The long fight against extremism

Manuel Langendorf, theworldweekly.com

Image from article, with caption: Islamic leader Abu Bakr  al-Baghdadi [...]

The days of Islamic State’s (IS) brutal reign in Iraq and Syria are numbered. Last month, Kurdish-led forces captured the ‘caliphate’s’ capital Raqqa, a city that once symbolised the militant group’s prowess. On both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border, various forces are closing in on what is left of IS’ territory. Whereas the militant group’s territorial decline has been widely hailed, IS has not only left behind a path of material destruction with large parts of Raqqa and Mosul in ruins, but something potentially longer lasting: its ideology.

Countries in the Middle East are now preparing for IS to revert to insurgency tactics and governments outside the region face the prospect of returning foreign fighters and emergent local IS affiliates. A key part of future battles, observers say, will be to counter IS and other militant groups’ ideology.

Countering extremist ideology while going after militant groups in the battlefield is far from a new challenge. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, successive US governments, for example, launched campaigns to counter extremist thought at home and abroad. Former President George W. Bush’s public diplomacy chief created a team to defend the US in online chat rooms; Barack Obama formed the Global Engagement Centre, aimed at coordinating US counterterrorism messaging to foreign audiences. Pentagon operations “often include an informational component that uses various media to reach at-risk populations to them turn away from violent extremism,” Adrian J.T. Rankine-Galloway, a major in the US Marine Corps at the Office of the Secretary of Defence, told The World Weekly.

In order to counter IS, the “ideological component is necessary”, says HA Hellyer, senior non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council and Royal United Services Institute in London.

Governments and local actors in the Middle East have equally engaged in counter-messaging efforts to discredit militant groups. The Iraqi military dropped leaflets over Mosul before the beginning of the military offensive to retake the city from IS, telling residents to stay at home and not to believe “rumours spread by Daesh” aimed at causing panic.

As IS isolated Mosul’s residents from the rest of the world, an Iraqi community radio station based outside IS territory attempted to counter the militant group’s propaganda by broadcasting into the city. With IS constantly trying to jam the station’s frequency, the team had to broadcast on many frequencies simultaneously, said Radio al-Ghad’s founder Mohammed al-Musali, adding that the station acted as an intermediary between the people of Mosul and the Iraqi forces. One of its programmes, presented by a scholar in Islamic theory, was directly targeting IS supporters by highlighting “the biggest vulnerabilities within the Daesh argument and [making] sure people have both sides”.

In Syria, coalition warplanes dropped various leaflets over Raqqa, one showing a cartoon in which IS fighters are feeding people into a meat grinder at a “hiring office”. Others stated according to activist groups that “freedom will come” to the region.

 Kurdish female fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) gather during a celebration at the iconic Al-Naim square in Raqqa. Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images

Northern Aleppo province recently witnessed the opening of what was described as the first anti-extremism centre in Syria. Run by the Free Syrian Army, the centre houses captured local and foreign IS fighters and aims to provide religious and psychological lessons in order to rehabilitate them. The overall objective is to develop tools to deal with the large number of people affected by extremism, explains Syrian writer Ahmad Abazid, who was present at the centre’s opening in late October.

 The messenger 

Who delivers the message is crucial in determining how successful the battle against extremist ideology will be, experts say. “The discourse and ideology of extremists can only be countered if the alternative is deemed to be politically credible and ideologically consistent,” Dr. Hellyer told TWW. Many governments, he added, focused on ideological consistency, promoting a more mainstream understanding of Islamic doctrine. “But on the political level, those messages are wholly compromised because the promoters are entirely supportive of state structures, and say little to nothing about the abuses of those structures.”

More than six years after mass uprisings swept across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), human rights violations in the region remain all too common, often carried out in the name of fighting terrorism. Authorities in various countries have taken measures to control religious discourse. Freedom House, a US-based organisation, ranks Tunisia and Israel as the only free countries in the MENA region.

As anti-US sentiment rose in many parts of the region after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, delivering a credible message against extremism proved more difficult for Washington. Joshua Geltzer, a senior director for counterterrorism on former President Barack Obama’s National Security Council, says the US government has over time learned that it was not the “most credible messenger in appealing to those potentially susceptible to violent extremist recruitment”. However, governments still play an important role, he added. They “can and must identify the voices within communities that already have legitimacy and resonance, and then find ways to protect and amplify those voices without tainting them.”

 ‘Go to their world’ 

As in other parts of the world, young people in the Middle East join extremist groups for various reasons, including economic ones. Nevertheless, issues of ideology and identity are “very important”, says Maya Yamout, who together with her sister Nancy founded the Lebanese NGO Rescue Me - Crime Prevention, which works with potential recruits to extremist groups and prisoners charged with terrorism offences.

 More than six years after Osama bin Laden’s death, al-Qaeda continues to pose a serious threat to global security. 0851/GAMMA/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Recruiters for militant groups exploit people’s weaknesses, targeting emotionally unstable people, for example buying their loyalty by getting them a job or lending them money, Ms. Yamout told TWW from Beirut. “To convince someone of doing jihad can take weeks, months or even years.” For her, awareness is key to change someone’s ideology, a complex process which is completed through counter-messaging and giving potential recruits and former prisoners alternatives in life.

Rescue Me focuses on young people aged 16-24, a prime target for IS recruiters. “They have a lot of energy and need to spend it,” says Ms. Yamout. “You need to go to their world and tell them you understand and we can guide them and control their problems by presenting alternatives.” However, when it comes to engaging prisoners and potential recruits, “the moment you speak to them about religion and politics, you lose.” Instead, she says, the key is to engage them socially, asking about their childhood, marriage or why they ended up in prison.

Ms. Yamout shared an example of a successful rehabilitation case. The prisoner, who remained anonymous, spent five years in the infamous Roumieh prison in Lebanon where the Yamout sisters conducted dozens of interviews. He was accused of terrorism charges, but signaled in conversations that he wanted to start a new life after being released. Ms. Yamout organised psychological support for him and talked to his family and neighbours to accept him back in the community. After his release, a social worker even got him a job as a driver. But then the real challenge came. The extremist group he had previously been associated with offered him three times his current salary to rejoin them. He said no and is still in touch with the Yamout sisters.

 NOTE

Another prisoner the sisters worked with was a Lebanese man who also held European nationality. Having watched many online videos about politics and the treatment of Muslims, he built up a hatred for certain countries and decided to join IS. Ms. Yamout described him as a case of self-recruitment. The World Weekly could not independently verify the cases of the two men.

“Awareness can prevent many things,” Ms. Yamout says, comparing the situation to the AIDS crisis, where stigma and a lack of knowledge made measures to counter the spread of the disease less effective. She also sees the media as partly responsible. “The media should not provoke Muslims," she told TWW.

Many stakeholders have to play their part, observers agree. Pressure has been ramped up recently against Internet companies to better target extremist content online, opening up the debate between free speech and legitimate security needs. Governments have rolled out various anti-extremism programmes around the world. Their effectiveness will certainly be tested as IS enters its next phase, al-Qaeda retains territory in Syria and Yemen, and foreign fighters will try to make their way back to their home countries.

The fight against an ideology is a long one.