Author: Renee Jean, MA
October 1, 2024
In the last decade, the Islamic State’s (ISIS) reputation outside Asia has deteriorated from the “next big threat” to almost forgotten. However, in March 2024 alone, ISIS killed 130 at Moscow’s Crocus City Hall in what was Europe’s deadliest terror attack since 2004. The attack was fraught with imagery that was so feared in the mid-2010s. “ISIS-affiliated social-media channels released gruesome body-cam footage, which shows the terrorists firing at people inside the hall; one of them approaches a wounded man lying on the ground and slits his throat with a knife,” describes Joshua Yaffa in The New Yorker. However, this was only one attack of 19 ISIS-affiliated or suspected attacks in 2024 alone.
Throughout Asia, Africa, and increasingly in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, ISIS is having a resurgence–one that is likely an opportunistic strategy to take advantage of major humanitarian crises and global conflicts. New developments in the Russo-Ukraine War, the ongoing crisis in Sudan, and struggling governments like in Iraq are just some examples that have opened the door for intervention—as evidenced by ISIS’s attacks in Russia and Iraq and the use of Sudan as a weapons silo for a slew of terrorist organizations. Essentially, ISIS—and other terrorist or criminal organizations—provides a promise of safety to those fearful of harm. A vicious cycle then occurs: recruitment into criminal and terrorist organizations further destabilizes regions and conflicts, making more people vulnerable and willing to join these groups.
Utilizing the vulnerabilities that accompany major global crises to recruit, fundraise, and spread weaponry is not a new tactic among terrorist organizations. The United Nations University’s Center for Policy Research notes that “the emergence of hybrid organizations engaged in terrorism and organized crime represents a major dimension of contemporary conflict”. These groups—using terrorism and organized crime—are successful because they position themselves to gain “political capital” among locals “by providing public goods that the state is incapable or unwilling to deliver”.
There are three case studies that illuminate this strategy: the success of ISIS Khorasan Province (ISIS-K), the affiliation of the Congolese Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) and ISIS Democratic Republic of Congo (ISIS-DRC), and the multitude of individual actors across the globe radicalizing and pledging allegiance to ISIS via the internet.
ISIS’s focus on Afghanistan, the DRC, and disaffected youth abroad demonstrates that its rise to power is based on exploiting vulnerable populations desperately seeking reprieve or protection from the horrors they currently face.
ISIS in Afghanistan: Fear of the Other
The resurgence of ISIS-K is what Vladimir Vorokov, the UN undersecretary for counterterrorism, describes as “the greatest external terrorist threat” to Europe and abroad, largely has to do with the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan. After spending “hundreds of billions of dollars training and equipping the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) and supporting successive Afghan governments”, US troops departed in 2021. This allowed the Taliban’s return to power, taking over the government, police, and—most importantly here—the military. When the Afghan military forces dissolved, thousands of service members were both out of jobs and at the mercy of their nearly 20-year adversaries. This would, at best, likely preclude them from joining any official militaries or allied groups like Al-Qaeda even if they wanted to or, at worst, open them up to reprisals or martial punishment.
The Taliban’s policy of attacks on communities thought to have ties to ISIS-K, however, is the main concern when it comes to the spread of terrorism through vulnerable populations. Dr. Asfandyar Mir of the United States Institute of Peace notes that collective punishment toward populations like Salafi communities is, in fact, central to the Taliban’s counter-terrorism plan. Such targeted attacks only help bolster ISIS’s “appealing narrative of social protection.” “This narrative provides the potential recruits a feeling of trust that the fighters, as well as their families, will not be forgotten and that somebody will take care of them,” says the University of Navarra’s Paula las Heras.
Interestingly, the Taliban is similarly using ISIS to paint itself as a part of the larger global counter-terrorism community—despite still trading safety for loyalty from some terrorist groups within Afghanistan—to ensure continued aid from the United Nations for “rebuilding” purposes. The Taliban in Afghanistan is not designated as a terrorist organization by governments providing the most aid to the UN fund. This is largely due to the Taliban’s status as the official Afghan government, demonstrated by the remaining presence of the Pakistani Taliban on most designation lists. This has strained the procedure to get funds and aid to humanitarian organizations in Afghanistan as the money moves through the Taliban-controlled central bank.
The combination of lack of direct aid to humanitarian organizations and attacks on citizens by the Taliban offer ISIS an “in”. If they can provide services that humanitarian organizations cannot, due to lack of funding because of international unwillingness to funnel money to the Taliban, ISIS will.
The ADF and ISIS-DRC: Fear of Themselves
ISIS has taken a slightly different strategy in the DRC. It relies on using affiliate organizations to act in its stead largely through weaponizing fear of ISIS itself rather than fear of groups it opposes. Though ISIS weaponizes fear around abuses like the Taliban’s pogroms against Salafi Muslim communities in Afghanistan as a recruitment tool, it also coerces through acts of brutality. This gives vulnerable people the option to join up or to face torture or death for themselves and their families.
Affiliation rather than direct membership has become a popular tactic well beyond just ISIS. International counter-terrorism policies have failed to adapt to the decentralization of terrorist and extremist groups—still largely relying on “decapitation” or attempting to eliminate an organization’s leader. Over-reliance on leadership-focused counterterrorism and preventing/countering violent extremism (P/CVE) policies is so blatant that terrorists and extremists simply rearrange to have a lateral market rather than a hierarchical structure. Far-right, jihadist, and other movements quickly began utilizing lone actors or outsourcing their duties to organizations that agreed to work with them in exchange for weaponry and funds.
The ADF did not have any ties to ISIS in its early days of the conflict between militants and the Congolese military in the DRC—until “ADF leader Musa Baluku [pledged] allegiance to the international caliphate” in 2017. The ADF then became the central part of ISIS’s Central African Province. Since then, says Shannon Sedgwick Davis and Tara Candland in Foreign Policy, “the Islamic State has claimed its first attacks in Congo and now Uganda, and the ADF has displayed unprecedented levels of violence and radicalism.” Prior to this alliance and influx of funds and weaponry, the ADF had nearly halted all attacks and operated on crude or out-of-date explosive technology. Now? ISIS tactics and advanced weaponry are rife throughout Central Africa with suicide and car bombings supplementing the ADF’s individual pogroms.
The DRC’s situation may be more rife for recruitment than in Afghanistan. “Over one hundred non-state armed groups are active in the region” displacing over 7 million people, per the Council on Foreign Relations. This increases the competition between government and terrorists “for allegiance and legitimacy among the population” as well as for potential recruits. That is partially why the ADF—thus, by extension ISIS—uses fear of itself, rather than fear of other groups, to force children into their ranks. Strapped for resources and manpower, the ADF relies more on youth than nearly any other ISIS affiliate aside from lone actors. Katharine Houreld of the Washington Post details that boys as young as 10 would face capture or recruitment after watching their parents murdered or their sisters sold into sex slavery: “Your mother is dead. If you try to run, you will also be killed”, one ADF soldier threatened.
And Beyond: Fear of the World
ISIS has clearly demonstrated that fear is its strategy—whether of others or itself.
However, ISIS does not stop there. Affiliated organizations have increased ISIS’s spread across Africa and Asia, but it is relying increasingly heavily on radicalizing lone actors based in the West. As previously mentioned, poor adaptation of counter-terrorism and P/CVE strategy has made this an especially successful tactic as demonstrated by the foiled attempt to suicide bomb a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna, Austria in August 2024. This allows ISIS to distance themselves from actions taken in their name—or take credit if an attack is successful. The planned attack on Swift’s concert in Vienna was a clear example of this. The teens involved were not actual affiliates of ISIS but merely pledged allegiance online. They did not receive weaponry or direction from ISIS but still intended to attack in their name. It successfully spread the message of ISIS—particularly because the perpetrators were all teenagers.
Though the Vienna attack would not have been successful, this is where one of ISIS’s largest threats to human rights abroad becomes the clearest. According to researchers at ISD, this is unsurprising. The internet has allowed ideologies to merge through exchange—essentially, jihadists and Western right-wingers can interact, share beliefs, and even collaborate. Many times, algorithmic siloing on sites like YouTube or X (formerly Twitter) begins to suggest progressively more extreme content with each click. So, because ideologies are interacting more online, a post or video from a Western right-wing source may introduce jihadist-adjacent content or vice versa.
Additionally, and increasingly, the internet serves as a forum for disenfranchised religious youth in countries that often have strict regulations and exclusions on their national identity. For example, Sociologist Kaoutar Harchi argues that France’s “laïcité” rules on preventing religious symbols—or clothing deemed religious in nature—in public spaces like schools have disproportionately excluded French Muslims from combining their religious identities with their national ones.
This extreme secularization has led to the closures of Mosques in France and Germany limiting youth engagement with meaningful religious communities. The internet provides many young people across Europe a chance to find that religious community—however, many jihadists are well aware of that and use it to their advantage. Las Heras even notes that in online spaces ISIS sometimes “moves away from the more purely religious elements to suit the concerns of the youthful audience it plans to seduce”. “Websites, forums, virtual rooms, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, Twitter, etc., are key networks for recruiting fighters” and “ISIS video games” are another way the group has adapted to the needs of youth that may not be in immediate physical danger but who are experiencing isolation or disillusionment. Though “the vast majority of Muslims do not hold radical views”, the Minerva Research Initiative notes “the more people’s sense of self-worth was threatened, the more they expressed support for radicalism”.
This allows ISIS to hone in on “the injustices done to Muslims in the world” and offer a sense of security—albeit an extreme one—to young people online. In fact, the German Marshall Fund argues that ISIS uses guilt in tandem with fear creating the narrative “that the defeat of the Caliphate would not be due to the strength of the enemy, but rather to the weakness of the people who are still hesitating to give support”. Essentially, ISIS portrays the whole world as the enemy, relies on algorithmic siloing to further sell this narrative to youth seeking community, and benefits from actions taken in their name.
What Can Be Done
The issue now arises: how do we protect human rights from ISIS effectively? Seeing as current counterterrorism and P/CVE methods are, at best, ineffective and, at worst, increasing terrorism, the path forward seems unclear. However, many scholars and humanitarian organizations call for governments to address “root causes of conflict” rather than using military might or funding counter-insurgents as has been policy in the past. In fact, scholars have called into question whether military operations are worthwhile at all in the long run. University of Illinois at Chicago’s Seung-Whan Choi argues that “military intervention is, in general, liable to increase terrorist incidents if not more terrorist casualties,” making it easier to recruit through vulnerability or fear. Take away their leverage, and eventually, they would no longer be able to operate.
The United Nations University notes that “promoting trust between divided communities, reducing social, political and economic inequalities and enhancing accountability and justice” would lower the influence terrorists have over civilian populations thus decreasing their ability to weaponize fear. It does not appear that this will be any government’s strategy in the immediate future with military aid across major suppliers like the UK and US reaching well into the hundreds of billions. Even UN efforts in places like the DRC are military-centric with over 15,000 uniformed personnel on the ground as of February of 2024. Therefore, under-resourced humanitarian agencies are faced with the daunting—and sometimes impossible task, as with Afghanistan—of ensuring direct aid to civilians so that they are not vulnerable to the whims of terrorism.
Glossary
Affiliate Organizations/Affiliates: individuals or groups that are not officially a subsidiary of a larger group like ISIS. Instead, these individuals or groups receive money, arms, or training from a larger group in order to extend the reach of their goals.
Algorithm: a mathematical sequence of instructions aiming to reach a specific goal. In the context of this research, algorithms are the sequences that social media platforms use to recommend content to retain users.
Algorithmic silo: the isolated sphere or niche internet algorithms used on platforms like X, Instagram, and Youtube use to promote content. In order to retain users, these algorithms slowly isolate users away from the rest of the internet by suggesting increasingly niche content oftentimes introducing extreme views.
Allied Democratic Forces: The ADF is an Islamist militia based in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo formed in 1996, splitting in 2019 following the declaration of allegiance to ISIS by Musa Baluku. Their goals are vague aside from a desire to conduct a religious crusade to implement stricter versions of Islam throughout the region.
Al-Qaeda: an international, pan-Islamist terrorist organization whose goal is to build a global fundamentalist Islamic society under their control. They are best known for their relative success in attacking United States bases, embassies, and territory compared to its other Islamist and jihadist counterparts. Their attack on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001 led to the invasion of Afghanistan and the start of the Global War on Terror.
Caliphate: a historical religious form of government or kingdom led by a Muslim religious leader or “caliph”. Mainly monarchical, the historical caliphates were ruled by familial dynasties or, in most modern Sunni-majority countries, an elected leader. The last accepted caliphate fell with the modernization of the Ottoman Empire in the 1920s though there have been multiple attempts to establish a new caliphate, usually by extremist groups, which have all failed.
Caucasus: a mountainous region spanning Eastern Europe and Northwestern Asia composed of nations like Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
Counterterrorism: military, humanitarian, law enforcement, and diplomatic efforts to combat the spread and effectiveness of political violence or terrorism. However, most often counterterrorism efforts come through military initiatives and law enforcement task forces exclusively, severely undercutting long-term efficacy rather than addressing root causes through humanitarian aid and governmental support. Military and law enforcement counterterrorism efforts often exacerbate situations, creating worse living conditions or reinforcing terrorist propaganda.
Disenfranchise: to deprive an individual or group of full inclusion into society through denial of fundamental rights, services, or sense of community.
Disillusionment: feeling ranging from disappointment to apathy following discovery that a situation, individual, or other actor is not initially as it appears, per Cambridge.
Disproportionate: being too small or too large in comparison with something else, per Oxford. For example, if one portion of a population faces significantly more violence, they are disproportionately targeted.
Far-right: an umbrella term to refer to beliefs ranging from extreme conservatism to fascism to white nationalism. Many of these beliefs are not mutually exclusive and center on many of the same views including homophobia, racism, misogyny, and ultranationalism.
Ideology: a set of philosophies held by a group or individual, particularly beliefs regarding politics, governance, religion, or ethics.
ISIS: The Islamic State (IS) or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), is an international jihadist terrorist network formed in 1999 by Jordanian Al-Qaeda reject Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Its goal is to establish a global caliphate based on its own interpretation of Sunni Islam and Salafism that holds antisemitic, anti-West, anti-LGBTQIA, anti-Shia, anti-Christian, and anti-Hindu philosophies. They have been involved in numerous global conflicts like the Syrian Civil War and have claimed territory across Africa and Asia from Nigeria to the Philippines.
Jihad: In a religious context, jihad refers to “struggle” in following religious law, defending Islam, and facing daily challenges. Today, the most extreme interpretation of jihad (“jihadism”) is most prevalent in the world falling largely into the category of defending Islam via force against non-Muslims or other sects of Muslims.
Laïcité: the French concept of total separation of public and private life with emphasis on preventing religious imagery or practice in public spaces.
Martial Punishment: persecution or prosecution via military channels whether through imprisonment, torture, death, or more widely spread societal controls like curfews or cessation of rights.
P/CVE: Per the United Nations, Preventing/Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) is “policies, initiatives, and strategies used to prevent and counter the recruitment and radicalization of people” into political violence or extreme beliefs.
Perpetrator: an individual that carries out an action, usually a violent, immoral, or illegal action.
Pogrom: a violent attack, riot, or massacre against a specific community or ethnic group.
Preclude: to prevent an individual or group from receiving, achieving, or engaging with something.
Radicalism: belief or action that aims to change politics through complete reform rather than slow change, per Oxford. Though most associated with the left-wing, radicalism describes both left- and right-wing movements and belief systems that hope to entirely overhaul a governmental or societal system to achieve their goals.
Reprisals: actions taken against an individual or groups of people in response to their real or perceived actions.
Salafism: A movement within Sunni Islam that focuses largely on a return to traditional Islamic piety and law.
Secularism: the basic concept is that no society or government will adhere or show preference to one religion. In practice, secularism may mean the removal of all religion from public life including the banning of religious symbolism or clothing in public spaces like schools or municipal buildings.
Taliban: a Pashtun, Sunni Islamist organization formed in the 1990s in Afghanistan that currently controls the Afghan government. During their reign over Afghan society, the Taliban has engaged in massacres of religious and ethnic minorities, repression of women and girls, and cultural genocide.
Terrorism: While there is no single definition for the term, essentially terrorism is the use of violence or threat of violence to achieve political aims.
Terrorist decentralization: a tactical maneuver by which terrorist groups reorganize their ranks to move away from a structured militaristic hierarchy to a loose, sometimes anonymous network. This allows groups to circumvent outdated counterterrorism policies that focus almost entirely on identifying and eliminating leadership. If leadership is unclear, it is more difficult to weaken an organization. Decentralized terrorism is most common in far-right and white supremacist ideologies.
Uniformed Personnel: police, military, and observational individuals deployed into humanitarian conflicts or crises to enforce the rule of order.
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