Are Islamic State Recruits That Naive?

Men in orange jumpsuits purported to be Egyptian Christians held captive by the Islamic State (IS) kneel in front of armed men along a beach said to be near Tripoli. Reuters

Charlie Winter, Daily Beast: The Revealing Naïveté of One ISIS Recruit in Libya

The ignorance behind the indoctrination suggests an organization that is making up facts as it goes along.

LONDON—Last week, a document entitled “Interview with a Prisoner From al Baghdadi’s Group: Part I” was circulated by a Twitter user who goes by the name al Mundhir al Ḥussaini and describes himself as a “Da’esh [ISIS] dissident” in Misrata, Libya.

As the title suggests, the document is an Arabic language report on what is alleged to be a conversation between a captive ISIS supporter in Sirte and those guarding him, who remain anonymous.

While it is impossible to verify the authenticity of the interrogation, it nevertheless makes an intriguing read, and if it is indeed a valid document it provides important insights into the way the so-called Islamic State and the organizations that have pledged fealty to it go about indoctrinating their recruits. Rarely do we hear the firsthand account of an ISIS supporter’s path to the caliphate, a process about which man assumptions are made but deeper understanding is severely lacking.

WNU Editor: This is just one young recruit .... captured and probably terrified that he is being held as a prisoner while being interrogated. But it does give a small insight into why many young people want to join the Islamic State .... albeit for all the wrong reasons.

Update: Here is an interesting analysis on what would it take to eliminate the Islamic State from Libya .... Solving Libya’s ISIS Problem (Karim Mezran and Mattia Toaldo, New York Times).