From the Gulf, the Maghreb and everywhere in between, Arab fighters have answered the Islamic Stateโs clarion call to arms. Diminutive Tunisia alone is estimated to have contributed 2,400 young men to the Jihadist cause. There are reportedly a further 8,000 men detained by authorities who are trying to leave for the battlefields of the east.
Something is pulling these angry men to kill and be killed in the wastelands of Syria and Iraq, something is asking them to commit to a form of Islam unrecognisable to their parents or their communities and something is driving them to commit acts of ยญhorror such as that perpetrated upon Foley.
In Tunis itself, in a hilltop cafรฉ on the outskirts of the capital, Mohamed Iqbel Ben Rejeb leans in. The two men at the table next to us seem to be unusally interested in what heโs saying. Ben Rejeb has been told by two separate sources that his phone is tapped. Heโs getting used to being followed.
Ben Rejeb has cause to worry. His charity, Rescue Association of Tunisians Trapped Abroad, while opposed to any form of extremism, has found itself connecting many of the young Tunisians fighting in IS who want to return home, and the families and authorities awaiting their arrival and inevitable arrest.
Like everyone, Ben Rejeb has seen the video of Foleyโs decapitation. โYoung men are going to see that video and theyโre going to join Daish, [the Kurdish and Arabic term for Islamic State] because of it. Not because itโs James Foley being killed, but because itโs an ย American.โ
Ben Rejeb is clear, โLook, we watch that video and we see one human being killing another. Daish watch that video and theyโre seeing a Muslim killing an atheist.โ
Every day, disaffected and angry young men are arriving in Syria and Iraq to fight for IS, drawn there by the groupโs strident interpretation of Islam, the long cherished dream of an Islamic Caliphate and the promise of a resolute and final response to what they see as the imposition of Israel on the Muslim world and Americaโs continued support for it.
โDaish is founded on the principal of freeing Palestine. To do that, they they must first make themselves and their state pure,โ ย Ben Rejeb noted.
Recent events in Gaza โ and their monopoly of the mainstream media narrative โ are only exacerbating the stridency of that goal.
โIt started around 2011,โ Dr Peter Neumann, Director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation in London toldย Newsweek. โThe Arab Spring created instability and the Syrian revolution created conflict. This is what the recruiters prey on.โ
Ben Rejeb is more specific: โIn 2011, [after the revolutions] they released the Jihadists from prison. These are the same people who are now fighting in Syria.โ
According to the UN, more than 191,000 people have been killed in the vicious civil war that has raged across Syria since the Arab Spring turned to a permanent winter in 2011. Syria is a country numbed to and by the horror of war.
โThe Islamic State is trying to recreate the conditions of a 7th century Arabia. From the perspective of the 21st century some of that can be shocking, but itโs not so much that theyโre killing people, as that theyโre killing the right people,โ Neumann toldย Newsweek.
โThese are punishments that are meted out in Saudi Arabia on a monthly basis, but in Iraq and Syria, engulfed as they are in an incredibly sectarian conflict, people use these punishments to serve different objectives,โ he continued.
In Foleyโs case, that objective was to deliver a message. โThe beheading of James Foley was intended to both show the USโs weakness, and to show that the IS is the one credible jihadist organisation fighting against the United States.โ Firas Abi Ali, a Middle Eastย analyst at IHS Country Risk toldNewsweek.
โLook, letโs be clear.โ Ben Rejeb continued. โItโs the US that supports Israel and it was the US that destroyed Iraq. There is blame here, but itโs blame that should be aimed at the US Government not its people . . . However, the imams and sheiks who work with Daish are using that. Theyโre using it to brainwash the young.โ
Against this background, it is not difficult to see how the US bombing of IS positions in Mosul can work towards the jihadistsโ ends.
While many observers have pointed towards rising unemployment amongst the young and a lack of opportunities as key recruiting factors for Isis, Ben Rejeb isnโt so sure. โOn average, theyโre aged between 18 and 27, but theyโre from all classes. It isnโt just the poor. Thereโs a misconception that Daish is made up of the uneducated, but thatโs totally wrong. Weโre seeing a lot of university graduates going, particularly scientists, for some reason. I suppose theyโre attracted by the clarity.โ
Mahfoud Baltiโs son, Zouheir, was 21 when he left the family home in the suburbs of Tunis for Syria in 2012. ย He was studying for his baccalaureate in IT at the time. โHe was normal. He wasnโt especially interested in religion or politics. He stayed home during the 2011 revolution. One day, December 19th, 2012, he just said he was going to Syria and he left. He never told me why.
โThe young men go because of what they see in Iraq, in Syria, in Palestine. The preachers use this. Itโs the same for all of them.โ
Perhaps worried about reprisals upon Zouheirโs return, Mahfoud was eager to stress that his son was not involved with any militant groups.
โThese young men, they will come back, they will be arrested and brutalised even further. The government here will confirm that everything that was said about them is correct, and then what? What about those who first radicalised them? Will they be held accountable? Probably not.โ
Itโs a theme picked up by Abdullah Salem Attoui, an imam from the isle of Djerba and General Secretary of the imamsโ union. โBeheading the American journalist was a stab in the Muslimsโ hearts. We are sorry that it was done in the name of Islam.
โUnfortunately, some preachers need to take responsibility for this, as there are sadly some who are spreading this violence and terrorist culture within the Muslim youth.โ
In Tunis, dusk has fallen and Mohamed Iqbel Ben Rejeb walks slowly down a quiet side street, now far away from the attentive ears of the authorities. The scent of jasmine fills the air as bats flit through the fading light.
โPeople are sick of war. Nobody wants to watch James Foley get killed. Daish arenโt just a threat to the Americans, theyโre a threat to everyone. Itโs just human beings killing other human beings. Itโs nothing to do with Islam. Daish are death incarnate.โ
Newsweek
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