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The Obama administration, having declared two months ago that the Islamic State is committing genocide, is now grappling with how to actually prosecute the terrorist network’s fighters for the crime.
Early-stage discussions about international tribunals and other means of justice are taking place in the White House and the State Department, people familiar with the talks told POLITICO. Any genocide prosecution, however, could be years away, a task made all the more complicated by the unusual nature of the Islamic State and the high bar for evidence.
The administration’s top priority remains defeating the jihadists on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria, an approach that has been more about killing than capturing the enemy.
“I don’t think it is far-fetched to say that the internet is a major reason why ISIS is so successful, and so worrying, as far as global terror movements go,” said one U.S. intelligence officer, who spoke to BuzzFeed News in Washington, D.C., and asked not to be named as he wasn’t authorized to speak to the press.
“They have always been ‘good’ at the internet, at the strategy of how they use it. Now they are smarter at the internet too.”
As the jihadi group continues to attract supporters around the globe, the need for them to safely communicate online has grown. While the vast majority of the group’s fighters in Iraq and Syria are probably not using the internet for much more than sending photos to their family WhatsApp groups, U.S. intelligence believe a small unit within ISIS is leading the group’s cyber ambitions, which range from working with hackers to launch cyberattacks against their enemies, to publishing manuals that help their supporters mask their online communications and defend themselves from those hunting them.
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Here’s an example of a conversation on a private ISIS channel on the messaging app Telegram on a recent Sunday afternoon:
The Islamic State announced in the latest issue of its propaganda magazine Dabiq that longtime Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin is on its hit list.
The terrorist group identified Abedin and Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, who are Muslims, as “overt crusaders.” The Islamic State claimed Abedin and Ellison enforce laws of kufr — apostasy — and called for their deaths.
“[O]ne must not overlook the overt crusaders, those who don’t even wear the cloak of da’wah [evangelism], but instead directly involve themselves in politics and enforcing the laws of kufr, like (in the US) Mohamed Elibiary, Arif Alikhan, Rashad Hussain, Keith Ellison, Huma Abedin, etc. and (in the UK) Muhammad Abdul Bari, Sayeeda Warsi, Waqar Azmi, Sajid Javid, Ajmal Masroor, and other politically active apostates,” the group wrote in Rajab, the 14th issue of the magazine.
In the wake of the Paris Attack French President François Hollande was quick to denounce the alleged attackers, ‘Daesh.’ Many people call this same jihadist group ISIS. Alternatively they’ve been called ISIL and even the Islamic State. But many in the Arab speaking world and increasingly Western leaders have taken to calling the group ‘Daesh.'
In this mini-episode of The World in Words podcast we explore the meaning of the term 'Daesh.’ How do you pronounce it? Who coined it? And why does the group previously referred to as ISIS or ISIL dislike it so much?
