Australian women lured to the Islamic State regime by online recruiters

YOUNG Australian women are being lured to the Islamic State by recruiters who are targeting them in Facebook groups around cooking, fashion and even the popular Minecraft game.

Mouthpiece of the Caliphate... Shadi Jabar and other recruiters for Islamic State are active in otherwise innocent chat rooms, such as food groups.

YOUNG Australian women are being lured to the Islamic State regime by recruiters who prey on them on social media, targeting them in Facebook groups around cooking, fashion and even the popular Minecraft game.

The recruiters, often well-educated people with many online personalities, target young women with grievances, engaging them in soft conversations about schools, fashion and recipes before luring them to the Islamic State ideology.

Australian authorities estimate there are now between 10 and 15 young Australian women currently in Syria with ISIS and about the same number providing support in the region. Another 10 or so women are believed to be supporting them from Australia.

Researcher and PhD candidate at Edith Cowan Univeristy, Dr Robyn Torok, has spent four years observing radical and extremist Australian Facebook pages, observing and collecting data for about 50 hours per week from more than 5000 pages, groups and profiles.

From the Telegram account of Shadi Jabar.

From the Telegram account of Shadi Jabar.

Dr Torok has studied how young people are radicalised online and the processes used to turn an ordinary teenage girl into a would-be ISIS bride, desperate to live in the Caliphate under strict Islamic law. The internet and the online world has been a boon for radical recruiters, many of whom have multiple accounts and online personalities and who are skilled in the art of deception.

It can begin in Facebook groups, private groups like cooking groups, fashion, shopping and Minecraft. Dr Torok says the recruiters then watch the online behaviour of potential recruits, what they click to like and what comments they make.

EXPLORE MORE: Shadi Jabar’s poisoned posts

THE RESPONSE: War on terror turns to hearts and minds

INSIDE LOOK: A chat with Australia’s jihadi bride

“They ask questions and they are drawing out answers, and then they are liking the answers and asking more questions,” Dr Torok says.

Dr Torok says the environment in some online chats lends itself to questions and political discourse because often the parents are already disaffected and have issues with the Government and authority.

A picture titled “Life in dawlah” from the Telegram account of Shadi Jabar.

Cooking is another area where recruiters target young women. “They talk about cooking, have you tried this, have you tried that.”

Then it moves on — “I am single too, my sister is single too, what sort of support groups are you going to?”

Dr Torok says that before long there is a rapport, trust and friendship and then they are being pulled away from their offline environment.

“The key to everything is rapport, trust and friendship. Once you have that you are pulling them further away from their offline environment, especially young people who are living through social media,” she says.

Comments like — “Swans are a great team, I dated a girl like that” “used to listen to that music a while ago” — are used top build rapport and make connections and then it moves to comments like “cops are power hungry pigs, forget them” and “I have friends who have experienced what we have” and then it moves to grievances like “Islam is criminalised” and “Muslim sisters are raped, children murdered by occupants of our lands”.

From the Telegram account of Umm Isa Al Amrikiah (Shadi Jabar).

Sporting groups are another area where recruits are easily found, along with music and teen magazines and fashion.

Eventually it moves to non-Muslims taking the Shahadah declaration of faith and then moving on to talk of martyrdom, the use of violent imagery to encourage acts of terror.

Dr Torok says that many of the online recruiters are what could be called “blonde Barbie types” who have the painted nails and wear pink, have never been to Syria and would never go but are good at convincing others to go.

Dr Torok says that the message coming through the encrypted apps now is the value of terror attacks on home soil.

“The message coming through on the encrypted apps now is the biggest way to send fear into the heartland is to do an act of terror where they live,” she says.

Originally published as Australian women lured to the Islamic State regime by online recruiters