Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
ISIS Actively ‘Recruits’ Girls And Women Online
ISIS Actively ‘Recruits’ Girls And Women Online
Feb 4, 2025 11:03 PM

In an ugly twist on the world of online dating scams, ISIS (the Islamic terrorist group responsible for much evil in places like Syria and Iraq) is now actively recruiting girls and women in the West to join their cause. Jamie Detmer reports that ISIS is now using social media to seek out females who want to join the cause, mainly by stressing the domestic life that supports it.

The propaganda usually eschews the gore and barbaric images often included in the general fare of jihadist online posts, such as the beheadings last month of dozens of Syrian army soldiers after a base was overrun in the northern Syrian province of Raqqa.

Instead, the marketing focuses on what one analyst calls the “private sphere,” concentrating on the joys of jihadist family life and the “honor” of raising new fighters for Islam. The online recruiters stress the pleasure of providing the domesticity that a warrior waging jihad needs and by doing so serving Islam.

One U.S. analyst warns that this is ing a “pipeline,” moving women from the West to Syria in order to marry jihadists. British officials are believed to have verified about twelve women who have gone to Syria to marry ISIS members. Some cases involve teens girls.

There have been several reports of European women traveling to Syria to join up with jihadists there. In April, two Austrian girls, aged 15 and 16, went missing in Vienna and resurfaced in Syria. They are being sought by Interpol. In May, 16-year-old British twins sneaked out of their home in Manchester and traveled to Syria to e jihadi brides. Salma and Zahra Halane telephoned their parents to tell them they had arrived in the war-torn country and told them “we’re ing back.” And in July, the FBI arrested Denver nurse Shannon Maureen Conley, a 19-year-old Muslim convert, as she boarded a plane to fly to Turkey for onward travel to Syria—she was recruited online, although in her case by a Tunisian man who claimed he was fighting for ISIS.

Umm Layth is purportedly a British woman now married to an ISIS member. She uses social media to assist other women who wish to do the same. She has more than 2,000 Twitter followers, and distributes advice via an online guide:

Biggest tip to sisters: don’t take detours, take the quickest route, don’t play around with your Hijrah [religious migration] by staying longer than 1 day for safety and get in touch with your contacts as soon as you reach your destination.

Even if you know how right this path and decision is and how your love for es before anything and everything, this is still an ache which only one [who] has been through and experienced it can understand. The first phone call you make once you cross the borders is one of the most difficult things you will ever have to do…when you hear them sob and beg like crazy on the phone for you e back it’s so hard,” she writes.She adds: “Many people in present day do not understand…why a female would choose to make this decision. They will point fingers and say behind your back and to your families’ faces that you are taking part in…sexual jihad.”

This is human trafficking wearing a different mask. Traffickers – whoever they are – prey on the young, the vulnerable, the weak. Why would we expect anything different from terrorists?

Read “The ISIS Online Campaign Luring Western Girls to Jihad” at the Daily Beast.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Surviving Sex Trafficking
Vednita Carter wants this to be perfectly clear: human beings are not for sale. It’s a battle, she says, one where she is on the front lines. Carter used to be a prostitute. But don’t think of a woman wearing outrageous outfits, standing on a street corner. No, think sex trafficking. At 18, she was hoping to make money for college when she responded to an advertisement for “dancers.” At first, she danced fully clothed, but her bosses and then-boyfriend...
The Blight Of Worklessness
Work is good. It gives meaning and purpose to our lives. It affords us an avenue for our God-given talents. It provides our e, gives service to others, and fashions our society. We are, in God’s image and likeness, workers and creators. Reihan Salam and Rich Lowry, at National Review Online, are talking about the need for work; not just jobs, but work – real, meaningful work. In their discussion, they note that the Democratic party (the “blue collar” party)...
It’s Official, Millennials: The White House Thinks You’re Stupid
The Affordable Care Act [ACA] has seen more than it’s share of disasters. The clunky website got off to a horrendous start, the “fixes” didn’t work, Kathleen Sebelius got raked over the coals (“Don’t do this to me!”) at a House hearing, and not enough young people are signing up. The solution? The White House has created an “ACA Bracket” (Get it? Huh? Get it?) site where young folks can go and vote for their favorite GIFs and then head...
Radio Free Acton: For The Life Of The World
The Brad Pitt of Acton. In this edition of Radio Free Acton, Paul Edwards goes behind the scenes at the premiere of For the Life of the World: Letters to the Exiles, the new curriculum produced by the Acton Institute that examines God’s mission in the world and our place in it. Edwards looks at the curriculum itself, speaks with some of the folks who made it, and gauges audience reaction to the premiere. You can listen via the audio...
The Freedom for Patient, Faithful Service
Buried in a note in my book about the economic teachings of the ecumenical movement is this insight from Richard A. Wynia: “The Lord does not ask for success in our work for Him; He asks forfaithfulness.” This captures the central claim of Tyler Wigg-Stevenson’s book, The World is Not Ours to Save: Finding the Freedom to Do Good (IVP, 2013), which I review over at Canon & Culture. As Wigg-Stevenson puts it, “Our job is not to win the...
5 Facts About Patrick, the Indiana Jones of Saints
An aristocratic British teenager is kidnapped by pirates, sold into slavery, escapes and returns home, es a priest, returns to his land of captivity and face off against hordes of Druids. Here are five facts about the amazing life of St. Patrick, the Indiana Jones of Christian saints: 1. Taken from his home in southern Britain, Patrick was captured by pirates in A.D. 405 when he was only sixteen years old and sold into slavery in Ireland. He would spend...
Bill Gates on Poverty and Inequality
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Bill Gates — the richest man in the world — shares his thoughts on poverty and inequality: Should the state be playing a greater role in helping people at the lowest end of the e scale? Poverty today looks very different than poverty in the past. The real thing you want to look at is consumption and use that as a metric and say, “Have you been worried about having enough to eat?...
Whose Higher Ed Bubble Will Burst?
College Freshman Consider the following (emphasis added): “Higher education is an industry in danger,” says Clayton Christensen, the Harvard Business School guru and a senior advisor (unpaid) at Academic Partnerships. “It’s very plausible to say that 15 years from now half of the universities that exist will be bankrupt and in some fundamental way facing extinction and the need to totally change themselves.” (Caroline Howard, “No College Left Behind,” Forbes, 2/12/14) Richard Lyons, the dean of University of California, Berkeley’s...
A Father’s Lesson in Being Rich
Daniel Yam brings us a story of a boy who is not proud of his father, until he learns what it really means to give without expecting anything in return. (Via: Neatorama) ...
Samuel Gregg: Defending Paul Ryan
At National Review Online, Acton’s Director of Research, Sam Gregg, takes issue with a New York Times article that takes a “dim view” of Congressman Paul Ryan (R.-Wis.). Specifically, Gregg takes on author Timothy Egan’s charge that Ryan suffers from “Irish-Amnesia” because the congressman suggests that we in the United States have created a culture of dependency. Such attitudes and critiques, the piece argued, reflected a type of ancestral amnesia on Ryan’s part. Egan reminds his readers that some English...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved