). 4 Chantelde Jonge Oudraat, “Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism: The Role of Women and Women’s Organizations,” in A Man’s World? Exploring the Roles of Women in Countering Terrorism and Violent Extremism, Edited by Naureen Chowdury Fink, Sara Zeiger, and Rafia Bhulai, 2016 http://www.globalcenter.org/wp- content/uploads/2016/04/AMansWorld_FULL.pdf?utm_source=A+Man%27s+World+Report+Launch&ut m_campaign=A+Man%27s+World&utm_medium=email (Accessed on 10 April 2016) 18. 5 Lorenzo Vidino and Seamus Hughes. "Countering Violent Extremism in America." George Washington University, June 2015, 1.
85
6 Ibid, 7. 7 Dominic Casciani, “Analysis: The Prevent Strategy and It's Problems,” in BBC Online, 26 August 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-28939555 (accessed November 15, 2015). 8 Zubeda Limbada and David Silk, "Reflecting on the United Kingdom 'Prevent' Counterterrorism Strategy," The Police Chief, April 2012: 35-40. 9 Alberto M Fernandez, “Four ways to counter ISIS propaganda more effectively” in Brookings Institute Online, 16 November 2015, http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/2015/11/16-countering-isis- propaganda-fernandez (accessed February 10, 2016). 10 Charlie Winter, "The 'Virtual Caliphate': Understanding Islamic State's Propaganda Strategy." Quilliam Foundation, 2015, http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/publications/free/the-virtual- caliphate-understanding-islamic-states-propaganda-strategy.pdf (accessed January 15, 2016), 22. 11 Nabeela Jafar, “The secret world of Isis brides: 'U dnt hav 2 pay 4 ANYTHING if u r wife of a martyr'” in The Guardian, 24 June 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/24/isis-brides-secret-world- jihad-western-women-syria (Accessed on 15 January 2016). 12 Ibid, 27-28. 13 Rachel Briggs and Ross Frenett, “Foreign Fighters: How to Win the War of Ideas,” in Huffington Post Online, September 5, 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/rachel-briggs/foreign-fighters-how-to-win- war-of-ideas_b_5295531.html (accessed February 13, 2016). 14 Rachel Briggs Obe, and Tanya Silverman, "Western Foreign Fighters Innovations in Responding to the Threat," Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2014, 29. 15 Arie Kruglanski, Katrzyna Jasko, and David Webber, “The War of the Tweets: On Counter-Messaging ISIS,” in Huffington Post Online, 2 June 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arie-kruglanski/the-war-of- the-tweets-on-_b_7486882.html (accessed February 1, 2016). 16 Frances Perraudin, “UK launches Twitter account to combat Islamic State propaganda,” in The Guardian Online, August 28, 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/28/uk-foreign-office-twitter- account-combat-islamic-state-propaganda-isis (accessed February 12, 2016). 17 Perraudin, “UK launches Twitter account to combat Islamic State propaganda.” 18 Richard LeBaron and Will McCants, “Experts weigh in: Can the United States counter ISIS propaganda?” in Brookings Institute Online, June 17, 2015. http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/2015/06/17-lebaron-us-counter-isis-propaganda (accessed February 12, 2016). 19 Dymples Leong, "Why ISIS Appeals to Muslim Women in Western Countries: Need for Counter Message," RSIS, 10 June 2015, https://www.rsis.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/CO15136.pdf (accessed February 05, 2016). 20 Jeffrey Marcus, “U.N. Report Details ISIS Abuse of Women and Children,” in NY Times, October 3, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/04/world/middleeast/un-report-isis-abuse-women- children.html?_r=0 (accessed February 05, 2016). 21 Vidino and Hughes, 2. 22 The White House, “FACT SHEET: The White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism,” 18 February 2015, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/02/18/fact-sheet-white-house-summit- countering-violent-extremism (accessed February 8, 2016). 23 Los Angeles Interagency Coordination Group, "THE LOS ANGELES FRAMEWORK FOR COUNTERING VIOLENT EXTREMISM," Department of Homeland Security. February 2015. https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Los%20Angeles%20Framework%20for%20CVE- Full%20Report.pdf (accessed February 13, 2016) 5-6. 24 Vidino and Hughes, 3. 25 Laura Yuen and Mukhtar Ibrahim, “Fears Grow That More MN Somali Youth Have Gone to ISIS,” in MPR News Online, August 21, 2015, http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/08/21/somali-youth-minnesota (accessed October 18, 2015). 26 John Hay Initiative, “Developing Counter-Radicalization Programs Against ISIS,” January 14, 2016. http://www.choosingtolead.net/john-hay-blog/2016/1/14/developing-counter-radicalization-programs- against-isis-1 (accessed February 15, 2016). 27 (Inspire Organization 2015), 2. 28 Ibid, 5.
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29 “Muslim Women to be Taught English in £ 20 Million Plan to Beat ‘Backward Attitudes’,” in The Guardian, 18 January 2016, http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jan/18/muslim-women-to-be- taught-english-in-20m-plan-to-beat-backward-attitudes (Accessed on 23 April 2016. 30 Vidino and Hughes, 1. 31 Collaboration of Government and Non-Governmental Entities in the Greater Boston Area, "A Framework for Prevention and Intervention Strategies: Incorporting Violent Extremism into Countering Violence Efforts," U.S. Department of Justice, February 2015, http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao-ma/pages/attachments/2015/02/18/framework.pdf (accessed February 15, 2016), 2. 32 Ibid, 6 33 Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, Lisa O. Monaco. Countering Violent Extremism and the Power of Community. April 15, 2014. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/04/16/remarks-assistant-president-homeland-security- and- counterterrorism-lisa- (accessed February 18, 2016). 34 United States of American v. Shannon Maureen Conley, Christian K.R. Bryne, Case: 14-mj-01045-KLM, United States District Court for the District of Colorado, 9 April 2014, https://cchs.gwu.edu/sites/cchs.gwu.edu/files/downloads/Conley%20Criminal%20Complaint.pdf (Accessed on 10 October 2015). 35 Carolyn Hoyle, Alexandra Bradford, and Ross Frenett, "Becoming Mulan? Female Western Migrants to ISIS," Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2015, 39. 36 HM Government, Channel Duty Guidance: Protecting Vulnerable People from Being Drawn into Terrorism, 2015, https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/425189/Channel_Duty_Guid ance_April_2015.pdf (accessed 18 November 2015). 37 Alan Travis, “Hundreds of young people have received anti-radicalisation support,” in The Guardian, 26 March 2013, (accessed on 5 December 2015). 38 Homa Khalelli, “'You worry they could take your kids': is the Prevent strategy demonising Muslim schoolchildren?”, in The Guardian, September 23, 2015, (accessed on 15 November 2015). 39 Khalelli. 40 Erin Marie Saltman and Melanie Smith, 'Till Martyrdom Do Us Part': Gender and the ISIS Phenomenon, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, International Center for the Studies of Radicalization (London: Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2015), 1-75. 41 Khalelli. 42 The Soufan Group, 4. 43 J.M. Berger, "Tailored Online Intervetions: The Islamic State's Recruitment Strategy," CTC Sentinel, October 2015: 19. 44 The Soufan Group, 7. 45 Fernandez. 46 Charles Lister, Returning Foreign Fighters: Criminalization or Reintegration? Policy Briefing, Brookings Institute Doha, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2015, 6. 47 Brian Michael Jenkins, “When Jihadis Come Marching Home: The Terrorist Threat Posed by Westerners Returning from Syria and Iraq,” RAND Corporation, 2014. http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/perspectives/PE100/PE130-1/RAND_PE130-1.pdf (accessed 1 December 2015), 20. 48 Hussein Kesvani, “What Will Happen To Britain’s Returned Foreign Fighters From Iraq And Syria?”, in BuzzFeed, November 21, 2015, http://www.buzzfeed.com/husseinkesvani/what-will-happen-to-britains- returned-foreign-fighters-from#.ldNppAwV4 (accessed 1 December 2015). 49 Lister, 7. 50 Lister, 3-4. 51 Alberto Fernandez, "Here to stay and growing: Combating ISIS propaganda networks," Brookings Institute Report. October 2015, 19.
87
Chapter 5: Conclusion and Recommendations
According to Chantel de Jonge Oudraat, “women, like men, will join extremist groups for a variety of reasons… each of these motivations play out differently for women and men at the individual level… unless we understand these differential dynamics, we will never be able to counter them.”1 The purpose of this paper was to uncover the reasons why western women are joining ISIS, and why ISIS is attempting to entice these women in order to determine ways in which western governments may be able to counter these trends.
As shown in these sections, western women are enticed to join ISIS for personal, political, and ideological reasons. In looking at the four case studies, Hoda Muthana,
Shannon Maureen Conley, Maria Giulia Sergio, and Aqsa Mahmood, several specific motivations were apparent. These motivations included feelings of isolation in the west, which caused women to seek a sisterhood or family among the members of ISIS who shared their radical ideas. These women also shared a strong ideological affinity to the
ISIS cause, expressing a desire to participate in building the Caliphate and fighting for the defense of Muslims in the world. Similarly, this paper also demonstrated that ISIS receives several benefits from western women. These benefits include providing additional media coverage for the organization, necessary skills to the newly formed
Caliphate, the appearance that the Caliphate is a normalized society, and encouragement to their male family members to participate in combat operations.
88 This paper also highlighted the possibility that ISIS could leverage western women in the future in more active combat roles, particularly if ISIS suffered significant setbacks or entered into an insurgency type of scenario. Should ISIS take this step in the future, then western women returning to their home countries could pose a significant risk to the security of western countries.
The final section of this paper focused on the government programs that have been established to deal with both the men and women joining ISIS from western countries. Several programs have been implemented to address this issue including statewide messaging programs, community-based programs, and individual interventions.
Few of the programs, however, have focused on gender issues. Given the possibility that western women could be used in the future to conduct attacks both inside ISIS-controlled territory and in their home countries, gender issues can no longer be ignored by western governments conducting CVE activities. Oudraat states that “neglecting the gendered nature of violent extremism hinders effective policy responses, and has the tendency of casting women in stereotypical roles and restricting their action to the domestic level.”2
Recommendations for Improvements in Government Programs:
-- Focus on ISIS’s Motivations for Recruiting Western Women: Labeling ISIS’s western women recruits as “jihadi brides” fails to recognize that these women are often motivated to travel to ISIS-controlled territory for reasons that do not solely involve marriage to ISIS fighters. Conversely, using this term may be furthering ISIS’s goals for these women, as western women become a powerful tool for ISIS leadership to leverage in recruiting more male fighters. As shown in this paper, ISIS recruits these western
89 women partially to offer them to male fighters as a reward and may pressure women to remarry quickly once their husbands are killed in the fighting.
Since marrying an ISIS fighter is not a primary motivation for these women, western governments could highlight ISIS’s plans to marry them off quickly and continue marrying them off, regardless of their feelings on the matter, as one possible counter- narrative to reach western women. These narratives could portray ISIS as “using” western women to keep men motivated and entice additional men to ISIS-controlled territory. This narrative may be particularly unappealing to women interested in joining
ISIS to find their sense of purpose or contribute to a noble ideological cause. Western governments should be careful, however, not to focus on and reinforce aspects of ISIS’s message that could be appealing to western women. In particular, some of the western women, such as Shannon Conley, have expressed interest in participating in active combat operations, therefore, focusing on this aspect may not deter women from attempting to travel to join ISIS. This is why it is important for western governments to fully understand why ISIS is seeking to recruit these women and how they are doing it.
-- Gender Nuances in CVE programs: Western governments also need to make a more concerted effort to incorporate a gender dimension into the CVE programs being developed. Given that these programs are still in many cases in their initial stages, it is an optimal time to begin experimenting with gender specific programs. Also, the evaluation of the effectiveness of all CVE programs should include whether the gender issues are being addressed. These guidelines conform to those being implemented by the
United Nations.3 Focusing on the gender aspects of CVE is not only important to stopping western women from traveling to join organizations like ISIS in the future, but it
90 is also crucial because women can play a vital role in preventing the radicalization of their family members and other community members.4 As noted in this paper, women have significant ability to influence the members of their families and community members, which has been recognized by senior members of both al-Qa’ida and ISIS. The powerful influence of women can and should also be employed where possible by western governments to counter the radicalization of individuals within their communities, and this cannot be done unless women are being actively incorporated into all CVE programs.
-- Counter-Messaging Network: In order to counter the ISIS propaganda network, western governments should look to leverage an informal network of anti-ISIS voices, which include both prominent Islamic men and women. As Alberto Fernandez noted in his work on ISIS propaganda, it takes a network to fight a network.5 Family members have a great deal of influence over western women migrants, in particular, and therefore should be leveraged where possible to encourage individuals not to travel to ISIS- controlled territories.6 Every effort should be taken to engage both women and men in all levels of CVE programs: at the statewide level, the community level, and individual/family level.
As one aspect of this, governments should also factor in the methods that are primarily used by ISIS to recruit individuals in their countries. For example, the Soufan
Group’s 2015 report on foreign fighters traveling to Syria indicates that most individuals in the United States are being recruited online, while individuals in Europe are primarily recruited in-person by members of their family or communities.7 Government and security organizations in the United States have developed online programs to counter the
91 ISIS message; however, these programs are more statewide messaging programs, and lack an individual intervention aspect to them. While efforts have been made to establish individual intervention programs in the United States, these programs need to incorporate more online elements, otherwise these programs will not be successful in reaching the individuals most likely to be recruited by ISIS.
As most Europeans are still recruited by family or community members, efforts should be taken in these countries to reinforce the positive aspects of these programs.
One of the concerns addressed about the CHANNEL program is that it provides another avenue for the British government to “spy” on its Muslim citizens. Removing the police from the initial evaluation of a CHANNEL participant may minimize the allegations that this program is vehicle used by the government to spy on Muslim communities. This could build trust in the program, even recognizing that it will continue to be sponsored by the British government.
-- Addressing the Issue of Returnees: The United States and other western countries need to develop a more coherent strategy for dealing with returnees that maximizes the benefits that these individuals can provide to western governments, while mitigating the threat that they could pose upon their return. Women, in particular, may become disillusioned by life in ISIS-controlled territory following the death of a husband or the loss of a child, events that may not have a similar psychological impact on men.8
Western governments need to recognize that individuals who are disillusioned by their time in ISIS-controlled territory provide a powerful counter-narrative to ISIS’s message that they are building a perfect society for all Muslim people. This counter-narrative could assist in discouraging other individuals who may be contemplating travel to ISIS-
92 controlled territory in the future and who are convinced by the messages being disseminated by ISIS supporters. Hard counterterrorism policies in and of themselves can discourage individuals from attempting to return to their home countries even if they are disillusioned by the organization, and can discourage family members from helping authorities thwart their travel. Therefore, efforts should be undertaken to allow for the reintegration of disillusioned women back into western societies. That said, security services should continue to actively monitor these individuals upon their return to ensure that they have not been sent back by ISIS leadership to conduct attacks in their home countries.
Recommendations for Further Study:
In addition to the main questions addressed above, this paper raised some other issues that could not be researched further given the limited scope of this paper. These issues warrant further study and are touched upon briefly below.
-- ISIS Leveraging Muslim Converts: Given that approximately 40% of individuals from the United States who join ISIS are converts and converts may have a higher level of commitment to the ISIS cause given the psychological impact of their conversion, women converts may pose a significant threat to their western countries in the future.9 This topic therefore warrants further study to understand whether Islamic extremist organizations like ISIS may be specifically interested in recruiting converts, and whether they may be looking to leverage these converts to conduct high profile attacks in western countries in the future.
Further study could also be conducted on whether various prevention programs resonate more with converts vice with women who have been raised in Muslim families.
93 For example, additional study should be conducted on whether women converts would respond more to individual interventions that are conducted by women or men, or whether they would respond more to Muslims or non-Muslims.
-- De-radicalizing Women: Additional study should be undertaken to see whether there is any difference in men and women when it comes to the issue of de-radicalizating.
As discussed, returnees can create powerful counter-narratives to the ISIS that should be exploited fully by these western governments. Another possible counter-narrative could be offered by women initially enticed by the ISIS message, but who were thwarted in their attempts to travel to ISIS-controlled territory by authorities, such as Shannon
Conley. Efforts should be taken, however, to ensure that these women have de- radicalized and no longer have any affinity to ISIS’s cause.
1 Chantel de Jonge Oudraat, "Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism: The Role of Women and Women's Organizations." In A Man’s World? Exploring the Roles of Women in Counter Terrorism and Violent Extremism, by Sara Zeiger & Rafia Bhulai Naureen Chowdhury Fink, 2016, 23. 2 Oudraat, 19. 3 Naureen Chowdury Fink, Rafia Barakat, and Liat Shetret, The Roles of Women in Terrorism, Conflict, and Violent Extremism: Lessons from the United Nations and International Actors. Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation, 2013, http://www.globalcenter.org/wp- content/uploads/2013/04/NCF_RB_LS_policybrief_1320.pdf (accessed April 15, 2016),10 4 Oudraat, 23. 5 Alberto Fernandez, "Here to stay and growing: Combating ISIS propaganda networks." Brookings Institute Report. October 2015. http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2015/10/combating-isis-propaganda-fernandez/is- propaganda_web_english_v2.pdf (accessed February 1, 2016). 6 Carolyn Hoyle, Alexandra Bradford, and Ross Frenett. "Becoming Mulan? Female Western Migrants to ISIS." Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2015. 7 The Soufan Group,"Foreign Fighters: An Updated Assessment of the Flows of Foreign Fighters into Syria and Ira." December 2015, http://soufangroup.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/12/TSG_ForeignFightersUpdate3.pdf (accessed January 15, 2016). 8 Hoyle, Bradford, and Frenett. 9 Lorenzo Vidino and Seamus Hughes, "Countering Violent Extremism in America." George Washington University, June 2015, https://cchs.gwu.edu/sites/cchs.gwu.edu/files/downloads/CVE%20in%20America%20.pdf (accessed December 2, 2015)..
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