BLURRING THE

BOUNDARIES

HOW THE ISLAMIC STATE INFLUENCES

THE EU'S INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL

SECURITY

M A T H E S I S I N E U R O P E A N S T U D I E S

G R A D U A T E S C H O O L F O R H U M A N I T I E S

U N I V E R S I T E I T V A N A M S T E R D A M

A U T H O R : C H A R L O T T E H A M A R D E L A B R E T H O N I È R E

S T U D E N T N U M B E R : 0 5 5 5 9 3 2

M A I N S U P E R V I S O R : M R S . P R O F . D R . L U I Z A B I A L A S I E W I C Z

S E C O N D S U P E R V I S O R : M R . P R O F . D R . M I C H A E L K E M P E R

J U N E 2 0 1 5

"My life is my message."

-- Mahatma Gandhi

ii

C O N T E N T

List of Abbreviations and Acronyms............................................................................................ iii

List of Figures................................................................................................................................... v

Introduction...................................................................................................................................... 1

Internal and external security......................................................................................................... 4

Introduction.............................................................................................................................. 4

Security, democracy and citizenship.................................................................................... 6

The relation between internal and external Security........................................................... 7

The Islamic State and the danger of foreign fighters................................................................. 16

Introduction.............................................................................................................................. 16

The emergence of the Islamic State...................................................................................... 19

The fight against Islamic State................................................................................................ 24

Foreign fighters........................................................................................................................ 28

Dealing with (potential) foreign fighters................... ........................................................... 34

Islamic State and the media............................................................................................................ 39

Introduction.............................................................................................................................. 39

How the Islamic State uses the media................................................................................... 42

(YouTube) Videos.................................................................................................................... 43

Al Hayat Media Center............................................................................................................ 45

Facebook.................................................................................................................................... 46

Twitter........................................................................................................................................ 47

Responding to cyber jihad....................................................................................................... 52

Case Study: Media discourse on the Islamic State in the United Kingdom

and the Netherlands.........................................................................................................................54

Introduction.............................................................................................................................. 54

First findings.............................................................................................................................. 56

Media discourse on Islamic State in Europe....................................................................... 58

Critical Discourse Analysis...................................................................................................... 59

Analysis...................................................................................................................................... 61

Conclusions............................................................................................................................... 69

Conclusion........................................................................................................................................ 72

Bibliography...................................................................................................................................... 79

iii

L I S T O F A B B R E V I AT I O N S A N D

AC RO N Y M S

App Application

AQI al-Qa'ida in Iraq

AQIM al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghreb

CDA Critical Discourse Analysis

CFSP Common Foreign and Security Policy

CSDP Common Security and Defence Policy

EASO European Asylum Support Office

EEAS European External Action Service

ESDP European Security and Defence Policy

ESS European Security Strategy

EU European Union

EU INTCEN EU Intelligence Analysis Centre

EUMS European Union Member States

Eurojust EU Judicial Cooperation Unit

Europol European Police Office

EU TE-SAT EU Terrorist Situation and Trend

FRONTEX European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation

at the External Borders of the EU Member States

GCTF Global Counterterrorism Forum

HCSS The Hague Center for Security Studies

HR High Representative

HR/VP High Representative/Vice President (of the European Commission)

INTCEN Intelligence Analysis Centre

IS Islamic State

ISI Islamic State in Iraq

ISIL Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant

ISIS Islamic State in Iraq and Syria

JaN Jabhat al-Nusra

iv

MENA Middle East and North Africa

MSM Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

SIS Schengen Information Service

SitCen Situation Centre

TE-SAT Terrorist Situation and Trend Reports

TEU Treaty on the European Union

TFEU Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union

UN United Nations

U.S. United States

VIS Visa Information Service

WMD Weapons of Mass Destruction

v

L I S T O F F I G U R E S

Figure 1: IS areas of influence as of April 2015.................................................................... ...27

Figure 2: The flow of foreign fighters to Syria...................................................................... ...30

Figure 3: Number of news items per newspaper and per event......................................... ...56

Figure 4: Percentage of news items per event....................................................................... ...57

Figure 5: Percentage of news items per newspaper.................................................................57

Figure 6: Number of times specific words are used in the analysed news items................70

1

I N T RO D U C T I O N

here will probably not be many words which were integrated in the global mass

media vocabulary as quickly as the word 'jihad', last year. The media platforms

would not stop writing news items about Muslims going on jihad, and how

jihadists in Iraq and Syria committed terrible crimes. But although the word seems widely

accepted in our vocabulary these days - many of the people who have read or watched

the news are not entirely sure about the precise meaning of it. According to David

Suurland, philosopher of law, it could be defined as 'fighting for Allah', intending both a

wider religious struggle, but also physical and direct conflict. He bases his claim on what

the handbooks of the four Sunni schools of thought write about this. However, Nazreen

Sahebali, practicing Muslim and student in Middle Eastern Studies at Leiden University,

quoted in a popular Dutch news weekly, claims it to be "the internal battle to bring the rules of

Islam into practice. Rules about your relationship to God and how to interact with other people. It is

about your submission to God and bringing peace to your surroundings, because that is what Islam

means".1 Nonetheless, when watching the news or reading newspapers in the past year,

paradoxically viewers and readers will find few - if any - messages which link jihad to

peace instead of brutal murders, seizing of powers or demolishing of world heritage.

It should be taken into consideration that only a minority of all Muslims are

radicalised or have as extreme ideas as the followers of the Islamic State (IS), as we have

predominantly seen in the media the past year. As a matter of fact, this radicalised group

only makes up for a small part of the ummah - the Muslim community. Still, Suurland

doubts we should expect a counter movement within the ummah against the committed

atrocities in the name of jihad: it would mean having to renounce the entire shari'a, the

Islamic law, and only few Muslims, albeit moderate, will be willing to do so. However, we

do see a rising trend where fellow Muslims condemn the actions of the jihadis, claiming

their deeds are not in the name of 'their Islam'.2

1 Bart Schut, 'Vechten op het pad van God', De Groene Amsterdammer, 138:51/52, accessed online. 2 Ibidem.

T

2

The reason that the word 'jihad' got integrated in the global mass media vocabulary this

fast probably has to do with the rise of the Islamic State, conquering big pieces of land in

Iraq and Syria and proclaiming a renewed 'Islamic Caliphate' based on the Quran and

shari'a law. They have been shocking the world with their committed crimes and their

rapid uprising, being more cruel than we have seen jihadists to be in a long time. The

problem for the Western world is that the fight does not stop at the border of the

caliphate: through mainstream media and especially new (social) media messages and

propaganda are disseminated ubiquitously, addressing more people than ever, all over the

world. Moreover, through new technology, travelling nowadays is quicker and cheaper

than it has ever been. That is what makes this such a relevant issue, for these acts of

jihadism and terrorism are not limited within borders anymore but transcend toward an

increasingly globalised world. This thesis will try to address the question of how the war

against the Islamic State is seen as influencing the direct security of Europe. A great

number of Europeans have joined foreign fighters from all over the world and travelled

to the caliphate in order to fight for IS - in the name of jihad.

In the first chapter, I will scrutinise the relationship between internal and external

security. In order to fully understand the significance of this interrelation, it is important

to understand the developments this relationship has been going through, and why.

Therefore, I will first give a historical background, describing how the situation used to

be some decades ago. Afterwards, I will consider the different concepts of security,

democracy and citizenship. Subsequently, I will analyse the changes the internal-external

security nexus went through, and focus on the measures the European Union (EU) has

taken to deal with this nexus and the consequences of its development. I will elaborate

on several strategies and treaties the EU has adopted and why there is a need to adjust

the European policies. Thereafter, I will shortly mention some measures the United

Nations (UN) and NATO have taken to deal with the increasing interrelationship of the

internal and external security nexus.

In the second chapter I will focus on the Islamic State and the foreign fighter

phenomenon. In order to comprehend the entire situation, it is crucial to understand

how the power relations are divided in the Middle East. There are different terrorist

groups, like al-Qai'da, the Islamic State, Jabhat al-Nusra (JaN) and many more. I will

describe how these groups relate to each other, what their ideological background is and

who supports whom. This also includes becoming familiar with the different leaders.

Besides this, it is important to comprehend the base of the sectarian conflict. Therefore I

will focus on the position and power relations of the different communities. Afterwards,

3

I will consider the current fight against IS, which provides a bridge to the problem of

foreign fighters. I will focus on why there has been such an incredible rise in number of

foreign fighters by investigating what their drive is and how they get in contact with the

terroristic organisations in the Middle East. The rising number of foreign fighters is

considered as posing a direct threat to the European internal security, especially if they

survive the battlefield and decide to return home. Thus, it is needed to consider the

effects and look at the ways the EU and its member states are dealing - or should be

dealing - with them and articulate counter narratives.

The third chapter will deal with the relationship between terrorism and the media,

and focus especially on how IS uses the media to their advantage. Interestingly, IS seems

to be dexterous at employing social media to get what they want, even though they have

a dissonant idea of modern practises that can distract people from their religion. By

getting into the different social media platforms one by one, it will become clear how IS

seems to be so successful in recruiting funds and fighters.

The final chapter is an analysis of four newspapers covering six key events in the

emergence of IS and the West fighting against them. The Islamic State is not the only

one capable of influencing people through media: the West can also influence the public

discourse on the Islamic State. By using the critical discourse analysis, the extent of how a

right of centre and a left of centre newspaper in the United Kingdom and two equivalent

newspapers in the Netherlands frame their news messages and thus shape public

discourse is analysed. Quantitative data will be analysed first, followed by the messages'

content. All the preparatory work for this analysis, including lists of all the news items

and content analyses for one news item per newspaper per event, can be found in the

accompanying supplement. As we will see, different news messages appeal to different

people, based on their socio-political background, norms, values and beliefs. And

although the conflict with IS is mainly based in Iraq and Syria, the fight is brought to

Europe through the committed terrorist attacks in Belgium, France and Copenhagen.

Moreover, the fear of the fight increasingly being fought on European soil inflames the

discussion about and fears towards the Islamic State.

4

I N T E R N A L A N D E X T E R N A L

S E C U R I T Y

INTRODUCTION

nternal security and external security are getting more and more intertwined:

security is no longer restricted to a country's border, but is rather seen as

increasingly borderless, making it necessary for countries to deal with this

interrelation. Although there used to be a clear distinction between the two forms of

security, this has been subject to change the last couple of decades. Internal security

could be seen in several ways, for example internal security of the European Union (EU)

as a whole, or the internal security of an independent member state. The intertwinement

of internal and external security is due to many reasons, not the least of which the

increasing integration of the EU member states3 and the interdependence of countries

throughout the world.4 One of the most compelling examples of the interconnectedness

of internal and external security these days, is the rapid rise of the Islamic State (IS),

formerly known as ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) or ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and

the Levant). The rise of IS does not only destabilise the entire Middle East, it is seen as

presenting direct threats and dangers for the Netherlands, and for the EU as a whole as

well.5

To take the Netherlands as an example: internal and external security have been

traditionally divided between different ministries with different responsibilities. The

domestic responsibilities lie with the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of

Security and Justice, and used to rely solely on the national police force. The foreign

responsibilities lie with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defence,

3 Tomáš Weiss, 'The Unclear Border between Internal and External Security in the European

Union: Impact of the Lisbon Treaty, Czech Journal of Political Science, 18:3, 2011, pp. 216. 4 Florian Trauner, The internal-external security nexus: more coherence under Lisbon?, European Union

Institute for Security Studies, Occasional paper, March 2011, p. 7. 5 Dick Zandee, 'De nexus externe-interne veiligheid', Magazine Nationale Veiligheid en

Crisisbeheersing, 12:5, 2014, p. 32.

I

5

which used to rely solely on the military. Those ministries have their own strategies,

being the Strategy for National Security from 2007 and the International Security Strategy

from 2013, respectively.6 Nowadays, this line is blurring, while the distribution of roles is

getting more diffuse. Today, the police force is often deployed in peacekeeping missions

to ensure external security, while there is an increasing number of, for example, counter-

insurgency operations where military instruments are used to ensure internal security.7

According to Rob de Wijk, expert on international relations and security and founder of

the Dutch think tank HCSS (The Hague Center for Security Studies), the line between

domestic (internal) and foreign (external) security is disappearing due to increasing

international terrorism and its link to international crime. De Wijk states that the

problem is transnational because terrorist attacks are no longer planned within a country,

but often outside the borders. Furthermore, in present times the internet takes a

prominent place in our societies, and is more and more used as a key instrument in

heading terrorist and criminal operations and recruiting new fighters internationally. The

speed and access to almost unlimited information makes it possible for terrorists and

criminals to get in contact quickly and relatively anonymously. Moreover, foreign security

policies have increasing effects on home security, and vice versa.8 The fact that the

Netherlands decided to join the United States-led international coalition against IS and to

send fighter planes caused immediate threats for the domestic security of the country.9

This is visible through, for example, video messages of Dutch foreign fighters, often

fighting for IS themselves, threatening with terrorist attacks in the Netherlands or

recruiting other Dutch Muslims to go on jihad.10 Military personnel was no longer

allowed to wear their uniforms in public, and well-known think tanks and institutes were

to take several security measures, for they were seen as potential targets.

In this chapter I will scrutinise the internal/external security nexus and the

developments this nexus went through. The nexus is an important development to take

6 Dick Zandee, 'De nexus externe-interne veiligheid', Magazine Nationale Veiligheid en

Crisisbeheersing, 12:5, 2014, p. 32. 7 Jan Rood, Een wankele wereldorde, Clingendael Strategische Monitor 2014, Den Haag, 2014, pp.

73-75. 8 Rob de Wijk en Roos Toxopeus, 'Hoe binnen- en buitenlandse veiligheid verweven zijn', De

Internationale Spectator, 59:7/8, 2005, p. 421. 9 See, for example, this news item:

Andreas Kouwenhoven, 'Nederland steunt srijd tegen IS en 'is dus mogelijk doelwit'', NRC

Handelsblad, 8 January 2015. 10 'Saudische geestelijke roept Nederlanders op tot jihad', NOS nieuws, 30 december 2014.

6

into consideration, because in many ways it influences the national and European policies

and helps us understand how the EU and its member states deal with security threats.

This is also important to understand the way national media creates and influences the

public discourse on the Islamic State framing an external phenomenon as also an internal

threat. Moreover, when we talk about internal and external security, we need to have an

understanding of how we relate security to citizenship and democracy. In this light I will

give a short survey of the relationship between these concepts.

SECURITY, DEMOCRACY AND CITIZENSHIP

When we consider security, we cannot ignore its intertwining with questions of

citizenship and democracy. As both Jef Huysmans and Xavier Guillaume have suggested,

these concepts have been closely connected in modern politics. They argue that citizens

demanding security and governments securing them have been one of the basics modern

states and politics are built on and that conceptions of security and its implications

become politically negotiated through citizenship.11

The link between security and citizenship goes all the way back to the Declaration of the

Rights of Man and the Citizen, a fundamental document of the French Revolution, from

1789, where article 2 of this declaration already presents security as a central right to

state's citizens. Huysmans and Guillaume point out that in order to provide security to

citizens, a state has to impose a certain order for citizens to live in, thereby violating

citizens democratic sphere. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, established by the

United Nation General Assembly in 1948, enforces the former Declaration by formulating

security of person a fundamental right in its third article. Furthermore, looking at the

Stockholm Programme of the EU, which provides a roadmap for the EU'swork in the

area of justice, freedom and security for the period 2010-2014,12 it is clear from the very

first article that it tries to combine the assertion of rights and justice of citizens with

protecting them. Nowadays, individual states are fading to the background, with the

consequence that security and citizenship are increasingly defining global governmental

11 Xavier Guillaume and Jef Huisman, Citizenship and Security. The construction of political being,

London, Routledge, 2013, pp 1-2. 12 European Council, The Stockholm Programme, Brussels, 2010.

7

regimes, taking internationalisation and transnationalisation in account, e.g. sharing

intelligence and the standardising of border controls.13

As mentioned earlier, security encroaches on democracy as well. This has become

increasingly apparent in the debates after 9/11 and the war on terror. In his book Security

Unbound, Huysmans researches Franz Leopold Neumann, who advocates that security

itself is an anti-democratic concept, due to the conception of politics and society. It does

not respond to enemies and fear, but it is creating them.14 The Western world tends to look

at democracy as a condition for global (and thus also regional) security, creating peace

and stability, whereas dictatorships are seen as a threat to that same global security.

However, security conditions are also undermining democracies because they limit

citizens fundamental rights as well. Because of the security-democracy nexus, these two

concepts are usually looked at as reinforcing one another. Security protects democracy

against internal and external threats. At the same time, democracy is a condition for

security, and according to former NATO secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer "the

best answer to terror".15 In this way, security and democracy seem to be reinforcing each

other more than undermining each other.16 After 9/11, security, democracy and

citizenship have positioned themselves more and more in the picture, especially in the

United States and in Europe. Through the research of Stasiulis and Ross on how post

9/11 dual citizenship with certain nationalities has become a marker of unwanted

citizens, which is pointed out by Huysmans and Guillaume, it also became clear that the

war on terror showed citizenship as a marker of identity.17

THE RELATION BETWEEN INTERNAL AND EXTERNA L SECURITY

When we look at the increasing intertwinement between internal and external security,

we can see this trend has been going on for many years now. Tomáš Weiss, associate

research fellow at EUROPEUM institute for European policy, states that ever since the

end of the Cold War in 1989, scholars have suggested that the lines between the two

13. Xavier Guillaume and Jef Huisman, Citizenship and Security. The construction of political being, pp.

2-5. 14 Jef Huysmans, Security Unbound. Enacting democratic limits, London, Routledge, 2014, pp. 2-4. 15 NATO update, 14 March 2005. 16 Jef Huysmans, Security Unbound. Enacting democratic limits, pp. 20-23. 17 Xavier Guillaume and Jef Huisman, Citizenship and Security. The construction of political being, p. 5.

8

forms of security have been blurring, at least in the West.18 This has partly to do with a

decline of the nation state and the fact that the distinction between inside and outside

became less clear. 'New threats' arose, with as a consequence a new division in police and

military tasks and working methods.

With the intensification of European integration, certain territorial borders started to

fade away, due to supranational policies. In some cases this makes it harder for member

states to act in a sovereign way and control its own territory. In the 1990s, EU member

states decided to include cooperation on several security issues in the new Treaty on

European Union (TEU), which came into force in 1993. New institutions were created to

head operations outside the EU's borders. After signing the Treaty of Amsterdam in

1997, even more new bodies were established to implement more new policies. Many of

those bodies worked tightly together, challenging the traditional distinction of internal

and external security at the national levels of the member states. With for example the

Schengen cooperation, internal security of sovereign member states increasingly turned in

internal security of the EU as a whole.19

In the European Security Strategy (ESS), titled A Secure Europe in a Better World and

established in 2003, member states defined security threats together and recognised that

they could not simply be classified as either internal or external, but should be thought of

as dynamic. As they state in the document, the two types of security are indissolubly

linked.20 The member states of the European Union (EUMS) decided to tackle the threats

with a mixture of instruments, combining military and non-military resources. They

started to realise that threats were getting more interdependent as well, and that they

could not tackle them separately without taking the situation on the ground into

consideration. In the ESS, member states did not only state that all security threats were

connected with each other and reinforced one another, the nexus between security and

development also got recognised for the first time, claiming, for example, that in some

cases state failure could be identified as one of the most important threats, causing

terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). To tackle these

threats, the European member states had to approach these problems comprehensively,

trying to prevent conflicts from breaking out as much as possible. However, this did not

go without a hitch. Because of a lack of coordination, and the EU being aware of this

18 Tomáš Weiss, 'The Unclear Border between Internal and External Security in the European

Union: Impact of the Lisbon Treaty', pp. 215-217. 19 Ibidem. 20 European Council, A Secure Europe in a Better World, European Security Strategy, 2003, p. 2.

9

problem, the European Council called for an increased involvement of the European

Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), which is part of the bigger Common Foreign and

Security Policy (CFSP) in the fight against terrorism. Looking at all this, it is clear that

even before the member states signed the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007, which included the

most important changes of the last decades, there were several new bodies and processes

created to deal with the new security threats. As a consequence, these bodies and

processes contributed to the blurring of the line between internal and external security.21

The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in

Washington on 11 September 2001 (9/11) were the first ones on United States' territory.

They were the first clear occurrences which showed that intervening abroad could lead to

a direct threat of national security. The United States (U.S.) were not the only ones taking

safety measures: the EU, its member states and NATO all took action in securing their

citizens, albeit often on paper only. When the Madrid-bombings happened in 2004, the

EU made sure the member states would accelerate converting these measures in their

national policies.22 An example of an emerged body which combined internal, external,

military and civilian aspects of security is the Joint Situation Centre (SitCen) which the

EU took under its wing after the Western European Union23 got dissolved. After 9/11,

SitCen became a monitoring centre, processing information and intelligence from

member states with the purpose of identifying potential crisis situations and areas in the

world. After the Madrid bombings, SitCen started focussing on potential threats on

internal EU territory as well. Later, when the Treaty of Lisbon came into force in 2007,

SitCen was turned into the EU Intelligence Analysis Centre, (EU INTCEN), part of the

new European External Action Service (EEAS) and under the authority of the EU's

High Representative. With the re-interpretation of external security threats, immigration

and terrorism made a rise on the European agenda, with new measures, like inserting

counter-terrorism clauses in treaties with third countries. Furthermore, institutions with

the initial focus on the internal space of the EU would start to cooperate with external

21 Tomáš Weiss, 'The Unclear Border between Internal and External Security in the European

Union: Impact of the Lisbon Treaty', pp. 217-219. 22 Rob de Wijk en Roos Toxopeus, 'Hoe binnen- en buitenlandse veiligheid verweven zijn', pp.

421-422. 23 The Western European Union was a defensive alliance composed of ten member states:

Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the

United Kingdom. The main purpose of the organisation was to offer mutual military assistance in

case of an attack on any of their territory.

10

actors.24 Agencies like Europol (European Police Office), Eurojust (EU Judicial

Cooperation Unit), FRONTEX (European Agency for the Management of Operational

Cooperation at the External Borders of the EU Member States) and EASO (European

Asylum Support Office), which were mainly focussed on internal information exchange,

analysis and cooperation, got assigned powers concerning external security.25 Moreover,

the EU puts extra focus on infrastructure which crosses borders: member states now use

the Schengen Information System II (SIS II)26 and Visa Information System (VIS)27. In

the Stockholm Programme member states also included a desire for Europol to work

together with the CSDP police missions, in order to improve coordination of

prosecution with third countries as well.28

The Treaty of Lisbon introduced new developments in the increasing intertwinement

of internal and external security. Firstly, the EU abolished the former European pillar

structure, which created a more unified procedure for member states to negotiate with

each other and come to new agreements.29 Secondly, the Union redefined the role of the

High Representative for the EU's Common Foreign Security Policy (CFSP) and gave her

a double-hatted role as Vice President of the European Commission as well. The

HR/VP would now basically function as a European minister of foreign affairs, with the

European External Action Service as her ministry.30

With the abolishment of the pillar structure, a new decision-making procedure got

introduced as well. This shift in procedures has had great consequences on the

development of police cooperation across the EUMS. However, although the decision-

making procedure was made easier, it still meant that already existing cooperations, as a

24 Tomáš Weiss, 'The Unclear Border between Internal and External Security in the European

Union: Impact of the Lisbon Treaty', pp. 219-220. 25 Isabelle Ioannides, 'Inside-out and Outside-in: EU Security in the Neighbourhood', The

International Spectator, 49:1, 2014, p.116. 26 The second generation Schengen Information System (SIS II) is a large-scale information

system containing alerts on persons and objects. It is used by border guards, customs officers,

visa- and law-enforcement authorities throughout the Schengen area, with a view to ensuring a

high level of security. 27 The Visa Information System (VIS) allows Schengen States to exchange visa data. Among

other things, it processes data and decisions relating to applications for short-stay visas to visit, or

to transit through, the Schengen area. 28 Jan Rood, Een wankele wereldorde, p. 98. 29 Florian Trauner, The internal-external security nexus: more coherence under Lisbon?, European Union

Institute for Security Studies, Occasional paper. p. 23. 30 Tomáš Weiss, 'The Unclear Border between Internal and External Security in the European

Union: Impact of the Lisbon Treaty', pp. 221-223.

11

result of the Schengen agreement, still needed trust and political will between the

member states. In practice, the role of the European Commission got reduced, and both

the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice got very little authority

allocated to them. Decision-making remained under the control of the member states,

which are not always willing to give up their sovereignty.31

Lisbon also created several new institutions, not the least of which being the

European External Action Service to accompany the redefined High Representative of

the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Since Lisbon, the HR/VP connects

the works of the Commission and the Council at the highest level, being chairperson of

the Foreign Affairs Council and at the same time Coordinator of External Relations in

the European Commission. The creation of the EEAS might be the most significant

reform in the EU's external policy.32 The Situation Center and Civ/Mil Cell, which deal

with both internal and external security matters, got transferred to the EEAS, with the

HR/VP as their direct supervisor. However, all terrorism and immigration related bodies

stayed under the Council Secretariat, chaired by the rotating Presidency. The initiative the

European Commission had in the CFSP before Lisbon got turned into an initiative

purely of the HR/VP. He or she might get influenced by his or her position in the

Council though, which might have more influence on his or her decisions than the

Commission does, based on the fact that the EUMS have the right to appoint the

HR/VP and end his or her term if they see fit, as opposed to European Parliament. One

of the main goals of the EEAS is to contribute to a more comprehensive European

approach on foreign policy and security matters.33

Other than the two big changes described above, the Lisbon Treaty introduced lower

level changes as well. Several working groups concerned with counter-terrorism are now

supervised by an umbrella Working Party on Terrorism. More importantly, the European

Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) got renamed to Common Security and Defence

Policy (CSDP) and introduced both a mutual defence clause and a solidarity clause. This

contributed to a better cooperation between internal and external security. Especially the

solidarity clause, covered in article 222 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European

31 Tomáš Weiss, 'The Unclear Border between Internal and External Security in the European

Union: Impact of the Lisbon Treaty', pp. 220-224. 32 Florian Trauner, The internal-external security nexus: more coherence under Lisbon?, pp. 30-32. 33 Tomáš Weiss, 'The Unclear Border between Internal and External Security in the European

Union: Impact of the Lisbon Treaty', pp. 220-224.

12

Union (TFEU), had a big impact. It does not only contain regulation of assistance from

the EUMS and the EU as a whole given to a state hit by a man-made or natural disaster,

it also includes a call for use of military units within the territory of a member state.

Hitherto, military intervention was solely used outside EU borders in external action.

Besides, the EU acknowledged that most of the CSDP missions had been civilian

missions, and with Lisbon the EU broadens its vision and aims at issues as the fight

against terrorism and disarmament as well, fulfilled by both civilian and military means.34

The initiative of the clause lies with the member states, but is only supposed to be turned

to in special circumstances and when a member state is overwhelmed and cannot cope

with the situation using its own capacities.35

The internal and external security nexus has also been a base for the EU Internal

Security Strategy which sets out challenges, principles and guidelines on how to deal with

security issues in the EU.36 It focuses on better coordination and activity and was

supplemented by an action plan by the end of 2010.37 The Strategy includes five strategic

objectives to make the EU more secure, including preventing terrorism and addressing

radicalisation and recruitment, which include international criminal networks, terrorism,

cyber security, border security and disasters.38

Even though the EES marks that internal and external security are indissolubly linked,

the EU still has different strategies for external- and internal action. Obviously, it has the

EES for external action, and the EU Internal Security Strategy for internal action.39 In

practice, a cooperation between European bodies which implement these policies and

lead planning and action is non-existent. The gap between the CSDP and internal

security policy is mainly due to the juridical division between the two, caused by cultural

differences between the EUMS. In some member states there exists a fear for

militarisation of internal security, which, in general, has traditionally only dominated the

34 Tomáš Weiss, 'The Unclear Border between Internal and External Security in the European

Union: Impact of the Lisbon Treaty', pp. 220-224. 35 Margriet Drent, Kees Homan and Dick Zandee, Civil Military Capacities for European Security.

Clingendael Report, Den Haag, 2013, pp. 19-20. 36 Internal Security Strategy for the European Union: Towards a European Security Model, Council

Document 5842/2/2010. 37 European Commission, The EU Internal Security Strategy in Action: Five Steps towards a more secure

Europe, COM (2010) 673 final, Brussels, 22 November 2010. 38 Margriet Drent, Kees Homan and Dick Zandee, Civil Military Capacities for European Security, pp.

18-19. 39 Jan Rood, Een wankele wereldorde, p. 77.

13

external policy. There does not seem to be the willingness to make profound alterations

to the current treaties, so practical ad-hoc arrangements seem to work best for now.40

Looking at the security of the EU as a whole, the Union can be seen as trying to pursue

security in its neighbourhood in order to ensure the internal security of the EU's citizens.

However, if the EU wants to extend this external security towards more third countries,

it will have to increase the attractiveness of the EU in the economic, political and social

fields.41 By expanding, the EU has lost its buffer zone between the core of the EU and its

outside. This explains why it is so pressing for the EU to tackle security threats in its

neighbourhood. As contradictory as it may sound, where European integration is one of

the main causes for more external security threats, the EU is trying to fight it with even

more integration. This is set off by the perception of the 'outside' being dangerous

because of weak administrative capacities of third (neighbouring) countries. By the EU

working together as one and together with these countries, they have to fight security

concerns which they moved closer to by expanding both eastwards and southwards. This

means: closer to former communist countries, regions which have been torn by (civil)

wars and countries with other norms and values than the EU. Especially threats coming

from the southern Mediterranean are aggravated by perceived individual and terrorist

jihadist links to different European societies. Although the absolute number of terrorist

attacks and arrests in the EU has fallen, the threat has not yet been decreased in the last

couple of years.42 In its yearly EU Terrorist Situation and Trend Reports (EU TE-SAT),

Europol reports on its monitoring of the terrorist trends in EU member states. In its

2011 report, Europol stated that Islamist terrorist networks have obvious influence in

EU member states, even though these networks are based outside the EU.43 In the time

after the Arab Spring, extremist groups such as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb

(AQIM) and the Nigerian Boko Haram have strengthened their status. Several

kidnappings of Western nationals have taken place in their spheres of influence, and

several direct attacks on the European continent have taken place as well.44 AQIM is

40 Jan Rood, Een wankele wereldorde., pp. 77-78. 41 Isabelle Ioannides, 'Inside-out and Outside-in: EU Security in the Neighbourhood', p. 114. 42 Idem, pp. 116-119. 43 Europol, EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2011. 44 For example, the attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels on 24 May 2014, the attacks on

satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on 7 January 2015 and on a Jewish supermarket on 9 January

2015 in Paris and the attempted murder on cartoonist Lars Vilks in Copenhagen on 14 February

2015.

14

known to finance individual jihadists with connections in European countries, willing to

lead (suicide) attacks for them.45 When we take a closer look at the terrorism threat, exact

numbers of terrorist incidents are missing. Moreover, there is no commonly accepted

definition of what a terroristic attack is. We also have to take into consideration that

there is a certain degree of secrecy around the subject: not all (attempts to) terrorist

attacks are always brought to the outside. In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, several

jihadist groups have been manifesting themselves in countries which have difficulty

democratising. Since there is a fear that returnees to Europe could be traumatised and

radicalised, and most of all, that they have received training by jihadist groups with the

purpose of committing a terrorist attack,46 the growing number of foreign fighters

emphasises the growing intertwinement of internal and external security when it comes

to terrorism. The EU deals with violent extremism through the strategy of Prevent, Protect,

Pursue and Respond. Through this strategy, the EU wants to fight causes of radicalisation

by promoting democracy, dialogue and good governance.47

All in all, in the last decade is has become clear that internal security concerns have

had a notable impact on the EU's foreign and security policy. The fact is that Europe and

the rest of the world have changed drastically in those years, and that it is hard for the

European institutions and member states to keep up and adjust to the worldwide

changes. In the past ten years working with the CSDP, the EU has gained experience and

learned that fields like internal security, external security, development and justice cannot

be seen separately. The EU introduced a 'comprehensive approach', which involves

addressing the full range of crisis prevention, response and recovery by making use of all

the instruments the EU has available. In any way, Isabelle Ioannides, Senior Associate

Researcher at the Institute for European Studies, part of the Free University in Brussels,

stresses that recognition of the link between internal and external security and the

challenges that come with them is crucial for dealing with security challenges in the

future.48

45 Isabelle Ioannides, 'Inside-out and Outside-in: EU Security in the Neighbourhood', p. 119. 46 Jan Rood, Een wankele wereldorde, pp. 91-94. 47 Council of the European Union, The European Union Counter-Terrorism Strategy, 30 November

2005. 48 Isabelle Ioannides, 'Inside-out and Outside-in: EU Security in the Neighbourhood', pp. 120-

130.

15

It is also important to note, however that besides the EU, more international

organisations deal with the internal-external security nexus. The North Atlantic Treaty

Organisation (NATO) recognises the increasing intertwinement between internal and

external security as well. The difference is that the EU has profound competences when

it comes to internal security, while NATO's competences are purely military.49 Fighting

terrorism is one of NATO's main priorities. On the Chicago NATO Summit of 2012,

NATO's Policy Guidelines on Counter-Terrorism got adopted, focussing on awareness,

capacities and engagement.

Similarly, the United Nations (UN) is working with, besides its own instruments of

the Security Council, the Global Counter Terrorism Strategy. This Strategy focuses, among

other things, on fighting factors of radicalisation. Furthermore, the UN Security Council

emphasises the discouragement of paying ransom to release people who were taking

hostage, because this would benefit financing terrorism. The UN also launched the

Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF), a multilateral platform working on many

different fields countering terrorism.50

49 Jan Rood, Een wankele wereldorde, p. 7. 50 Idem, p. 99.

16

T H E I S L A M I C S TAT E A N D T H E

DA N G E R O F F O R E I G N

F I G H T E R S

INTRODUCTION

he Islamic State is often depicted by the Western media as a bloodthirsty and

violent group of radicalised extremist jihadists. Even when we look at the

Islamic State's roots - the Sunni jihadist group sprouted from al-Qa'ida Iraq

(AQI) - the violence the former uses is so extreme that al-Qa'ida itself averted from its

actions.51 Charles Lister, expert on terrorism and insurgencies in the MENA (Middle East

and North Africa) region, also emphasises this by stating "Zarqawi’s relationship with al-

Qa'ida was fraught with tension, particularly because of AQI’s brutality and mass targeting of Shia

civilians.".52 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is the founder of AQI.

It is undeniable, however, that in their perspective, IS achieved great successes in

2014. These successes came quite unexpectedly for the Western countries, and the West

only got a wakeup call when IS besieged Mosul relatively easily in June last year. Patrick

Cockburn, author, journalist and Middle East correspondent for The Independent, claims

that "the "war on terror", the waging of which has shaped the political landscape for so much of the

world since 2001, has demonstrably failed"53, and the ongoing battles and increasing violence in

the region have forced Europe to face the facts.54 The United States of America sent 300

military advisors back to Iraq in June 2014 to intervene and help the Iraqi military55 and

in early August established an international coalition to fight IS, other countries joined

51 William McCants, 'State of Confusion. ISIS' Strategy and How to Counter it', Foreign Affairs, 10

September 2010. 52 Charles Lister, Profiling the Islamic State, Brookings Doha Center Analysis Paper no. 13, Doha,

2014, p. 8. 53 Patrick Cockburn, The Jihadis Return. ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising, London, OR books, 2014,

p. 45. 54 Idem, pp. 41-45. 55 Mark Landler and Michael R. Gordon, 'U.S. to Send Up to 300 Military Advisers to Iraq', The

New York Times, 19 June 2014.

T

17

this coalition shortly after.56 One of the key motives for EU member states to join this

coalition is because the war is no longer fought in the Middle East alone. An increasing

number of young radicalised Muslims - mainly men, but also women - prepare to travel

to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State and fight in their name. These foreign fighters

are seen to pose a direct threat to Europe and their national governments: the latter fear

that after a while the fighters might return to their home countries with even more

extreme and radicalised ideas, trained to fight and use - which may or may not be - heavy

weapons and with severe mental health issues and post-traumatic stress.57 Therefore,

countries try to keep these radicalised Muslim fighters relatively safe at home. But

whether or not this actually is more safe remains to be seen: it might be that stopping

these jihadists gets them frustrated and more likely to commit a terrorist attack in their

home country, which is also instructed by IS.58

Although the foreign fighter phenomenon is not new, many national governments

were surprised to find out that not only a few, but several tens and sometimes hundreds

of people from their countries were preparing to fight in Syria and Iraq. Moreover,

teenagers and young adults seemed to radicalise surprisingly quickly: it only took several

weeks for some of them to go from not interested in jihadism or the ongoing battles of

IS at all to dedicating themselves to the jihad and prepared to die for their cause.59 The

growth of the number of foreign fighters could have several causes. Firstly, nowadays it

became relatively easy to travel to these countries. Potential jihadists already tried

travelling to countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Chechnya and other countries to

join the then jihadist fighters at the front in earlier wars in the past. However, at the time

they would often either not even make it to the intended country, or lack the right

contacts or financial and practical means to end up in training camps or in the battle

field.60 The current situation in Syria is different. In order to attract as many fighters as

possible, new jihadist battle groups do not set high requirements for foreigners, and

through modern technology, it is easier to get in contact with these groups as well. Many

56 Ashley Fantz and Michael Pearson, 'Who's doing what in the coalition battle against ISIS',

CNN, 28 February 2015. 57 Edwin Bakker, 'Nederlandse strijders in Syrië: een gevaar?', De Internationale Spectator, 67:6, 2013,

p. 6. 58 Robbert Salome and Tobias den Hartog, ''Laat jihadisten naar Syrië gaan om daar te strijden'',

Het Algemeen Dagblad, 24 October 2014. 59 Edwin Bakker, 'Nederlandse strijders in Syrië: een gevaar?', p. 3. 60 Ibidem.

18

of the foreign fighters would be used for, for example, suicide attacks or plain man-

power.61 Once a small legion of Western fighters got connected in Syria, they made it

even easier for new foreign fighters to join them, providing them with the necessary

information and help. Another reason for the increasing number of foreign fighters

might be the accessibility of the war pictures. What could be considered as a far flung

war by Westerners, is different for many Muslim communities. In many Muslim families

the war is followed closely, with dreadful images along with professionally made

propaganda from IS to join the fight entering their living rooms through foreign satellite-

television and the internet, not to mention the impact that social media has these days.

Religious incentives mixed with personal ones and peer pressure might also be cause for

the significant increase in the number of foreign fighters.62 IS cleverly seems to cultivate

the myth of unity as well: Abu Mohammed, a Dutch Muslim who decided to go fight in

Syria and Iraq, said in an interview: "The Muslim society could be seen as one body. If one part is

hurting, we are hurting as well."63

Fighters who either do not succeed in making contact with battle groups on site or

who survive the combats have to make the choice whether or not to return home. Based

on information from previous wars, it is expected that most of them do so - often

disillusioned by the poor circumstances, the fierce fights and excessive dangers they have

faced. In the last few months, discussions have arisen in Europe about these so-called

'returnees'. Security authorities assume the worst case scenarios, despite the fact that

previous returnees have hitherto seldom proceeded to committing terrorist attacks in

Europe.64 Yet, the recent events in Paris concerning the attacks at Charlie Hebdo and the

Jewish supermarket and the thwarted attack in the Belgium village of Verviers last

January and the failed attack on Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks in Copenhagen last

February prove that returnees do cause a substantial threat to European member states,

and even if only 'a very limited number' of returnees would commit such an attack, when

61 Daniel Byman and Jeremy Shapiro, Be Afraid. Be A Little Afraid: The threat of Terrorism from

Westers Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq, Policy Paper, Foreign Policy at Brookings Washington,

November 2014, pp. 5-7. 62 Edwin Bakker, 'Nederlandse strijders in Syrië: een gevaar?' pp. 1-7. 63 Martijn de Koning and Jeroen Kostense, 'Oh, Oh, Aleppo', De Groene Amsterdammer, 138:38,

accessed online. 64 Edwin Bakker, 'Nederlandse strijders in Syrië: een gevaar?' pp. 1-7.

19

it concerns an increasing amount of jihadists this might become a substantial number all

the same.65

In order to understand the situation in Syria and Iraq and the way IS has managed to

become so 'successful', I will give a brief overview of the run-up of events before

focussing on the current situation. Afterwards, I will go deeper into the supposed threat

that foreign fighters pose to the EU and its member states and what causes them to leave

their lives in Europe behind to join the Islamic State in their fight for the Islamic

caliphate. Thereat I will focus on the current discussions going on in Europe about how

to deal with radicalised Muslims.

THE EMERGENCE OF THE ISLAMIC STATE

When we scrutinise the rise of IS in Iraq, it is important to keep the basis of their belief

in mind. The ideological base of IS is salafism, a very orthodox branch of Islam. Salafists

strictly comply with the word of the Quran and, according to Robert Soeterik, am

anthropologist specialised in Iraq, they "do not make room for human logic and reason, nor do

they accept 'new' religious practises".66 They started re-examining the Quran and Sunna in the

latter half of the nineteenth century, which led them to believe that modernity was no

good. Although Salafists usually make use of modern technology, they presume modern

65 On 7 January 2014 the head office of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo got

attacked by two Islamist terrorists, armed with rifles, Kalashnikovs and other weapons. They

killed 12 people. The motive is considered to be hatred against Charlie Hebdo due to its

controversial and satirical depictions of the prophet Mohammed, which is forbidden by Islam.

The terrorists, the brothers Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, shouted "Allahu Akbar" while committing

their attack, which is Arabic for "God is the Greatest". Shortly after the attack, al-Qa'ida claimed

the responsibility. After a massive manhunt, the two offenders got shot when they held another

victim hostage. While many heads of government and (Islamic) groups condemned the attack,

several jihadist organisations were supportive of the event. Simultaneously with the hostage crisis

of the terrorists of Charlie Hebdo, another terrorist, Amedy Coulibaly, entered a kosher

supermarket elsewhere in Paris and killed four people and took several hostages. He reportedly

was in contact with the brothers Kouachi and threatened to kill more people if they were harmed.

After the police stormed the supermarket, Coulibaly got shot and fifteen people were saved. Only

a few days later, Belgian security agencies managed to thwart a terrorist attack in the city of

Verviers, a few hours before it was about to happen, and arrested the suspects. 66 Robert Soeterik, 'Irak, de Islamitische Staat en de revanche van soennitische Arabieren', De

Internationale Spectator, 68:10, 2014, p 12.

20

Western values to have a form of barbarism as result, and thus reject them.67 Salafists see

Allah as unique. The Tawhid (monotheism) is the key principle, honouring others is

considered as idolatry. The shari'a, the Islamic law, should be based solely on the Quran,

and everybody who does not obey this is seen as a sinner and should be punished.

Salafists carry out their ideology in different ways: this varies from complying to their

ideology on a personal level, to actively carrying out the ideology to others, and even the

most extreme one: aggressively forcing it onto other people through the jihad, with the

aim of creating an Islamic caliphate based on the shari'a. IS distinguishes itself from other

salafist groups by considering the need to create a territorial unit as a base for the fight in

other parts of the Islamic world, and even beyond, instead of the cause they are fighting

for. The salafists in Iraq mainly line themselves up against the Shia, who according to the

Sunni salafists reject three of the successors of the prophet Mohammed.68

In June of 2014, IS managed to make a spectacular breakthrough by capturing the city of

Mosul. Although quite unexpected to Western countries, their rise did not come out of

nowhere. The process is inseparable from the deep crisis the Iraqi politics have been

going through as a result of the fall of Saddam Hussein and his regime in 2003 and the

shift of power that followed. Three great communities play an important role here: the

Sunni, the Shia and the Kurds.69

In the name of 'The War on Terror' the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001,

not long after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Many Arabic Salafists fighting for al-Qa'ida

and the Taliban found themselves fleeing the country. In March 2003, the US invaded

Iraq, where it made an end to the Sunni regime of Saddam Hussein and defeated, among

others, the Salafist-jihadi group Ansar al-Islam. One of their members was Abu Mus'ab

al-Zarqawi. As an answer to the defeat, he set up a new jihadi organisation: al-Jama'at al-

Tawid wa al-Jihad (the Organisation for Monotheism and Jihad). This organisation swore

their allegiance to Bin Laden's al-Qa'ida and soon after changed its name to al-Qa'ida fi

Iraq (AQI). AQI would rapidly formally become one of the six branches of Bin Laden's

al-Qa'ida. Together with nationalists, supporters of the previous regime of Hussein and

67 Daniel Ungureanu, 'Wahhabism, Salafism and the Expansion of Islamic Fundamentalist

Ideology', Argumentum, Journal of the Seminar of Discursive Logic, Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric, 9:2,

2011, pp. 143-144. 68 Robert Soeterik, 'Irak, de Islamitische Staat en de revanche van soennitische Arabieren', pp. 11-

12. 69 Patrick Cockburn, The Jihadis Return. ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising, p. 9.

21

Islamic groups, AQI has been responsible for most of the violence which Iraq saw at the

time. Initially, this violence was directed at the American invaders, but later also at

supporters of the new order which got established by the Americans, and other people

related to this new order. More radical, however, were the (suicide)attacks of AQI,

committed against the Shia civilians and mosques.70

The Sunni AQI committed those attacks with the aim of provoking a sectarian

conflict between the two communities.71 The main reason for this was that after Saddam

Hussein's regime got dissolved, the Sunni had to render the power to the Shia majority in

Iraq, under the leadership of Shia Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. By provoking a

sectarian conflict, the AQI tried to persuade Sunni Arabs to join the AQI in their fight

against the Shia government. With the provoking bomb attack at one of the Shia's most

important mosques, the al-Askari-mosque, in February 2006 in Samarra, the AQI got

their wish. In his report Isis and the New Sunni Uprising, Patrick Cockburn describes the

image of Baghdad: "Many of the armed men who started appearing in the streets of Baghdad and

other Shia cities were Shia militiamen. [...] Soon dead bodies were being dumped at night. They were

stripped from their ID cards but were assumed to be Sunni victims of the militia death squads." Whole

cities and areas where Sunni and Shia used to live together peacefully got culled sectarian.

Cockburn stresses that although Shia groups reacted in kind of the Sunni attacks, most

victims were Shia.72

However, Zarqawi and his masters of al-Qa'ida did not see eye to eye about how to

reach their goals. The leaders of al-Qa'ida in Afghanistan and Pakistan did not agree with

the extent of violence used by the AQI and insisted on avoiding damage being done to

the image of jihad. Nonetheless, AQI succeeded in gaining support of other rebellious

groups in Iraq and merged with five of them in January 2006 to form Majlis Shura al-

Mujahideen (MSM). As one, they wanted to unite Iraq's jihadi insurgency and better

coordinate it. Zarqawi died in an attack by the United States in June, and got succeeded

by Abu Ayyub al-Masri as the new leader of MSM. The attack by the Americans was

supposed to defeat MSM, but instead rather strengthened the organisation. Four months

later, al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi Iraq got established, in the West better known as the Islamic

State in Iraq (ISI), with Abu Omar al-Baghdadi as its new leader. Due to a lack of any

formal pledge of allegiance of ISI to al-Qa'ida, a gradual break-up between the two

70 Charles Lister, Profiling the Islamic State, pp. 6-8. 71 Robert Soeterik, 'Irak, de Islamitische Staat en de revanche van soennitische Arabieren', pp. 9-

10. 72 Patrick Cockburn, The Jihadis Return. ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising, pp. 12-13.

22

organisations followed.73 The proclamation of a 'state' is considered to be very important

in this context. It shows that ISI was looking to control territory and establish a

government, including ministries and financial, military, political and civil duties, but also

perform 'state' functions.74 In the years that followed, ISI suffered significantly. They

intended to transform into a military-political actor, but could not win over the

communities opposing to them due to the ISI's unwillingness to compromise their

absolutist ideology. Nonetheless, by the end of 2006, ISI reached financial self-

sufficiency. Trough extortion, oil smuggling and ransoms, the jihadi organisation raised

between 70 and 200 million American dollars a year. From 2007 on, local councils,

named Sahwa, together with U.S. security forces, began to combat the territory ISI had

seized. They proved rather successful and ISI found itself under great pressure in Iraq.

With many foreign fighters leaving the country, the amount of sectarian violence

dropped significantly.75

Starting in June 2009, the United States gradually pulled back its troops in the region,

causing the Sahwa to have reduced capabilities. ISI benefited from this situation, gaining

more confidence and starting to recruit again. The organisation underwent an impressive

resurrection. One of the most important changes they made was recentralising their

leadership in Mosul, where Abu Muhammad al-Jowlani, current leader of Jabhat al-Nusra

(JaN) in Syria, became al-Baghdadi's deputy. By 2010, ISI was offering bigger salaries

than Maliki's Shia-led government, leading Sahwa militias right into their arms. Fighters

received between a few hundred and two thousand Euros a month, depending on the

position they would have.76 Besides, fighters received housing, sometimes in confiscated

homes from non-Sunnis or people who have fled the area77, and, as a form of life

insurance, ISI had a policy of continuing to pay the families of martyred fighters. The

bigger the family, the more they would receive after their beloved one had died on the

battlefield.78 Moreover, by committing well-planned attacks on prisons in order to free

73 Charles Lister, Profiling the Islamic State, pp. 6-10. 74 Idem, p. 21 75 Idem, pp. 6-10. 76 Harm Ede Botje and Abdou Bouzerda, 'De Anatomie van de Islamitische Staat', Vrij Nederland,

11 September 2014. 77 Mariam Karouny, 'Insight - In northeast Syria, Islamic State builds a government', Reuters, UK

edition, 4 September 2014. 78 Jacob N. Shapiro and Danielle F. Jung, The terrorist bureaucracy: inside the files of the Islamic State in

Iraq, The Boston Globe, 14 December 2014.

23

captured ISI leaders, the ISI managed to rebuild their leadership for a large part.79 Besides

prisons, which later would prove to be an important hearth for radicalised Muslims,

terrorist attacks were committed in many Iraqi areas.80 Charles Lister points out that by

that time ISI had become 'far more Iraqi' in terms of its membership. This had a positive

effect on the social basis and gave ISI the ability to get information from inside the Iraqi

security services.81

The Arab Spring provided a launch pad for ISI. When the revolts in the region

started in the spring of 2011, they initially looked like they were struggles for democratic

values and personal freedoms through peaceful protests. However, this changed over

time, and some of these protests got beaten down with brutal force. In this situation,

salafist jihadi organisations like ISI seized their opportunity to rise even further.82

Following up the former attacks at prisons, ISI launched new attacks to free more of

their leaders. They reached big successes, as the attack on the Tasfirat Prison in Tikrit

and the Abu Graib prison in Baghdad liberated hundreds of prisoners, including dozens

of ISI senior leaders.83 The Islamic State of Iraq had already been expanding to Shia and

Kurdish areas in the North. With the outburst of the civil war in Syria, the ISI boosted its

own organisation's base by expanding operations into that country, with which they had

links since 2003. Fighters from the Arab world were funnelled into Iraq through Syria. By

2007, the U.S. even claimed that 85 to 90% of the foreign fighters came through Syria as

well. As a result, al-Baghdadi focussed on Syria when the Arab Spring triggered a

revolution in 2011. He sent his chief of operations to Syria to establish a Syrian branch of

ISI in the country: this would become Jabhat al-Nusra (JaN). In the first year JaN

operated similarly to ISI, with civilians having to pay for that and making the jihadist

group unpopular with the Syrian opposition. Later, JaN itself claimed to have nothing to

do with either al-Qa'ida nor ISI. By the end of 2012, al-Nusra had grown into a militant

organisation of about 2,000 members and had led the Syrian opposition to some

substantial successes, transforming their reputation into a valued one in the fight against

the government. In April 2013 al-Baghdadi tried to seize the power of his subordinate

organisation, reporting in an audio statement that ISI and JaN would further exist as the

79 Charles Lister, Profiling the Islamic State, pp. 6-10. 80 Martin Chulov, 'ISIS: The inside story', The Guardian, Thursday 11 December 2014. 81 Charles Lister, Profiling the Islamic State, pp. 6-11. 82 Robert Soeterik, 'Irak, de Islamitische Staat en de revanche van soennitische Arabieren', p. 9. 83 Martin Chulov, 'ISIS: The inside story'.

24

expanded Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). However, Al-Jowlani, JaN's leader,

rejected this statement and kept al-Nusra independent.84 To gain more power in the

Syrian conflict, ISIS had to re-establish itself. The Syrian branch of ISIS began expanding

aggressively in northern and eastern areas in Syria, resulting in a war between the two

jihadist groups, and later even between ISIS and a coalition of more moderate groups.85

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, an Iraqi journalist, spoke to an Iraqi general in Ramadi who told

him that the war was only a Sunni-Shia fight on the surface. When you take a closer look,

the general claimed, there are no less than fourteen parties fighting each other, only one

of them being Shia and thirteen being Sunni.86

Nonetheless, ISIS managed to make Raqqa its capital and soon after took over power

in Fallujah and Ramadi.87 ISIS began a counter-attack against the groups fighting them,

and by this time the battles in Syria and Iraq were getting more and more interrelated.

Not only fighters and guns would increasingly cross the border, funds would also be used

for both fights. When ISIS seized the city of Mosul seemingly easy in June 2014,

followed by Tikrit soon after, the armed Sunni uprising across Iraq got another boost.

On the 29th of June, ISIS proclaimed a renewed Islamic caliphate, and at the same day it

would send videos into the world showing the demolishment of physical borders

between Syria and Iraq. Simultaneously, they changed their name into 'Islamic State' (IS).

While even Imams are not entirely sure whether ISIS was entitled to declare a caliphate,

al-Baghdadi functions as its current leader, as 'Caliph'.88

THE FIGHT AGAINST THE IS LAMIC STATE

With the established new caliphate, IS got another step closer to achieving their goal: a

sphere without national borders but with unity in the Islamic religion. The flow of

foreign fighters travelling to Syria and Iraq to join IS still did not decrease, and neither

did the crimes which IS was committing. In the last couple of months, several videos

have been published, which show IS combatants beheading captured journalists, aid-

84 Charles Lister, Profiling the Islamic State, pp. 10-14. 85 Ibidem. 86 Henriëtte van Lyndenlezing, Jihad on our Doorstep: inside the minds of jihadis in Syria and Iraq, De

Rode Hoed, Amsterdam, September 2014, 7.45'. 87 Patrick Cockburn, The Jihadis Return. ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising, pp. 16-17. 88 Charles Lister, Profiling the Islamic State, pp. 11-14.

25

workers and prisoners of war. In some of these videos the executioner is clearly

European, urging Western governments to deal with this problem even more intensively.

Being financially independent and structurally not bound to any other terrorist group

helped IS to establish themselves as the organisation they are today. Contrary to the

traditional al-Qa'ida model, they do not rely on external donors or financiers.89 By 2014,

IS generated $12 million per month, partly by illicit oil sales and efficient kidnapping for

ransom operations. However, according to Lister, this is their strength as much as their

weakness, which could be exploited.90 IS has been professionalising since 2013,

increasing the number of training camps to prepare the new accretion of foreign fighters.

By attacking on several locations on multiple occasions, IS made it extremely hard for the

Iraqi and Syrian governments to defend themselves. Moreover, IS has managed to find a

balance between the insurgent strategy and the use of fierce brutality, which made it

possible for them to become very dominant locally. Ever since al-Baghdadi took the lead

within IS, the top leadership structure has become smaller and more exclusive, making it

harder for the U.S.-led coalition to find and eliminate them. But one of the most

important factors why IS was able to grow this much was their financial capability. By

funding food provisions and fuel subsidies, IS induced tribal loyalty and popular support.

Furthermore, IS presented themselves as wealthy and successful, making it easier for

them to recruit new (foreign) fighters. They would perform para-state functions, e.g.

governing by combining municipal administration, such as police and shari'a courts, with

aid-based services. This combination led to a relative stability. The implementation of

shari'a law is one of IS' most important aim, which also caused them to impose so-called

dhimmi, a protection pact for monotheistic non-Muslims. If the latter obey to strict

regulations and pay regular poll taxes, these non-Muslims receive 'protection' under IS,

which in practice comes down to a second-class citizenship. If these groups do not agree

to pay the taxes, convert to the Islam or flee within 48 hours, IS executes them, causing

most Christians and Shia to flee the cities that IS seized. Moreover, when seizing such a

city, IS immediately takes control over the core needs of a population: electricity, water,

gas, even bakeries. They attempt to provide the same need to civilians as state-actors,

only, according to themselves, in a 'more ethical' manner.91

89 Charles Lister, Profiling the Islamic State, p. 2. 90 Idem, pp.8-16. 91 Idem, pp. 16-29.

26

In the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attack and the attack on the Jewish supermarket,

in Paris in January of last year, where one of the perpetrators was affiliated with jihadist

fights in Yemen, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry together with British Foreign

Secretary Philip Hammond organised a get together in London with 21 out of some 60

countries which joined the anti-IS coalition. According to Kerry, jihadists leaving home

to join the fight with IS would be one of the main important focuses of the day.92

Besides, various experts advocate sending troops into Syria and Iraq, rather than having

the regional powers dealing with it with Western support. In a lecture organised by the

Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, titled Jihad on our Doorstep: Inside the Minds of

Jihadis in Syria and Iraq, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, Iraqi journalist for The Guardian and born

and raised in Iraq, asserts that solely bombing from the air with F16s cannot deliver the

solution. The conflict should be regarded as a multi layered one, not just as a sectarian

insurgency between the Sunni and Shia.93 Dick Zandee, Senior Research Fellow at the

Netherlands Institute for International Relations 'Clingendael', partly agrees with Abdul-

Ahad in the sense that the real fight should be fought on the ground. The fact that this

fight is left to regional powers does not make it a hopeless cause, but it does make it a

long-term one.94 This is all complicated by the situation in Syria, where cooperating with

the Bashar al-Assad-regime is not a serious option either. In a lecture on the rise of IS,

Patrick Cockburn argues that the current situation in Syria basically means choosing

between two evils: it is either IS in power, or current dictator Assad, whose regime is also

known to be responsible for numerous innocent deaths.95 Moreover, Zandee states,

conquering IS entirely within a relatively short period of time is an illusion.96 This latter

statement is backed up by many terrorist experts97, and, among others, NATO-chef Jens

Stoltenberg advocates for more than carrying out air-strikes alone. He wants Western

countries to help reinforcing the Iraqi army in order to fight the IS extremists more

effectively.98

92 James Pheby and Nicolas Revise, 'Anti -IS coalition talks focus on jihadist threat', Yahoo News,

22 January 2015. 93 Henriëtte van Lyndenlezing, Jihad on our Doorstep: inside the minds of jihadis in Syria and Iraq, 15.20'. 94 Peter Groenendijk, 'IS uitschakelen? Het is een illusie, zegt defensiedeskundige Dick Zandee van instituut Clingendael', Het Algemeen Dagblad, 6 February 2015. 95 Patrick Cockburn and Arnold Karskens, Patrick Cockburn and the Rise of IS, Lecture, De Balie Amsterdam, 22 March 2015. 96 Peter Groenendijk, 'IS uitschakelen? Het is een illusie, zegt defensiedeskundige Dick Zandee

van instituut Clingendael'. 97 See, for example, interview with Mark Singleton at BNR Nieuwsradio, 10 February 2015. 98 ''Alleen luchtaanvallen tegen IS niet genoeg'', NOS Nieuws, 30 January 2015.

27

After a video published by IS where they burn Jordanian prisoner of war Moaz al-

Kassasbeh alive in a cage, Jordan increased its share in the U.S.-led coalition and started

bombing 56 IS targets in only three days.99 Since the start of the international coalition

against IS until the first half of January, the coalition has carried out 948 air strikes over

Iraq and 743 air strikes above Syria. According to Kerry, this killed approximately 6,000

IS combatants in Iraq and 1,200 of them in Syria. However, big territorial successes held

off: the Peshmerga (military forces of Iraqi Kurds) and the Iraqi army together had only

recaptured 1% territory from IS in Iraq. IS thus still growing, especially in Syria. Here,

they held about one third of the country.100 This did not mean IS is not pushed back at

all. On last 14 February for example, a news item stated that Kurdish fighters recaptured

over 160 villages around Kobani from IS.101 As of April 2015, much of the frontlines in

northern and central Iraq had been pushed back, losing approximately 25 to 30 percent

of the territory they once had under their control.

Figure 1: IS areas of influence as of April 2015102

99 'Jordanië bombardeert 56 IS-doelen in drie dagen', NOS Nieuws, 8 February 2015. 100 'IS verspreidt zich als een olievlek', NOS Nieuwsuur, 4 February 2015. 101 '162 villages are under YPG's control in Kobane countryside', The Only Official Website of the

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 14 February 2015. 102 U.S. Department of Defense, Iraq and Syria: ISIL’s Reduced Operating Areas as of April 2015.

28

FOREIGN FIGHTERS

As stated earlier in this chapter, the foreign fighter phenomenon is not new. However,

the number of fighters in this particular war is bigger than we have seen in other

conflicts. The increasing (sectarian) violence and the outbreak of civil wars in Syria and

Iraq motivated over 15,000 men and women from more than 90 countries around the

world103 to leave everything behind and to fight for a cause they believe in. As pointed

out, these foreign fighters pose a direct threat to their home countries as well, creating a

fear of them returning home and engaging in terrorist attacks there.104

It is not easy explaining why foreign fighters might turn into terrorists when they

return home, but researchers from the Brookings Institute in Washington, Daniel Byman

and Jeremy Shapiro, created a schematic model of foreign fighter radicalisation. The first

step is for them to decide to join a conflict, which, Byman and Shapiro argue, is more

often quite specific and local - like fighting against an oppressor - than an act or religious

commitment. The second step is travelling to the war zone and making contact with

jihadi recruitment networks, followed by step three: the training and fighting in jihadi

fields. This step is the most influential, the foreign fighters are at this point turned into

fierce fighters, gaining fighting skills and sense of immense loyalty to their comrades.

Jihadist groups often exploit foreign fighters: they use them as a way in for new

(European) funds, just for their manpower, so that they will serve as suicide bombers, or

even for ideological reasons. The fourth step Byman and Shapiro identified is returning

home, if the fighters choose to. If they succeed, they hold a certain status with their peers

at home, enabling them in their turn to recruit and radicalise new fighters. The final step

is the turning point where the returnees start to plot attacks in their home countries,

shifting their focus from their initial reason to fight abroad to events at home they

perceive as being injustices, such as insulting the Islam or being prejudiced against.105

This step worries intelligence and terrorist experts most, regarded as posing a direct

threat to the internal security of European member states.

The first visible spill over from a returnee of the war in Syria to the EU territory was

the case of 29-year-old Mehdi Nemmouche, a French citizen who walked into a Jewish

103 Charles Lister, Profiling the Islamic State, p. 34. 104 Edwin Bakker, 'Nederlandse strijders in Syrië: een gevaar?', p. 3. 105 Daniel Byman and Jeremy Shapiro, Be Afraid. Be A Little Afraid: The threat of Terrorism from

Westers Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq, pp. 5-7.

29

Museum in Brussels in May 2014 and opened fire, killing four random people. He had

spent the year prior to the act fighting in Syria. This event induced fear among many

people, including experts, that the war in Syria and Iraq would cause more of these

incidents to happen in Europe in the near future. The international coalition which is

already fighting IS, had U.S. President Barack Obama addressing the problem in the UN

Security Council, which led to the unanimous adoption of Resolution 2178.106 This

resolution entailed all UN member states to screen their borders for foreign fighters on

their way home, hereby increasing their border security and file for arrests of these

returnees. Moreover, countries are urged to take preventive measures as well, at both

national as local level.107

It is uncertain to what extent the increasing number of foreign fighters is a real

threat. Of course, the fighters who make it back home did receive combat training and

know how to use a weapon, they might be part of strong terrorist networks and return as

hardened veterans, but Byman and Shapiro claim that especially in the case of Iraq,

returned foreign fighters have proved to be less threatening to the status quo than

initially expected, and thus that this threat is easily exaggerated. They base this claim on

the fact that both the U.S. and Europe have instruments available which they have

successfully used to decrease the threat. Moreover, the researchers argue, there are

several mitigating factors, e.g. the fact that many foreign fighters die in battle or commit

suicide attacks, they choose to stay in the country they fought for, they get arrested by

intelligence services when they attempt to return home or they become disillusioned,

which causes them to not be as violent as expected when they return home. They also

demonstrate that even the previously mentioned attack in Brussels is an example of this:

the perpetrator Nemmouche had been under surveillance by French counterterrorism

officials for quite some time after his return from Syria. He probably was relatively low

on their priority list due to the fact that he acted as a lone-wolf, which makes it harder

for the officials to track such individuals, but simultaneously limits the impact of his

attack in Brussels. Moreover, despite the fact that Nemmouche picked up several combat

skills in Syria, he did not seem to know how to use these as a terrorist in Europe.108

106 UN Security Council Resolution, S/RES/2178, 24 September 2014. 107 Mark Singleton et al, Addressing the Foreign Terrorist Fighters Phenomenon from a European Union

Perspective, Global Center on Cooperative Security, Human Security Collective and the ICCT

International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, Policy Brief, December, 2014, p. 1. 108 Daniel Byman and Jeremy Shapiro, Be Afraid. Be A Little Afraid: The threat of Terrorism from

Westers Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq, pp. 1-2.

30

The reason the foreign fighter phenomenon in this particular case worries Western

Security Services more than in the past, is due to several reasons: the larger number of

fighters, the ease to travel between (Western) countries, the new motivations of the

fighters, the new networks that have been established and the use of social media.109

By late 2014, it was estimated that between 15,000 and 20,000 people from

approximately 90 foreign countries were fighting in Syria and Iraq - the European share

of this number would lie between 3,000 and 4,000 fighters, which makes a fifth out of all

foreign fighters (see: figure 2). This number increased significantly, and much more so

than the number of foreign fighters coming from neighbouring countries of Syria and

Iraq.

Figure 2: The flow of foreign fighters to Syria110

109 Idem, p. 9. 110 Swati Sharma, 'Map: How the flow of foreign fighters to Iraq and Syria has surged since

October', The Washington Post, 27 January 2015.

31

Moreover, in a news item from mid-February 2015, Nick Rasmussen, director of the

National Counterterrorism Center of the U.S., states this number is still rising.111 In the

history of armed jihadist movements, this conflict saw the fastest mobilisation in foreign

fighters in history. Western security services fear that the scale of the problem

overwhelms their resources. This is particularly a problem for small countries with a

relatively high number of foreign fighters, such as Belgium.112 Countries like this have a

comparatively small security services and will most likely face a problem catching up if

the problem gets out of hand.113 Based on data from the first decade of the 21st century,

approximately 11 percent of foreign fighters in other conflicts became an active security

threat towards the home country. In this particular case with around 3,000 foreign

fighters coming from Western Europe, this would amount to roughly 350 potential

terrorists here.114

Travelling to Syria these days is far easier than it was to other Arab countries some

time ago. Thanks to European agreements, people who travel with an EU passport do

not require a visa when entering Turkey, wherefrom foreign fighters can easily cross the

border to Syria. It being easy to vanish in the tourist flow coming from Europe,

pretending to go on holidays, fighters often leave few or even no clues of their plans to

security services. They receive help from radicalised Muslims affiliated with IS or JaN on

both sides of the 900-kilometer-long border between Syria and Turkey, making it

relatively easy.115

When we look at the motivations of these Muslims to radicalise to the extent that

they decide to leave their homes and families to join the jihad elsewhere, Shiraz Maher,

expert on radicalisation at Kings College London and Senior Research Fellow at the

International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) argues

that these motivations shifted largely over time. In the same lecture as Abdul-Ahad, he

categorises four main foreign fighter groups. Firstly, especially earlier on (by the end of

2012 and far into 2013), many people travelled to Syria for missionary causes. They

111 'Foreign fighters still flowing to Syria', Al Arabiya News, 11 February 2015. 112 Henriëtte van Lyndenlezing, Jihad on our Doorstep: inside the minds of jihadis in Syria and Iraq, 1.21.40'. 113 Daniel Byman and Jeremy Shapiro, Be Afraid. Be A Little Afraid: The threat of Terrorism from

Westers Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq, pp. 9-10. 114 Charles Lister, Profiling the Islamic State, p. 34. 115 Daniel Byman and Jeremy Shapiro, Be Afraid. Be A Little Afraid: The threat of Terrorism from

Westers Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq, pp. 10-11.

32

wanted to help the Syrian people by standing up against Assad, taking up arms if

necessary. Secondly, Maher identifies a group as 'martyrdom seekers': they intend to die

on the battlefield as soon as possible after their arrival in Syria or Iraq. These fighters

perceive this fight as a shortcut to paradise. Thirdly, there are the committed radicals,

Muslims who have been radicalised or radicalising for some time and see the war as an

opportunity to finally fight their fight. The final group is the one of adventure seekers,

the jihadis who think of the fight as thrilling or as an attempt to show their masculinity.

This group is the most susceptible to IS' propaganda, and fighting in Syria and/or Iraq is

often seen as some sort of 'jihadi summercamp', a five star jihad, trying to convince more

of their friends to come and join them.116 Dr. Pieter Nanninga, lecturer on Middle

Eastern Studies at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen adds that jihadis are not just disturbed

and indoctrinated people who are not included in our Western society: they include both

higher and lower educated people, some born Muslim, some converted to the Islam, et

cetera. The only generalisation one can make is that the biggest part of the foreign

fighters are young men, who often feel set aside and discriminated against by society and

politics. They might feel stereotyped as dangerous and untrustworthy, which causes them

to create some sort of gang mentality and turn to people who do want them around.117

In contrast with previous conflicts, the nature of this one does not include a non-

Muslim invader or anything along the same lines. Instead, the conflict is successfully

portrayed as sectarian between Sunni and Shia in order to discredit the enemy and unify

the Sunni fighters. The invasion of the U.S. does play a role, but still the sectarian

differences between Sunni and Shia are the base of the dispute. Besides, recruiters have

claimed the apocalypse is coming and the fight in Syria is the one between God and His

enemies. Even though this only speaks to a small group of people, it does demonstrate

the view that Syria is at the heart of the Arab world. A third new motive for fighters to

join the fight is to carry out how tough they are: IS' cruelties, their establishment of the

caliphate and the use of uniforms is creating some sort of brand, which appeals to

radicalised jihadis. The fact that the Western world lacks a proper counter narrative to

keep fighters at home is also a factor. Western countries are often considered quite

116 Henriëtte van Lyndenlezing, Jihad on our Doorstep: inside the minds of jihadis in Syria and Iraq,

26.00'. 117 Hinke Hamer, 'Wat bezielt de Nederlandse jihadist?', Broerstraat 5: Magazine voor alumni en relaties

van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, 29:4, 2014, pp. 8-9.

33

passive in their actions against suffering Muslims. Foreign fighters seem to be filling this

void.118

The importance of social media in the increasing number of foreign fighters is

tremendous and should not be underestimated. Years ago, all messages from jihadi

organisations were one directional, Maher explains. They issued propaganda magazines

with second hand information about fighters, calling for Muslims outside the caliphate to

take their own action. It was not possible at all to have a dialogue, contrary to modern

times where foreign fighters can easily communicate together over social media. Possible

new jihadis can talk with peers, which normalises the process of leaving everything

behind enormously. They easily get inspired and motivated. Potential jihadis can visualise

the life they will live, deviating concerns and tackling myths. All of this lowers the

barriers to become a foreign fighter.119 Young people travelling to Syria are often

between 16 and 25 years old, which is the age they are generally most active on social

media, getting in contact with recruits on site. Groups like IS are known for their striking

good skills when it comes to the use of social media.120 IS managed a very successful

Twitter-account, which got removed entirely by August 2014. Their new attempt on the

Russian website VKontakte seemed promising, but also got removed a month later.

Moreover, IS is extremely successful in acquiring large numbers of viewers. This has

partly to do with their significant content as well as with their smart use of hash tags.

During the 2014 World Cup Football, for example, they would use the hash tags

#WC2014 and #Brazil2014 to make sure their media releases on Twitter would pop up

on all related searches. The international level of their media releases only increased after

they started focussing more on English-language productions, ever since April 2014.121 I

will elaborate on all this in the next chapter.

All of this taken together, security services have good reason to be concerned. In

many EU countries, discussions have been going on about how to deal with these jihadist

fighters on Western soil. The overall tendency seems to be that returnees should be

118 Daniel Byman and Jeremy Shapiro, Be Afraid. Be A Little Afraid: The threat of Terrorism from

Westers Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq, pp. 12-13. 119 Henriëtte van Lyndenlezing, Jihad on our Doorstep: inside the minds of jihadis in Syria and Iraq,

28.17'. 120 Daniel Byman and Jeremy Shapiro, Be Afraid. Be A Little Afraid: The threat of Terrorism from

Westers Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq, p. 15. 121 Charles Lister, Profiling the Islamic Statepp. 24-25.

34

sentenced in court and go through a de-radicalisation programme with the aim of a safe

and full re-integration in western societies.122

DEALING WITH (POTENT IAL) FOREIGN FIGHTER S

In the lecture Jihad on our Doorstep, Maher concludes that it is a must that security and

intelligence agencies keep track of returned jihadists. But, he stresses, foreign fighters

have been returning from the war in Syria and Iraq for some time now, while the

agencies only started to really keep an eye on them for the last one and a half year.

According to him they are taking belated action, chasing a horse that has already ran wild.

By now, intelligence agencies see their capabilities stretched to their limits, which is cause

for concern.123 European governments have been looking into juridical ways on how to

deal with these returnees. Since the end of 2013, Dutch courts have been sentencing

jihadist to jail. Initially the convicts were jihadist in sight of intelligence agencies still in

the preparation stage: buying plane tickets, collecting money for their trip, et cetera.

Judges deemed these preparations with the aim to join the jihad prosecutable, as long as

it can be proven that the suspects were planning terrorist attacks or actively carry out and

promote the jihadist approach.124 In a very recent lawsuit of 9 February in the same

country, for example, two alleged jihadists got acquitted due to lack of proof that they

really wanted to join the jihad on the side of terrorist organisations.125

In several European countries (returned) jihadist fighters got caught in the web of

intelligence agencies. Some of them got convicted and sentenced to do jail time or are

admitted in psychological hospitals. One of the most controversial of these cases would

be the one against Sharia4Belgium in Antwerp on last 11 February. According to the

prosecution, Sharia4Belgium was actively recruiting fighters to go to Syria, and should

the organisation be considered as a terrorist one, inciting others to hatred against non-

salafist Muslims. After months of trial, Fouad Belkacem, one of the leaders of the

122 See, for example, Henriëtte van Lyndenlezing, Jihad on our Doorstep: inside the minds of jihadis in

Syria and Iraq, Rachel Briggs and Ross Frenett, Foreign Fighters, The Challenge of Counter-Narratives,

Mark Singleton et al, Addressing the foreign terrorist fighters phenomenon from a European Union Perspective

and Daniel Byman and Jeremy Shapiro, Be Afraid. Be A Little Afraid: The threat of Terrorism from

Westers Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq. 123 Henriëtte van Lyndenlezing, Jihad on our Doorstep: inside the minds of jihadis in Syria and Iraq,

1.21.46'. 124 'Eerste Syriëgangers veroordeeld', NOS Nieuws, 23 October 2013. 125 'Rechter spreekt verdachte Syriëgangers vrij', NOS Nieuws, 9 February 2015.

35

organisation got sentenced to twelve years imprisonment. Others got sentenced to fifteen

years, while fighters received some lighter punishments, i.e. a few months or years in

prison. Not all the suspects were in Belgium, some of them are still fighting in Syria,

others may not have survived their fight at the front lines.126 A striking part of the verdict

was that on the one hand Sharia4Belgium's leaders got convicted for recruiting, implying

that they did not give foreign fighters any option, while on the other hand these fighters

themselves got sentenced for actually taking the step of travelling to the Middle East and

joining the jihad, implying they did it out of free will. Only a few days earlier, on 6

February, Imran Khawaja, a 27-year-old British jihadist got sentenced to do seventeen

years of jail time for terror offences which caused him to be a 'threat to the public'.127

Besides convicting them, governments are increasingly taking more measures against

returning jihadis. Taking away passports is not uncommon, in case there is proof that a

person physically joined a known terrorist organisation. This would prevent terrorists to

return to their European home country as well as returning into the Schengen-area.128

Passports are also taken away as a precaution, when authorities fear that young

radicalised Muslims will move towards the caliphate. Yet, according to Nanninga, this

approach is 'too simple' and will not work.129 Edwin Backer, director of the Centre for

Terrorism and Counterterrorism of the University of Leiden, stresses that although

taking away passports might not be the solution to the problem, it is a strong signal to

potential fighters that they are doing something wrong.130 Moreover, governments from

the country's foreign fighters are returning to should set up compulsory de-radicalisation

programmes which returnees are forced to follow when they return home. They can be

admitted in such a programme on the grounds of them committing criminal fallacies.131

Maher points out that they could for example be pardoned for some of them in exchange

for cooperation. Governments and even intelligence agencies know too little about what

is really going on in the battle fields. Maher advocates for an opportunity to gather

126 'LETTERLIJK. Het vonnis van Sharia4Belgium-proces', De Standaard, 11 February 2015. 127 Camilla Horrox, 'Southall jihadist jailed for 17 years for terror offences', Get West London, 6

February 2015. 128 Gewelddadige jihadist verliest Nederlanderschap, Newsmessage Netherlands Ministry of Justice, 18

December 2014. 129 Hinke Hamer, 'Wat bezielt de Nederlandse jihadist?', p. 9. 130 Henriëtte van Lyndenlezing, Jihad on our Doorstep: inside the minds of jihadis in Syria and Iraq, 1.47.45'. 131 Rachel Briggs and Ross Frenett, Foreign Fighters, The Challenge of Counter-Narratives, Policy

Briefing, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2014, pp. 11-12.

36

information on this issue. Yet, these de-radicalisation programmes might only be

successful depending on who they will be delivered by and who judges whether or not

someone is de-radicalised and ready to reintegrate into society.132 Moreover, when it

comes to counter-narratives in relation to foreign fighters, they should not be perceived

as one group. Counter-narratives should be personalised according to people's needs,

characteristics and individual motivations.133 Maher emphasises the need to not see the

foreign fighters as a monolithic group: they all have different intensions and solutions to

question what to do with them when they return need to be sought as such. He also

stresses that not everyone travelling to Syria and Iraq is a terrorist or goes there with

terroristic intensions, i.e. not all of them are jihadis. This would mean that foreign

fighters returning home without having fought the jihad should be approached

differently and could perhaps support the domestic governments gaining more

information about the situation in Syria and Iraq.134

Western states could also launch counter campaigns. During the International

Summit on Countering Violent Extremism in last February at the White House in

Washington DC, the establishment of a European counter-narrative centre in Brussels

was announced by Jan Jambon, the Belgian Minister for Home Affairs. The centre will

receive €1 million seed money from the European Union and will launch campaings for

both traditional mass media and new media in order to reach as many people as

possible.135 In order to be successful, the target group, the message, the messenger and

the communication channel should carefully be taken in consideration. As we have seen,

the target group is not homogeneous. Elements that need to be taken into account are,

for example, the question of with whom the people are in contact, the background of

people and the level of education and professional experience they have, and many more.

One has to map the interests and communications on the internet of these people, which

takes time, technical know-how and sometimes even the creation of legal powers for

certain authorities. This requires sufficient funding and cooperation between several

132 Henriëtte van Lyndenlezing, Jihad on our Doorstep: inside the minds of jihadis in Syria and Iraq,

1.21.45'. 133 Rachel Briggs and Ross Frenett, Foreign Fighters, The Challenge of Counter-Narratives, p. 11. 134 Henriëtte van Lyndenlezing, Jihad on our Doorstep: inside the minds of jihadis in Syria and Iraq,

34.30'. 135 Andries Fluit, 'Brussel krijgt centrum om ontluikende jihadi's op rechte pad te brengen', De Morgen, 20 February 2015.

37

actors, which might not always be possible for smaller-scaled initiatives.136 The message

that these campaigns want to spread should be based on what extremist narrative has to

be countered. Dr. Bibi van Ginkel, senior research fellow at the Clingendael Institute and

research fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) - both in The

Hague - suggests that in order to create a message as effective as possible, it would be

necessary to have multidisciplinary input. This way, the full range of sociological,

psychological, criminological and religious elements will be included in the response. She

also argues that it is also important to consider the language in which the message will be

send to the target groups, and it would benefit the strategy to consult communication

experts, anthropologists and experts.137 A perfectly drafted message is not enough,

however. It has to be communicated by a credible messenger, yet, credibility lies in the

eye of the beholder. It depends on how much a person is trusted by a target group

whether or not the communicator is perceived as credible. For example, a counter-

narrative coming from a government authority will probably not be as effective as the

same message coming from a local imam. Various actors could play a role in distributing

the counter-narratives. This could vary between government actors, either on central of

regional level, semi-public actors, like experts and professionals, but also religious leaders

and religious associations or associations representing minority groups of migrants could

be the right actors to distribute the message. Besides these groups, role models and youth

leaders, former jihadists, victims of terrorism , educators and family members and direct

neighbours and friends to radicalised individuals could also be perceived as the most

convincing communicators.138 The final stage in the counter campaigns is to identify the

best medium of channel to communicate the message. These campaigns should be both

online and offline, using the same outlets as the target groups do themselves. For

example, to ensure high ranking in search engines, the same key words have to be used as

extremist narratives do. In order to make sure credible messengers develop the technical

skills needed to use various media outlets, proper funding is needed.139 Edwin Bakker,

argues that in a secular state, counter narratives should not come from the state, but from

parents and (Muslim) communities themselves, because the authorities are not seen as

136 Bibi van Ginkel, Responding to Cyber Jihad: Towards an Effective Counter-Narrative, ICCT Research

Paper, The Hague, March 2015, p. 9. 137 Idem, pp. 9-10. 138 Idem, pp. 10-13. 139 Idem, p. 14.

38

credible partner and states should remain neutral.140 On the other hand, Maher does

advocate counter-narratives, arguing that seeds of doubt can be sown in the minds of

potential fighters by making them aware that the rebel groups are most of the time

fighting each other, and that they will most probably be fighting for the cause they have

in mind.141

Other measures that have been taken in several Western countries are for example

telephone hotlines for people who see their friend or relative radicalise, but do not know

how to deal with this. Through these hotlines, people get instant counselling and

support. The way these hotlines are designed differs per country, though. In some

countries, the hotlines are government-led, alerting security agencies and law

enforcement right away, while in other countries the hotlines are run by society. Besides

hotlines, an increasing number of countries starts to recognise the need for support

programmes for families and communities, since many fighters who get recruited are still

very young and living with their parents. Many of these parents or community members

lack the skills and knowledge to prevent their child or peer to radicalise. The role of

women in households should not be underestimated either: as mothers or primary

caretakers, they tend to spend more time with young adolescents than their fathers,

having a strong influence over them.142 Due to three girls from London running away

and travelling to Syria to join IS by themselves, British Prime-Minister David Cameron

together with Theresa May, Home Secretary and Patrick McLoughlin, Transport

Secretary, advocate for new "proportionate" arrangements. This means that airlines

receive the power to refuse suspicious individuals to board. The border police will be

alerted in case of any concerns, and can, if needed, stop individuals from travelling

further.143 The girls never made it to Syria, but were arrested in Turkey and sent back to

the UK, where they were arrested by counter-terrorism officers.144

140 Henriëtte van Lyndenlezing, Jihad on our Doorstep: inside the minds of jihadis in Syria and Iraq, 1.48.32'. 141 Idem, 1.47.00'. 142 Rachel Briggs Obe and Tanya Silverman, Western Foreign Fighters. Innovations in Responding to the

Threat, Research Paper,Institute for Strategic Dialogue, December 2014, pp. 40-48. 143 Alexandra Topping et al, ''Syria-bound' teenagers: airlines must do more, says David

Cameron', The Guardian, 23 February 2015. 144 'Syria-bound UK teens stopped in Turkey released on bail', BBC news, 16 March 2015.

39

I S L A M I C S TAT E A N D T H E

M E D I A

INTRODUCTION

y many, media are seen as very powerful and influencial. Former Prime

Minister of the United Kingdom Margaret Thatcher said in a speech she gave

at the American Bar Association in 1985 that "media is like oxygen to terrorists",145

meaning that the latter need the media in order to achieve their goals. The extent of how

much the media influences people's opinions should not be underestimated, although it

is hardly an exact science. Over the past decades, the influence the media have has

increased enormously, due to easier access to radio and television, but also because of the

invention of the internet and the introduction of cell phones. In this study we will find

both external and internal sides of the story from the Western point of view: externally

we see the Islamic State increasingly using media, especially social media, for their

propaganda and internally both mass media and social media reporting on the actions of

IS and events concerning them.

Generally, terrorists are fully aware of the influence media has on the public. Already

in 1977, terrorism expert Walter Laqueur found that "The success of a terrorist operation

depends almost entirely on the amount of publicity it receives."146 Terrorist organisations and the

media have a mutually beneficial relationship, events in the last couple of years show.

Perpetrators make use of the media to maximise their operational efficiency, recruit

fighters, raise funds, gather information and propagate their believes. But there is also the

other side of it: by reporting on these terroristic attacks the media receives huge attention

of the public. This attention is needed for the existence of the media, big audiences and

record sales. Thus, while terrorist organisations need the media to communicate their

attacks to have any effects at all, at the same time the media has to report this in such a

145 Margaret Thatcher, Speech to American Bar Association, Albert Hall, London, 15 July 1985,

available at: http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106096, last visited 12 June 2015. 146 Walter Laqueur, Terrorism, Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1977, p. 109.

B

40

way the public is eager to obtain information about this.147 It does not make sense that

terrorists fly planes into buildings or cut off people's heads on camera just because they

like to kill people as cruel as possible. An important motive for them to do such a thing

is to receive the attention in world media. Although journalists are supposed to report

the news as objectively and accurately as possible, by covering on these kind of events

continuously the way they do today, they play right in the hands of terrorist

organisations. Laqueur stated in his book The New Terrorism that it has been said that

"journalists are terrorists best friends" because of their willingness to give terrorists maximum

exposure - because it sells.148 Besides attention, terrorist organisations use the media to

obtain recognition and legitimacy. However, there is a psychological interaction between

the two parties as well: when terrorists demoralise their enemies, like governments, they

demonstrate their strength, create fear, spread chaos and gain sympathy all at once, which

they can use in their advantage.149 Brigitte Nacos, journalist and political scientist working

at Columbia University, combines all these aspects into a comprehensive framework and

argues terrorist organisations have four main objectives regarding the media when they

commit, or at least threaten to commit, violence. She argues that, firstly, terrorist

organisations want to gain attention and raise awareness among the audience to create

fear in the target population. Secondly, when it comes to recognition, terrorists want the

public to think about why they carry out their attacks. Thirdly, terrorists usually carry out

their attacks in the name of bigger organisations. By having it largely reported in the

media they attempt to gain their respect and sympathy. Finally, Nacos argues, the

terrorists try to get treated similarly as legitimate political actors and thus gain some sort

of legitimate status.150 This being said, these objectives might be different for each

terrorist organisation and vary in importance.151

It might be easier to answer the question why the media is using terrorists. To put it

very simply: it sells. Of course the answer is a bit more nuanced than that: journalists

might have a special interest in the matter themselves. Besides, no matter how you look

147 Arda Bilgen, Terrorism and the Media: A Vicious and Dangerous Symbiosis, published online, 22 July

2012. 148 John W. Whitehead, Terrorism and the Media: A Symbiotic Relationship, Commentary, The

Rutherford Institute, 18 April 2013. 149 Ibidem. 150 Brigitte Nacos, Mass-Mediated Terrorism: The Central Role of the Media in Terrorism and

Counterterrorism, Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 2007, p. 20. 151 Transnational Security, Terrorism and the Rule of Law, Terrorism and the Media, Deliverable 6,

Workpackage 4, 23 July 2008, p. 6.

41

at it, terrorism should be covered, so they have a certain social responsibility as well. Still,

the main objective seems to be that the public is fascinated by the subject. And much like

terrorists, journalists need a public to exist. A well-known saying in the media business is

'If it bleeds, it leads', which is made clear by the striking difference in media coverage

when, for example, the threat alert level is raised (much attention in the media) compared

to when it is lowered (little attention - if any). The public craves drama, shock and

tragedy. Terrorism seems to fulfil these cravings.152

Terrorist participation in the media can be divided in several levels: the first one

being the media reporting on terrorist activity, where the terrorist themselves cannot

carry out any influence on what the media reports. The second level is when terrorists

make their own messages and send them directly to media outlets. This way they can

frame the messages the way they want, but the media functions as a 'gatekeeper' and gets

to make final decisions on what and how to publish, whether they make cuts in the

message or add any messages of their own. The third level of terrorist participation in the

media is when they have full control of the media outlet and they have the final word on

what message they broadcast and how. Terrorists achieve this level of participation by

forcing the media to report on something, but it is not uncommon for them either to

start their own media outlets either. This is made especially easy for them with the

introduction of the internet.153 The audience terrorists have on the internet is much

bigger than the number of followers they had using traditional media outlets.

Furthermore, it is relatively easy to stay anonymous, it is fast, cheap and combines texts,

videos, graphics and much more. Terrorist organisations can easily launch their own

websites for their propaganda, framing their messages any way they want to.154

In this chapter I will give an overview of how IS uses the media to their advantage, with a

special focus on social media. By scrutinising the different online platforms, it will

become more clear on how IS got to be so successful recruiting funds and fighters

online.

152 Transnational Security, Terrorism and the Rule of Law, Terrorism and the Media, pp. 13-16. 153 Idem, pp. 18-19. 154 Idem, pp. 19-22.

42

HOW THE ISLAMIC STAT E USES THE MEDIA

Even though we have already seen that IS reacts against everything 'modern', they seem

to be both able and very willing to use the media, especially social media, in their favour.

Besides the four main objectives defined by Nacos referred to earlier, IS seems to have

two other key objectives: the first one being to provoke the United States and their allies,

while at the same time trying to recruit new foreign fighters to fight for their Shari'a

regime in the caliphate.155

According to Fawaz Gerges, al-Qua'ida found the use of media already extremely

important. Many within the terrorist organisation claimed that late Osama Bin Laden was

"obsessed" with the international media, that he had "caught the disease of screens,

flashes, fans and applause" and that he was a "publicity hound". Moreover, al-Zawahiri

would have said that "[m]ore than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the

media.".156 Terrorists using online platforms is not new either: especially after the attacks

on the U.S. on 9/11 and the following anti-terrorism campaign, many terrorist groups

turned to the internet where they established thousands of websites which would

promote their messages and activities. Due to the fact that intelligence services and law

enforcement agencies attacked some of these websites, many terrorist organisations

turned to social media, and with good reason: this kind of media is by far the most

popular with their target audience, which makes the terrorist groups part of the

mainstream. Moreover, the use of social media is generally free, reliable and user-friendly,

and it makes it possible for terrorist organisations to approach people themselves, instead

of having to wait for people to come to them.157

Even though the terrorist organisations have recognised the importance of the media

already years ago, the sophistication that IS uses in media outreach is new. About a

decade ago, Bin Laden was still recording fuzzy videos with an average camcorder, but by

now IS is competing with western news channels, reality shows, even Hollywood movies

and music videos. They make smart use of social media outlets such as YouTube,

Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and many more, and they create their own internet memes

155 Steve Rose, 'The ISIS propaganda war: a hi-tech media jihad', The Guardian, 7 October 2014. 156 Fawaz A. Gerges, The Far Enemy, Why Jihad Went Global, New York: Cambridge University

Press, 2005, 194-197. 157 Gabriel Weimann, New Terrorism and New Media, Washington, DC: Commons Lab of the

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2014, pp. 2-3.

43

under, for example, #catsofjihad. A striking example of their propaganda is a recruitment

video which appeared on YouTube, created out of edited footage from the popular

videogame Grand Theft Auto. IS claimed to "undertake the same actions in the

battlefield!".158 While the Vietnam war is known as being the first "television war", the

conflict with IS is getting increasingly known as the first social media war - the Twitter

jihad.159

(YOUTUBE) VIDEOS

YouTube is an online archive for sharing video content, established in 2005. According

to their own data, over 1 billion users watch around 6 billion hours of video on average a

month. Every minute, approximately one hundred new hours of video are uploaded.

Therefore, it is not surprising that this platform has become significant for jihadist

groups and their supporters. Through uploading videos on YouTube, they can easily

communicate, propagandise and recruit. By being able to comment on videos and

sending private messages to users it becomes possible for jihadists to identify each other,

which results in a lively jihadist virtual community. Like other social media websites,

YouTube forbids videos with any content that could be considered incitement to

violence, and therefore removes videos from radical groups regularly. However, many

videos still remain available, and terrorist organisations keep on uploading their

propaganda.160

To meet their objectives of provoking the U.S. and other western governments is

probably the reason IS recorded and broadcasted videos of, among others, James Foley,

Steven Sotloff, David Haines, John Cantlie and Alan Henning. In the first videos some

media outlets argued that they were forced to warn Western governments not to

intervene, and condemn them.161 The hostages are shown wearing orange jump suits,

similar to the well-known jump suits prisoners in Guantanamo Bay used to wear. This is

not a coincidence, IS seems to have thought this through and want to make a statement

158 Steve Rose, 'The ISIS propaganda war: a hi-tech media jihad'. 159 Debora Richards, 'The Twitter jihad: ISIS insurgents in Iraq, Syria using social media to recruit

fighters, promote violence', ABC News Australia, 20 June 2014. 160 Gabriel Weimann, New Terrorism and New Media, pp. 10-13, 161 Steve Rose, 'The ISIS propaganda war: a hi-tech media jihad'.

44

with this: We can do the same thing you did to us.162 Notable is how these films are

made: IS makes use of common techniques used in television interviews and

documentaries, which requires either several takes or several cameras. Furthermore, some

videos end with the hostages saying "Join me for the next programme", as some sort of

cliff hanger to keep viewers stay tuned.163

IS succeeded in provoking the Western powers to such an extent that they returned

into battle in the region. It got the recognition that they were considered as a big threat,

and counter measures against them should be taken. IS made smart use of the U.S. air

strikes against them, claiming that yet again the U.S. got involved in a conflict they could

not win - linking President Obama to the military strategies of George W. Bush, which

are widely discredited.164 At the same time, these same Western countries have been

having the hardest time keeping radicalised Muslims from travelling to the caliphate to

join the fight with IS. In some published videos, you can clearly hear French, British and

German voices coming from the Islamic fighters. IS seems to have thought this footage

through as well: this creates fear for retaliation within the western countries.165 One of

the most famous foreign fighters is probably 'Jihadi John'. In August 2014, Jihadi John

appeared in the beheadings video of James Foley, demanding that the U.S. would cease

their fight in Iraq.166 It shocked the West that he was speaking with a British accent.

Afterwards, Jihadi John appeared in several more videos, building quite a reputation. He

was part of a British group guarding IS hostages, known as "The Beatles" - this is how he

got his nickname.167 In February 2015, Jihadi John finally got identified as Mohammed

Emwazi, a British man in his twenties, who grew up in London.168 The video of the

beheadings of James Foley and Steven Sotloff were uploaded by IS on YouTube, but got

removed quickly by the latter.

162 Peter Busch, 'How will ISIS use media in the war provoked?', Special for CNN, 26 September

2014. 163 Steve Rose, 'The ISIS propaganda war: a hi-tech media jihad'. 164 Peter Busch, 'How will ISIS use media in the war provoked?'. 165 Ibidem. 166 Martin Robinson et al, ''I know ISIS butcher known as John the Jailer': French former hostage

says he has a 'rough' idea who masked British jihadi is', Mail Online, 20 August 2014. 167 ''Klik. Klik. Klik. Het was een schijnexecutie'', NOS op 3, 16 March 2015. 168 Michael Holden and Stephen Addison, ''Jihadi John' Reportedly Identified As Mohammed

Emwazi', The World Post - A Partnership of the Huffington Post and Berggruen Institute, 26 February

2015.

45

AL HAYAT MEDIA CENTE R

IS launched several media centres, one of the most important ones would be "Al Hayat

Media Center". This outlet is focussing specifically on non-Arabic speakers and young

viewers. It broadcasts programmes in several languages and looks nothing like anything

else Islamic extremist have produced earlier. Al Hayat Media Center offers a wide range

of programmes. On the one hand they broadcast 'perfect and paradise-like' images of

several occupied cities, with IS fighters stating how happy they are to be there, children

playing in the streets and IS handing out ice cream to the children.169 One way IS is

broadcasting this image is through Mujatweets, on YouTube. In these short episodes, we

can see foreign fighters singing, militants playing games and people saying how good life

is now that IS took control. In later episodes, however, radicalised Muslims were

summoned to come to the caliphate in search of shahada, martyrdom. This episode was

recorded in German and broadcasted with English subtitles.170

On the other hand, Al Hayat Media also broadcasts documentaries such as 'Flames of

War', which highlights IS' heroism with horrific images of roadside bombings,

executions, corpses and so on. In this documentary, the narrator is speaking English as

well.171 The variation in broadcasts is needed, since only focussing on one aspect will lose

its impact over time.172 Practically all scenes are treated by, for example, saturating the

colours or showing explosions in slow motion. Using these effects improves the sense of

importance and filters out the horrors and violence. Furthermore, it creates unity among

the different sources which create footage. According to professional film-makers, IS

uses standard equipment, but the makers obviously have some competences. As Steve

Rose puts it in his article in The Guardian: "The ISIS regime might have outlawed music, singing,

smoking and drinking alcohol, but it clearly embraces Final Cut Pro".173 Noteworthy is also the

absence of atrocities committed by IS in their propaganda. There is very little proof of

abductions, whippings, rapes, demolishment of mosques and statues, crucifixions, and so

on. Women are hardly even mentioned at all. Also, it is quite possible that a lot of the

169 Steve Rose, 'The ISIS propaganda war: a hi-tech media jihad'. 170Hashtag Terror: How ISIS Manipulates Social Media, Anti Defamation League, 11 July 2014. 171 Steve Rose, "The ISIS propaganda war: a hi-tech media jihad. 172 Peter Busch, 'How will ISIS use media in the war provoked?'. 173 Steve Rose, 'The ISIS propaganda war: a hi-tech media jihad'.

46

image IS is depicting is not real. There have been some known distortion of the facts in

broadcasts already.174

FACEBOOK

Facebook is the largest online social network that exists. In January 2014, it had 1,31

billion registered users, with around 54 percent logging in regularly and around 48

percent logging in arbitrarily. Facebook is the perfect medium for jihadists to actively

approach and recruit people.175 The U.S. Department of Homeland Security conducted a

research on terrorist uses of Facebook, and reports four different uses:

1. A way to share operational and tactical information (e.g. bomb recipes, weapon

maintenance);

2. A gateway to extremist websites and other radical content by linking on Facebook

group pages;

3. As a media outlet for terrorist propaganda and extremist ideological messaging;

4. As a wealth of information for remote reconnaissance for targeting purposes.176

As we have already seen, IS attempts to recruit new funds and fighters by often depicting

themselves as a goodwill organisation. Many social media outlets maintained by IS

distribute the images of fighters playing with children or performing social services.

Furthermore, foreign fighters have been known to appear in video footage, for example

engaged in a snowball fight with fellow combatants stating (often in English, German of

French) things like "See how much fun we have in Syria? That is jihad, jihad is fun. Come

on, we invite you too".177 Propaganda also comes from fighters themselves, uploading

status updates, often accompanied with pictures. One example is a photo of a foreign

fighter from Australia with grenades, mortars and other armoury with the caption "Feel

like a kid in a candy store... so excited!".178 Other Syrian recruits uploaded photos of

themselves in fancy houses, some even with swimming pools: the jihad has its material

upsides, the so-called 'five star jihad'. Fighters would try to persuade their friends from

174 Steve Rose, 'The ISIS propaganda war: a hi-tech media jihad'. 175 Gabriel Weimann, New Terrorism and New Media, pp. 4-6. 176 Department of Homeland Security, 'Terrorist Use of Social Networking Facebook Case

Study', Public Intelligence, 5 December 2010. 177Hashtag Terror: How ISIS Manipulates Social Media, Anti Defamation League. 178 Debora Richards, The Twitter jihad: ISIS insurgents in Iraq, Syria using social media to recruit fighters, promote violence.

47

home to come and join them too, they would basically play the role of cheerleaders. Yet,

by analysing social media profiles nowadays, this trend has gotten less, probably because

this attracted the wrong kind of people. By now, the message is more nuanced: people

should only join IS if they are willing to fight and prepared to die for their cause.179

Peter Grol, Daan Weggemans and Edwin Bakker carried out an analysis of eleven

Facebook accounts of fighters from the Netherlands and Belgium who went to Syria or

Iraq to fight. 18 Percent of the topics they spoke about on their profiles were about

glorifying the jihad, often raising a romantic image highlighting the religious side of the

fighters. An example of this is a picture of a fighter who laid down his guns and was

reading the Quran against a tree - while wearing a balaclava. Furthermore, many accounts

included posts about martyrdom concerning people close to them.180

On several other Facebook pages, it was even possible to buy t-shirts and hoodies

with the blazon of IS, for only a few Euros. They were sold by an Indonesia-based

company named Zira Moslem Merch. A number of Facebook pages were shut down,

though new ones were established quickly after. Although unknown whether IS had

anything to do with this or was making any money out of this merchandise, it is another

example of how easily and quickly messages spread through the internet, and how much

support IS receives.181

TWITTER

Twitter, a free micro-blogging service where people can send 'tweets' with a maximum

length 140 characters, is still getting increasingly popular. According to Gabriel

Weimann, by mid-2013 there were approximately 554,750,000 Twitter users, tweeting

around 9,100 messages every second which relates to 58 million tweets per day, and that

number is still growing. Contrary to a platform such as Facebook, about 72 percent of

Twitter's members are momentary, occasional users.182

179 Debora Richards, The Twitter jihad: ISIS insurgents in Iraq, Syria using social media to recruit fighters,

promote violence. 180 Peter Grol, Daan Weggemans and Edwin Bakker, 'De leefwereld en denkbeelden van

Nederlandse & Belgische Syriëgangers: een analyse van elf Facebook-accounts', De Internationale

Spectator, 68:12, 2014, pp. 16-17. 181 Sara C. Nelson, 'ISIS T-Shirts & Hoodies Available To Buy Online', The Huffington Post, 24

June 2014. 182 Gabriel Weimann, New Terrorism and New Media, p. 8.

48

Among terrorists, Twitter has become the most favoured internet service. It is

frequently used to distribute propaganda and enable contact between jihadists. Terrorists

seem to use Twitter to almost real-time cover their actions, sacrificing validation and in-

depth analysis. However, since this is a rising trend, mainstream media is taking these

tweets increasingly as legitimate news sources. At the same time, terrorist know how to

exploit this in favour of their propaganda. Twitter can be used to communicate with

sympathisers, but also for practical communication, for example by using the real-time

function to exchange urgent communications.183

Although IS seems fluent in most outlets of social media, Twitter is the most important

one and most used. They are able to share their views with incredible speed around the

world, and even have supporters elsewhere taking part in that process. With this support,

IS is able to increase the reach and influence of their messages simultaneously.

Furthermore, by launching Twitter profiles it is relatively easy to stay anonymous. And

even though these profiles are often shut down by Twitter, new ones are easily

established. After the movie of the beheading of James Foley appeared on social media,

Twitter got even more active on removing IS and pro-IS accounts. However, IS seems to

be able to quickly reinstate their profiles.184

The Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings Institution recently carried out a big

research about the population of IS supporters on Twitter.185 Researchers estimate that in

the period of 4 October until 27 November, there were at least 46,000 Twitter accounts

supporting IS. This does not include accounts suspended or created during the time of

data collection. Out of these accounts, 20,000 were identified, of which more than 93

percent were probably IS supporters. These 20,000 accounts were used for the analysis.

The research shows that most of IS' followers were located in Syria and Iraq themselves,

followed by Saudi Arabia. Arabic was set as the language for 73% of them, followed by

English (18 percent) and French (6 percent), although many users tweeted in more than

one language.186 IS is able to reach this many people because of, among other things, the

use of bots: computer controlled accounts which post and 'retweet' automatically. The

183 Gabriel Weimann, New Terrorism and New Media, pp. 8-9. 184 Hashtag Terror: How ISIS Manipulates Social Media, Anti Defamation League. 185 J.M. Berger and Jonathon Morgan, The ISIS Twitter Census. Defining and describing the population of ISIS supporters on Twitter, The Brookings Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World, Analysis Paper No. 20, March 2015. 186 Idem, pp. 1-12.

49

number of newly created Twitter accounts grew explosively in September 2014, which is

no coincidence: this is around the same time Twitter became more aggressive with their

policy against IS accounts and those of their supporters. That also explains the relatively

small number of followers these profiles have: 73 percent of the accounts had less than

500 followers, and only 4 percent more than 5,000. However, while these numbers are

low compared to celebrities or politicians, they are relatively high for average users.187 It

remains to be seen whether or not shutting down the accounts helps: new profiles are

established in only a few moments. However, according to Berger, one of the

researchers, "you can never get rid of weed, but that does not mean you shouldn't control it either".188

On Twitter, IS launches hashtag campaigns by encouraging their supporters, which

are often active in several languages and on various platforms such as Facebook,

Instagram and Tumblr, to keep on retweeting with several hashtags such as

#AllEyesOnISIS or #CalamityWillBefallUS. The latter was brought to life in June 2014,

when IS and the U.S. resumed fighting in Iraq. IS launched a media campaign against the

U.S., called "Warning to the American people", where official IS Twitter accounts

encouraged their followers and supporters to post threats against the U.S. on social

media using this hashtag. Later the hashtag #AMessagefromISIStoUS was added to these

threats. The aim of using these hashtags is to make these topics trending, which increases

the visibility of tweets containing the message of IS.189

Another way IS uses to attract attention is spreading their message with hashtags

which are already trending, such as #worldcup. This way IS messages and videos popped

up in the screen of anyone following the football events in Brazil, in the summer of last

year.190 An example of this took place on 14 June of last year, when the highlight pictures

and discussions about the scores were mixed with shocking images of ISIS fighters

executing hundreds of unarmed Iraqis and committing other atrocities.191

Besides all these strategies, IS has also created an English-language magazine on

Twitter, called 'the Islamic State Report'. In first instance this magazine featured

187 J.M. Berger and Jonathon Morgan, The ISIS Twitter Census. Defining and describing the population of

ISIS supporters on Twitter, The Brookings Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World,

Analysis Paper No. 20, March 2015., pp. 27-30. 188 Irene de Zwaan, '45.000 accounts in een paar maanden: zo groeit IS op Twitter', De

Volkskrant, 28 januari 2015. 189 Hashtag Terror: How ISIS Manipulates Social Media, Anti Defamation League. 190 Debora Richards, The Twitter jihad: ISIS insurgents in Iraq, Syria using social media to recruit fighters,

promote violence. 191 Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger, ISIS. The State of Terror, London, William Collins, 2015, p. 147.

50

headlines and quotes from the Quran, with here and there a short essay about IS'

greatness. Later, the magazine also included news items of fighters bragging about their

killings and information about, for example, implementing shari'a law in relation to giving

charity and raising taxes. As well as the Islamic State Report, a second English-language

magazine called 'Dabiq' was issued in July 2014. This magazine includes more

philosophical justifications for IS and its ideology, and urges supporters to pledge

allegiance to their Caliph, al-Baghdadi.192

Another way IS uses to get his messages out to the world, is through a self-designed

Twitter application (app). This app is said to be designed by a Palestinian web developer,

graphic designer and programmer, associated with many websites and social media

accounts under a variety of names and aliases. His name was never made public, but it is

said that he was heavily and officially involved with IS. In April of 2014, he created an

app called "Fajr al-Bashaer", which translates into "Dawn of Glad Tidings", devoted

exclusively to IS. It had two components, the first being an Android app which would let

people read headlines from several officially sanctioned IS news feeds. The app could

collect users data, e.g. the used phone number and data from platforms the user was

logged in at, and this way reveal where the user of "Dawn of Glad Tidings" was at when

using it. The app also served advertising, an easy way for IS to have their funds grow.

Besides only reading these stories on their phones, users were able to directly share them

on Twitter. This brings us to the second component of the app: a computer code which

could take full control of a users account to automatically send out tweets (the user had

to consent to this, though). IS supporters could this way set up accounts which would

tweet only content sent out by the person running the code.193 This way, these profiles

became IS propaganda outlets as well.194 The app was available for downloaded by

everyone in the Google Play Store.195 Furthermore, prominent IS members and

supporters downloaded the app and endorsed it officially as an official and trusted source

of news.196 At its peak, the app was sending hundreds of tweets timed smartly to avoid

raising red flags with Twitters automatic anti-spam sensors. This implies around six or

seven major broadcasts per day, highlighting few official IS propaganda releases such as

192 Hashtag Terror: How ISIS Manipulates Social Media, Anti Defamation League. 193 Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger, ISIS. The State of Terror, pp. 148-149. 194 Hashtag Terror: How ISIS Manipulates Social Media, Anti Defamation League. 195 Mustapha Ajbaili, 'How ISIS conquered social media', Al Arabiya News, 24 June 2014. 196 Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger, ISIS. The State of Terror, p. 149.

51

videos and photos. The releases would even be promoted before actually being

broadcasted, proving the connection to the core of IS. In June 2014, both Google and

Twitter suspended the app.197

By generating computer codes known as bots, usually designed to perform repetitive

tasks, it is possible to create Twitter accounts which tweet systematically. These newly

created bots mostly tweeted in English, and by December 2014 thousands of bots were

operational. In order to not get detected, they were created in small to medium sized

clusters, and not trying to attract new users. These bots mostly tweeted links to official IS

releases, such as the beheadings of Westerners or the propaganda video "Flames of War",

seemingly creating broad support for IS on Twitter.198

In March, IS even launched its own social network, named 'Kalifabook'. By creating their

own medium, jihadists attempted to get around rules of Western media outlets.

According to the German newspaper Bild, the social platform was created for jihadists to

keep mutual contact, but also to recruit new fighters.199 The look of Kalifabook would be

very similar to that of Facebook in order to create trust, since many people are familiar

with the latter. The flag of IS was pictured on its homepage. The website has only been

online for three days, although it is not entirely clear by whom and why it is shut down.200

According to Peter Neumann, director of the International Centre for Radicalisation

and Political Violence at King's College London, the war in Syria and Iraq is one of the

most documented ones in history, because of the use of social media. He states that it

becomes possible to follow events in real life because many fighters, both from the

Middle East and from the West, are tweeting as they fight.201 Besides the effects we have

already seen this has, the media prominence of IS also encourages other groups to adopt

this media strategy as well. One example is the video of the beheading of French

mountain guide Herve Gourdel. This video was recently posted by the IS affiliates in

Algeria.202

Although Islamic State seems to be successful with their propaganda and use of the

media, they could be overestimating themselves and lose the propaganda war after all.

197 Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger, ISIS. The State of Terror, pp. 149-150. 198 Idem, pp. 150-151. 199 'ISIS launcht eigenes soziales Netzwerk', Bild, 8 March 2015. 200 'IS lanceert eigen sociale netwerk', De Volkskrant, 8 March 2015. 201 Debora Richards, The Twitter jihad: ISIS insurgents in Iraq, Syria using social media to recruit fighters,

promote violence. 202 Peter Busch, 'How will ISIS use media in the war provoked?'.

52

The broadcasts of the beheadings of the previously mentioned victims and more recently

the burning alive of the Jordanian prisoner of war was condemned all over the world.

The fact that IS executed these men, despite the pleas from their loved ones to spare

their lives, gave them, at least to some extent, the reputation of being inhumane and even

un-Islamic.203

RESPONDING TO CYBER JIHAD

In Bibi van Ginkel's recently published research paper Responding to Cyber Jihad: Towards an

Effective Counter-Narrative, in which she analyses the role of the internet and social media

in the process of radicalisation and gives suggestions on how to counter this,204 she states

that repressive measures, such as taking down websites or profiles, often have a limited

effect, due to the fact that it is easy to set up new ones. Instead, she suggests four

different categories of strategic communication to counter cyber jihad with soft measures

by using counter-narratives or counter-propaganda. The first category concerns public

information campaign regarding Western positions in conflict zones. This involves, for

example, explaining foreign policy positions when it comes to sensitive topics or

government authorities sharing factsheets with regular media desks. The second category

concerns the alternative narrative, where the narrative of the extremists is being

challenged.205 This counter-narrative is also suggested by Briggs and Frenett, who

advocate for identifying authentic voices, such as former fighters calling for others to stay

home, to tell their stories in their own words to avoid heavy messaging.206 The third

counter-narrative includes for example responding to misrepresentations of facts and

showing committed atrocities and is aimed more directly at countering the stream of

extremist messages. These narratives should thus be responsive to events. The final

category Van Ginkel identifies is the role of the regular media. Terrorists use the media

just as well as other platforms to spread their message, which as a result often spreads

fear along with it. As we have already seen, the press has the responsibility to report as

objective and independent as possible, being a dilemma for the mass media between

203 Steve Rose, 'The ISIS propaganda war: a hi-tech media jihad'. 204 Bibi van Ginkel, Responding to Cyber Jihad: Towards an Effective Counter-Narrative, ICCT Research

Paper, The Hague, March 2015. 205 Idem, pp. 4-6. 206 Rachel Briggs and Ross Frenett, Policy Briefing: Foreign Fighters, The Challenge of Counter-Narratives,

p. 12.

53

bringing the news and being used as a platform by jihadist organisations. A solution

could be to bring the news in alternative ways, for example by 'telling not showing'.

People who do want to view images or video footage about the news can look it up

themselves on the internet. Van Ginkel also claims that mass media has a role in playing

into a narrative of prejudice against and discrimination of certain minorities by framing

their messages.207

207 Bibi van Ginkel, Responding to Cyber Jihad: Towards an Effective Counter-Narrative, pp. 6-8.

54

C A S E S T U DY:

M E D I A D I S C O U R S E O N T H E

I S L A M I C S TAT E I N

T H E U N I T E D K I N G D O M A N D

T H E N E T H E R L A N D S

INTRODUCTION

eing aware of how IS uses the media, the question remains how the reports and

broadcasts from Western media outlets influence the Western public discourse.

The enormous number of news items on IS worldwide must create some kind

of image among the public. Western media frame their items in a certain way, just as

much as terrorists do. Since the relationship between the media and terrorists got

explained extensively in the introduction of the previous chapter, I will not elaborate on

this symbioses further.

In this chapter, I will do case studies on the Netherlands and the United Kingdom on

how the media influences the public discourse on IS. I have chosen the Netherlands

mainly out of my own interest, being born and raised there, which as a result also causes

me to be most familiar with the Dutch context. I have chosen the UK because of their

relatively high number of foreign fighters, which makes the discussions about IS

especially relevant there, and their often specific ideas about political issues, due to their

more isolated position in Europe. Also, language played an important role in my

decision: besides Dutch, English is my best language - a condition to fully grasp the

content of the news items I will analyse. However, in order to preserve the meaning of

the Dutch news messages the way they were intended as much as possible and not take

anything out of context, I have used the original messages. Thus, the citations used in my

analyses will be in Dutch as well, while the citations of the English news messages

remained in English. I focussed on six key events during the emergence of IS and the

fight against them, and analysed the messages about these events in four different

B

55

internet newspapers: for the Netherlands I chose the right of centre online newspaper

'De Telegraaf' (www.telegraaf.nl) and the left of centre online newspaper 'De Volkskrant'

(www.volkskrant.nl), while for the UK I went for the comparable online newspapers; the

right of centre 'The Daily Telegraph' (www.telegraph.co.uk) and the left of centre 'The

Guardian' (www.guardian.co.uk).

The key events I analysed are:

1. The capturing of Mosul by ISIS (10 June 2014);

2. The establishment of the caliphate (29 June 2014);

3a. The beheading of Westerner James Foley (19 August 2014);

3b. The beheading of Westerner Steven Sotloff (2 September 2014);

4. The Netherlands and the United Kingdom joining the United States-led international

coalition against IS (24 September 2014 and 27 September 2014, respectively);

5. The capturing of the Jordanian pilot (24 December 2014);

6a. The attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris (7 January 2015) and the following manhunt

and attack on the Jewish supermarket in Paris (9 January 2015);

6b. The attack in Copenhagen (14 February 2015).

The reason I chose these events is because I think the capturing of Mosul was the first

event that made both the West and countries in the region realise the seriousness of the

situation: IS was stronger and more powerful than they expected. To what extent were

the European countries aware of his? The establishment of the caliphate was one of the

main goals of IS, so it was another big win for them when they proclaimed to be one

again - with their own laws, norms and values. This event took place relatively early,

when the European countries did not seem to realise the gravity of the danger yet. The

fight started to become more personal and came closer to home when IS beheaded

American citizens on camera - seemingly having them say that it was all to blame on the

U.S. and condemning the American government. The manner the Western media reports

on these atrocities influences the way the public thinks about such events and position

themselves against the Islamic State. As a result, we get to the fourth event. Whether or

not the Netherlands and the United Kingdom were to join the U.S.-led coalition against

IS was cause for much discussion: Iraq asked for help - but Syria did not. Moreover,

fighting IS would bring serious threats to our own countries. How can the media shed

light on this? In December, IS took another hostage: however, this time the hostage was

not Western, but Jordanian. I found it interesting to measure whether or not the Dutch

and British newspapers would report on this as extensively as on events concerning

56

Westerners. The final events I analysed were the attacks in Paris, with a focus on Charlie

Hebdo, and in Copenhagen - the turning point where the line between external security

and internal security got increasingly blurry. Europe got hit in the heart, the fight against

IS was no longer only external - it got directly through to Europe. I will analyse how

media frame this threat in their news items.

In order to put some boundaries on my research, I collected all the news messages

about the key events from their occurrence until 7 days after. For the analyses I have not

only focussed on sheer news items. For the key event about the UK and the Netherlands

joining the international coalition, I chose to focus more on opinion pieces, such as

columns and editorials, in order to emphasise the national discussions going on about

these topics. Other than that, the news messages I chose to analyse for the event about

Charlie Hebdo and the Paris attacks focus on the (possible) consequences within the UK

and the Netherlands, instead of general messages about the event. The messages I chose

to analyse for the key events about the beheading of Steven Sotloff all focus on the

alleged British killer Jihadi John, in order to highlight the different degree of importance

the two countries allocate to this. Nonetheless, for all key events, I made sure to use

comparable news messages.

FIRST FINDINGS

I started by simply listing the news items the before mentioned newspapers published on

their websites on every six events. These results were already interesting by themselves:

Guardian Telegraph Volkskrant Telegraaf Total

1. Mosul 62 77 22 10 171

2. Caliphate 19 24 12 4 59

3a. Foley 72 128 41 24 265

3b. Sotloff 55 53 16 21 145

4. Coalition 86 82 41 80 289

5. Pilot 4 5 7 6 22

6a. CH/Paris 352 313 254 47 966

6b. C'hagen 32 30 39 42 143

Total 682 712 432 234 2.060

Figure 3: Number of news items per newspaper and per event

57

Which translates into the following diagrams when we calculate percentages:

Figure 4: Percentage of news items per event Figure 5: Percentage of news

items per newspaper

Although not surprising, it is interesting to see that the news coverage of the events

concerning Westerners and/or the West is far more substantial than the news which does

not directly influence this area or its people. What is also interesting to note, however, is

the decrease in coverage between the beheadings of James Foley and Steven Sotloff, less

than a month later. James Foley being the first one to get beheaded came as a surprise to

Western governments - the fact that the killer seemed to have a British accent might have

helped to spark this. When it happened a second time it might have been less of a

surprise, no matter how gruesome it might have been.

The capturing of the Jordanian pilot Moath al-Kasasbeh did not seem to interest the

four newspapers too much. This might have to do with the relative stability around the

IS situation at the time - there were no significant advances or losses from either sides.

The fact that IS took another hostage was simply not that special. Although he was

fighting against IS, he was not perceived as one of 'our own'. I consciously chose not to

take his death - him being burned alive while he was locked in a cage - as a key event,

simply because of the moment this happened: not long after the attacks on Charlie

Hebdo and the kosher supermarket in Paris and only days before the attack in

Copenhagen, with media coverage about the so-called atrocities of jihadists and IS at its

Mosul 8%

Caliphate 3%

Beheadings 20%

Coalition 14%

Pilot 1%

European attacks 54%

Percentage of news items per event

The Guardian

33%

The Daily Telegraph

35%

De Volkskrant

21%

De Telegraaf

11%

Percentage of news items per newspaper

58

peak. These latter two events take up more than half of the news coverage I collected:

fighters committing attacks in name of IS on European soil is when the conflict came

seriously close to home.

What struck me as well was the relative low number of news items coming from the

Dutch newspaper 'De Telegraaf'. Besides covering the news to a much lesser extent than

the other newspapers, they also provided the public with notable shorter news items.

However, 'De Volkskrant' does not meet the high numbers of news coverage the British

newspaper do either - the ratio in news coverage per country is 67.7% in the British

newspapers against a meagre 32.3% in the Dutch newspapers. This can partly be

explained by the international allure of 'The Guardian'. This newspaper has big offices in

London, New York and Sydney. Besides this, English is one of the most spoken

languages worldwide, which makes an Anglophone newspaper more accessible than a

Dutch one. However, this does not fully explain why right of centre paper 'The Daily

Telegraph' has such a big coverage - they are 'just' a national newspaper, as much as the

Dutch newspapers are.

MEDIA DISCOURSE IN E UROPE

The way the media frames their messages and reports about the events in Syria and Iraq,

the issues around foreign fighters and the alleged internal threat this poses to Europe,

shapes the discourses around these topics. Journalists frame their messages a certain way,

while the public interprets these messages depending on their own cultural background,

experiences, education, social position and other factors.208 For the sake of clarity, it is

useful to get into the concept of framing a bit. In essence, framing has to do with two

main principles: selection and salience. Robert Entman, Professor of Media and Public

Affairs and Professor of International Affairs at The George Washington University,

formulates framing as "to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a

communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation,

moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described.".209 Frames are thus

packages of organised knowledge in a text: series of claims brought together to tell a

story about problems, causes, implications, and remedies. They make texts recognisable:

208 Baldwin van Gorp, 'Het reconstrueren van frames via inductieve inhoudsanalyse:

uitgangspunten en analyses', KWALON, 12:2, 2007, p. 14. 209 Robert M. Entman, 'Framing: Towards Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm', Journal of

Communication, 43:4, 1993, p. 52.

59

because it is an inherent part of a set of knowledge, it makes it possible to omit

information.210 What texts omit is as important as what they include. By increasing the

salience of certain bits of information, it improves the probability that receivers grasp this

information, process and remember it. Salience can be enhanced by the placement of

information, repetition, or by associating the information with familiar symbols.

However, frames do not necessarily have to be picked up on by the receiving audience.

The way a text is framed determines how people understand and perceive a problem and

simultaneously how they evaluate the problem and choose to act upon it.211 With

framing, the communicator can easily direct attention away from one bit of information

to another, which might lead to different reactions between audiences. News coverage

often offers different sets of facts or evaluations. Moreover, when a new term is

introduced and widely accepted by the public, not using this term might result in being

perceived as lacking credibility or even failure of understanding what the communicator

is talking about.212

CRITICAL DISCOURSE A NALY SIS

The method I used to analyse the news items for previously mentioned events is the

Critical Discourse Analyses (CDA). CDA as a study considers language as a form of

social practice. It investigates how societal power relations are produced and reinforced

through the use of language and studies the links between textual structures and the way

this interacts with society.213 The notion of discourse has been subject to many different

usages in social sciences, and the notions have often been revisited. According to Ruth

Wodak and Michael Meyer, discourse thus means "anything from a historical monument, a lieu

de mémoire, a policy, a political strategy, narratives in a restricted or broad sense of the term, text, talk, a

speech, topic-related conversations, to language per se".214 Norman Fairclough, emeritus Professor

of Linguistics at Lancaster University, perceives CDA as: "discourse analysis which aims to

210 Marlou Schrover, 'Problematisation and particularisation: The Bertha Hertogh Story', Tijdschrift

voor sociale en economische geschiedenis, 8:2, 2011, p.6. 211 Robert M. Entman, 'Framing: Towards Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm', p. 53. 212 Idem, pp. 53-55. 213 Juraj Horváth, 'Critical Discourse Analysis of Obama's Political Discourse', Language, literature and

culture in a changing transatlantic world, International conference proceedings. Presov: University of

Presov, 2009, pp. 45-46. 214 Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer, 'Critical Discourse Analysis: History, Agenda, Theory, and

Methodology', Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, London, SAGE Publications Ltd., 2009, pp. 2-

3.

60

systematically explore often opaque relationships of causality and determination between (a) discursive

practise, events and texts, and (b) wider social and cultural structures, relations and processes; to

investigate how such practices, events and texts arise out of and are ideologically shaped by relations of

power and struggles over power; and to explore how the opacity of these relationships between discourse

and society is itself a factor securing power and hegemony.".215 Fairclough considers CDA more as

a research tactic rather than a way of thinking or a model of analysis.216

The difference between other forms of discourse analysis and CDA is the addition of

the quality of 'critical'. In CDA, this mainly means showing hidden connections and

causes. It is important to expose these connections and causes, because they are not

always obvious to the involved public, and thus cannot always be dealt with. It is

important to note that the relationship between language and social practise goes both

ways: discursive practises determine social structures just as much as social structures

determine discursive practises. CDA recognises both directions.217

According to Teun van Dijk, scholar in the field of linguistics, CDA should mainly be

used to better understand certain social issues. Furthermore, critical discourse analysts

should take an explicit socio-political stance, spelling out their aims, principles,

perspectives and points of view. Following this, CDA is evidently normative: any critique

presupposes by definition an applied ethics.218 This means that CDA is not free from

prejudices from the analysts themselves - in this case me. CDA analysts are explicit about

their stance concerning subjectivity of their analysis. Van Dijk argues that we need to

assume 'context models', which would allow subjective understanding of what people say

and mean in interaction.219 For the most important part, CDA is about power. Van Dijk

states that power is about control: control of one group over another group. He argues

that this power does not always has to be manipulative, however, power is often seen as

more effective when used cognitive and enacted through for example strategic ways such

as persuasion or dissimilation to change the mind of others in one's own interest. When

you can control certain knowledge, this shapes the interpretation of the world, as well as

215 Norman Fairclough, 'Critical Discourse Analysis and the Marketization of Public Discourse:

The Universities', Discourse Society, 4:133, 1993, p. 135. 216 Ibidem. 217 Idem, pp. 134-136. 218 Teun van Dijk, 'Principles of critical discourse analysis', Discourse and Society, 4:2, 1993, pp. 251-

253. 219 Paul Baker et al, 'A useful methodological synergy? Combining critical discourse analysis and

corpus linguistics to examine discourses of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK press',

Discourse Society, 19:3, 2008, p. 281.

61

it shapes discourse.220 Van Dijk defined the core of CDA as "a detailed description,

explanation and critique of the ways dominant discourses (indirectly) influence such socially shared

knowledge, attitudes and ideologies, namely through their role in the manufacture of concrete models.

More specifically, we need to know how specific discourse structures determine specific mental processes, or

facilitate the formation of specific social representations".221

What I will research through this analysis, is to what extent the media influences the

discourse of the readers: how are the news messages framed, which keywords are used

and how are the parties involved depicted? What differences are there between left of

centre and right of centre newspapers, and between the United Kingdom and the

Netherlands? It might seem obvious to many that not all the facts brought to readers

through the news should unthinkingly be copied. However, the media is generally

considered trustworthy and many people tend to base their opinions on these articles.

With the increasing use of internet newspapers, news items are quickly updated and

spread all over the world, generating easy access to many and this way shaping discourse.

ANALY SIS

All the preparatory work for analysing the 32 news items I have chosen can be found in the supplement.

My analysis and interpretation of the way the news items are framed attempts to link the

used discourse with social and cultural structures, relations and processes, along

Fairclough's definition. Afterwards, I will compare the different newspapers and different

countries with one another draw my conclusions from this.

All four newspapers I analysed make use of 'othering': perceiving 'the other' party (in

this case IS) as dissimilar or opposite of 'us'. The framed discourse is generally the 'us'

being 'good', protecting human rights and defending ourselves and civilians against 'the

other', being 'evil', committing 'gruesome' deeds, or 'atrocities'. We can assume that the

newspapers take these discursive positions as their starting point, writing along the

Western, and often still Christian, norms and values.

220 Teun van Dijk, 'Principles of critical discourse analysis', pp. 254-258. 221 Idem, pp. 258-259.

62

The Guardian:

(1) "The US said it was "deeply concerned" about the developments in Mosul, and described the

situation as "extremely serious". The state department urged a "strong, coordinated response to push

back" against the attack."

Through direct speech, the Guardian shows how the U.S. considered the seriousness of

these events. The 'strong, coordinated response to push back' indicates the will and

power to fight back, however. It is interesting to see that the abovementioned paragraph

is merely a small part of the item of 'the Guardian', while it is basically all the information

the item in the Dutch 'de Telegraaf' contains. We could conclude that during this time,

'de Telegraaf' did not yet realise the magnitude of the situation, and did not think that

this news would sell.

(2) "Over the last two weeks there has been growing concern over the number of young British

Muslims who have joined Isis. David Cameron claimed that they represent the "biggest threat to

national security that exists today"."

Here as well, we can see 'the Guardian' using direct speech to highlight the words of the

prime minister: by quoting him directly, the importance of the threat is emphasised.

Furthermore, the newspaper focuses on the domestic situation, making the external

matter an internal one, which would get more attention 'at home' in Britain than when it

would be a far-away issue.

(3) "If genuine, we are appalled by the brutal murder of an innocent American journalist and we

express our deepest condolences to his family and friends."

Although not the opinion of the journalist, by using this direct quote of a spokeswoman

of the U.S. the author frames this message towards feeling sympathy for James Foley -

the victim - and contempt for the killer, Jihadi John, or the Islamic State as a whole. By

using only direct quotes from people from the West (we could subjectively say: from 'our'

side), this side of the story gets stressed. By naming personal characteristics of James

Foley and having his mother talk about him, it makes it easier for readers to identify

themselves with the victims kin, while this side is (almost) never highlighted when

journalists for these newspapers write about the Islamic State's fighters.

(4) "After the first video appeared, there was speculation that the British-accented man may not

necessarily have been the person who carried out the killing."

Interestingly, 'The Guardian' seems to try to protect Jihadi John, a British-accented man,

i.e. one of 'theirs', from any false accusations. As long as it is not proven that he is the

killer, they feel like conclusions about him should not be drawn. However, this could be

as much journalist objectiveness as a sense of British unity.

63

(5) "Air strikes against Islamic State positions in Syria represent another worrying step into the

unknown in the Middle East. How can there not be unease about civilian casualties, the fate of

hostages, the possibility of deadly retaliatory operations on US and European soil, the setting aside of

international law, and the uncertain impact on the Syrian conflict of this expansion of the campaign?"

The possible consequences of joining the U.S. in committing air strikes in Iraq and/or

Syria become emphasised by summing them up like this. Again, it is brought close by

mentioning 'deadly retaliatory operations on American and European soil', making this a

more urgent matter to readers in these areas. By using the sensationalist sentence

'another worrying step into the unknown in the Middle East' uncertainty and chaos is the

Middle East is implied, making it easy for the public to make negative associations with

it.

(6) "Images posted on social media showed jubilant Isis gunmen, some of them masked, with a

clearly frightened man, naked from the waist down and being dragged out of a lake."

This opposition between the 'jubilant (masked) gunmen' and the 'frightened (naked) man'

makes the balances of power in this situation painfully clear.

(7) "What we saw in Paris was a bit more of a directed version of that… That is exactly what

would-be jihadis in the UK have been trying to do. So this fashion, not so much to attack aircraft and

airports but to go for these marauding attacks, is likely to increase. Quite a lot of what is happening in

the Middle East, in Syria with Isis, is going to increase that motivation."

By drawing a line between the attacks in Paris and the possible threats in the UK, the

situation is brought to a high level of attention with the public. By stating that attacks

such as the ones committed in Paris are likely to increase in Europe makes it possible for

people to become increasingly scared of the Islamic religion, since that is implied as the

cause.

(8) "Vilks has long attracted both fame and notoriety for his work. A self-trained artist, he

began painting in the 1970s and moved on to sculpture in 1984, turning himself and his car into

pieces of art. Other sculptures made from driftwood caused controversy when he put them in a nature

reserve."

Vilks is depicted as an artist who might have made some inauspicious works of art, but

not as a racist who tries to deliberately hurt Muslims. You could say the fact that he does

insult certain groups - albeit deliberately or not - is explained away by his work as an

artist.

64

The Daily Telegraph:

(9) "Terrified residents of Mosul spoke of seeing militants raising al-Qaeda's black flag from

buildings, and of newly-released prisoners running through the streets in yellow jumpsuits."

Through the use of adjectives, the journalist writing this article adds a certain value to the

story. By using the term 'terrified', it drives readers into the direction of feeling sympathy

for the defeated residents of Mosul. By using the term 'black' flag, it makes readers

picture the flag in their memories, making the story recognisable.

(10) "It demands all Muslims pledge obedience to its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, whom it

describes as a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed, and refers to as “Caliph Ibrahim”, using his

given name. “The legality of all emirates, groups, states, and organisations, becomes null by the

expansion of the khilāfah’s [Caliph’s] authority and arrival of its troops to their areas,” it says,

quoting a saying that no man should sleep before he has sworn allegiance."

In this piece of article, there is no distinction made between 'radicalised' and 'moderate'

Muslims. It depicts the Islamic State (and thus the religion) as totalitarian over all

Muslims, with the Caliph having absolute power. This goes straight up against the

Western norms and values, consequently associating IS and the Islam as 'bad'.

(11) "The killer’s apparent distinct British accent will raise fears about the role of Islamic

extremists from the UK in Islamic State, which now controls swathes of Syria and Iraq."

Although the news message is about the beheading of an American journalist, 'The

Telegraph' focuses on the fact that the killer might be a Briton, and questions what this

will mean for British foreign fighters. Thus, a strong domestic focus.

(12) "A Briton will be the next hostage murdered by Islamist terrorists, the British extremist

known as “Jihadi John” threatened on Tuesday as he beheaded a second American journalist and

announced “I’m back”."

The occasion of this news item is the beheading of Steven Sotloff - yet 'the Daily

Telegraph' again focuses more on the domestic issues: this time that IS threatens that a

Briton (one of their own) would be next. This makes the war even more personal after

the beheading of two American Westerners. It is interesting to note that everything

'Jihadi John' says in this news article is brought through direct quotes - nothing is left to

interpretation of the journalists.

(13) " What is the goal of the campaign?

President Barack Obama has defined the objective as being to “degrade and ultimately destroy”

Isil. However, air raids on their own are unlikely to achieve this. America has ruled out deploying

combat troops in Syria. Instead, the US will seek to arm and train local forces to fight Isil.

65

Through this question and answer piece journalists are trying to explain the air strikes the

U.S. is committing in Syria and Iraq to the public. It is strongly focused on the U.S. and

does not at all take the British position (during that time still unclear) in consideration.

(14) "RMC published a photograph said to be of the pilot naked from the waist down and

soaking wet – being captured by three gunmen as he was taken out of what appeared to be a lake."

This selection covers the exact same text 'The Guardian' did, however, by using terms

like 'said to be' and 'appeared to be', 'The Daily Telegraph' seems to be writing a little

more careful and under prejudice.

(15) "British security officials fear that a Paris-style attack on an office building could happen

in the UK and have warned employers how to deal with such an atrocity, The Telegraph can

disclose."

A line is drawn between the attacks in Paris and the possibility of the same thing

happening in the U.K. The journalist adds his opinion through the use of the word

'atrocity', where he could have just used a more neutral word such as 'event'. This way,

the message gets coloured.

(16) ""I'm not a fanatical racist, I do not have a political position. I am an artist who seeks the

limits," he said."

Similar to what 'The Guardian' tried to depict, 'The Daily Telegraph' is somewhat more

explicit. Through the use of a direct quote, Vilks' words seem extra strong.

De Volkskrant:

(17) "Na de aanval werd een zwarte vlag met daarop het islamitische geloofscredo boven de stad

gehesen. Ook lieten de rebellen honderden gevangenen vrij en staken de politiestations vervolgens in

brand."

'De Volkskrant' is a little bit more careful about allocating the black flag to Al-Qai'da

than 'The Telegraph' is, however, emphasis is put on the Islamic creed pictured on it. By

using a description as 'boven de stad gehesen' Isis' victory is symbolically shown,

followed by a summing up the (negative, violent) acts Isis committed afterwards.

(18) "Hij riep de mensen die in Noord-Irak wonen op trouw te zweren aan Al- Baghdadi en hem

te steunen. 'De wettelijkheid van alle emiraten, groepen, staten en organisaties geldt niet meer door de

uitbreiding van de autoriteit van de kalif en de aankomst van zijn troepen in hun gebieden', aldus de

woordvoerder."

'De Volkskrant' uses the exact same words as 'The Daily Telegraph', and even directly

quotes the same words (albeit translated into Dutch). The direct speech emphasises the

totalitarian nature of the Caliphs power over all the other Muslims.

66

(19) "In de video spreekt Foley zich uit tegen de luchtaanvallen door de VS in Irak. 'Ik roep mijn

vrienden, familie en geliefden op om in opstand te komen tegen mijn echte moordenaars, de

Amerikaanse regering. Wat er met mij gebeurt is slechts het gevolg van hun zelfgenoegzaamheid en

criminaliteit'."

It is really interesting to note the difference between the Dutch and the British

newspapers in this case: 'the Telegraph' claims James Foley was 'made to recite' a

statement, while 'De Volkskrant' here restrict themselves from saying any more than

what is shown in the video. 'The Telegraph' victimises Foley this way even more.

(20) "In de video die gisteren is vrijgegeven, zegt de beul: "Ik ben terug, Obama. En ik ben terug

vanwege jouw arrogante buitenlandse politiek ten opzichte van Islamitische Staat.""

Obama is being depicted as the cause for the beheading of the American journalists, or at

least so in the eyes of the fighters of Islamic State. Through direct speech, the journalist

constrains himself from interpreting the words himself, while simultaneously, the words

of Jihadi John are represented as very powerful.

(21) "De ontwrichting die dat teweegbrengt in de hele regio, ook buiten Irak en Syrië, heeft Obama

in een soort dwangsituatie gebracht waarin hij wel moest optreden. Hij laat zich hierbij gelukkig leiden

door zijn voorkeur voor diplomatieke en politieke oplossingen en zijn terechte aarzelingen over de

grootschalige inzet van Amerikaanse militaire middelen, laat staan grondtroepen."

Contrary to analysis number 20, Obama is depicted as being forced into taking action:

contrary to his widely discredited predecessor who led the U.S. into war in Iraq years

before. Obama is said to be diplomatic and taking thought-through, reasonable measures,

which would probably make people support his course of action. It is interesting to see

the opposition between the view of the Islamic State and the view of Westerners.

(22) "Ook het Jordaanse leger bevestigt dat het om een van haar piloten gaat. 'Jordanië houdt IS

en zijn aanhangers verantwoordelijk voor de veiligheid van de piloot en zijn leven', aldus een statement

van het Jordaanse leger. Persbureau Reuters, dat met twee familieleden heeft gesproken, schrijft dat de

familie inmiddels is ingelicht over het gevangenschap van hun dierbare. "

Contrary to the British newspapers, 'De Volkskrant' does not emphasise the opposition

between the ISIS gunmen and the captured pilot. Here as well, we could conclude that

the Dutch newspapers seem to victimise less. It does make the news message more

appealing to the public by making it more personal: talking to some next of kin of the

victim.

(23) "En dit zeg ik al heel lang: de oorlog in het Midden-Oosten is geen ver van ons bed-zaak

meer. Die zal hier worden uitgevochten. Ik denk dat dit veel grotere repercussies heeft dan wij ons nu

bedenken. "

67

This reaction to the attacks on Charlie Hebdo in Paris shows how the external threat is

more and more becoming an internal one: the war will be fought on European soil as

well. Though not given by an expert, but by a colleague cartoonist, it shows the fears and

angers the Dutch public have due to this attack.

(24) "Voor terroristen heeft Vilks een duidelijke boodschap. 'Aangezien ze alleen de taal van

wapens verstaan, is het zinloos om met ze te praten over de vrijheid van meningsuiting. Het enige wat we

kunnen doen, is ze laten realiseren dat hun project zinloos is en doorgaan met wat we al deden.'"

To start off, it is interesting to note that this news message is quite a bit shorter than the

messages from the British newspapers. However, similar to those, the greater part of the

articles consists out of quotes from the intended target, Vilks. He advocates to keep on

going the way everyone did, that talking to terrorists is useless. Although these are not

the words of the journalist, it does frame the news a certain way.

De Telegraaf:

(25)" „De situatie is extreem ernstig”, aldus een woordvoerder. Hij zei ook dat de VS „een

sterke, gecoördineerde reactie op deze agressie steunt” en dat de Amerikanen de Iraakse regering

daarmee willen helpen. Waaruit die hulp zou moeten bestaan, is niet gezegd."

This news item exists out of literally two paragraphs this size. This indicates that 'De

Telegraaf' did at the time not yet realise the importance of this event. Very little

information is given, especially compared to the British newspapers.

(26) "De soennitische terreurgroep de Islamitische Staat in Irak en al-Sham (ISIS), die delen van

Irak en Syrië beheerst, heeft zondag een „islamitisch kalifaat” geproclameerd. Tot kalief is ISIS-leider

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi uitgeroepen. Alle moslims moeten hem volgen als wereldlijk leider van de

islam, aldus de verklaring „Dit is de belofte van Allah”, die via internet is verspreid. De naam van

ISIS wordt veranderd in „Islamitische Staat”."

In this case, this is the entire news message. Here as well we can conclude that 'De

Telegraaf' does not prioritise news about IS over other news. It gives only factual

information, but does not give any insight or possible consequences. The news is not

supported by a video or audio file either.

(27) De gemaskerde beul met een mes naast Foley spreekt Engels en zegt tegen de Amerikaanse

president Barack Obama dat de agressie tegen de Islamitische Staat zal resulteren in bloedvergieten

onder Amerikanen."

The fact that the killer speaks English, not Arabic, brings the news closer to home - a

foreign fighter committing such actions. Yet, contrary to the British newspapers, there is

68

no emphasis put on the fact that the killer had a British accent. He is threatening the

U.S., depicting IS as the evil party.

(28) "Britse kranten raken niet uitgeschreven over de mysterieuze "jihadist John" die twee

Amerikaanse journalisten onthoofde en nu ook dreigt om een Britse gijzelaar te doden"

'De Telegraaf' focuses on the media hype the British jihadist caused in the U.K. It

scrutinises several British newspapers, and concludes that it is almost a British obsession.

This indicates the more down to earth approach the Dutch are known for, though it is

hard to measure this since there has not been a comparable Dutch jihadist known for

similar actions.

(29) " ,,Het kabinet stelt een substantiële bijdrage voor aan de bestrijding van ISIS. De VVD-

fractie heeft eerder aangegeven dat zij dit van groot belang acht voor onze veiligheid en de stabiliteit in de

regio."

Focused on whether or not the Netherlands should carry out air strikes on Syria as well

as on Iraq, this article mainly points out the situation in the Middle East, and very little

on the (possible) consequences in the Netherlands itself. Through the opinions of

politicians, the air strikes against Iraq are justified, making it easy for the public to

support this decision.

(30) "Van de gevangen genomen piloot zijn foto's van gemaakt, die volgens persbureau AFP

authentiek zijn. Het zou gaan om Moath Alkasassbeh, die volgens zijn Facebookprofiel nog geen

half jaar geleden is getrouwd."

Contrary to the British newspapers, 'De Telegraaf' does not focus on the opposition

between the pilot and the gunmen. However, the journalist does attempt to make the

story more personal by mentioning facts about his private life and even including a link

to his Facebook-profile (which, by now, does no longer work). It is interesting to see

how this news message falls back on information from social media (Facebook and

Twitter). Although this might appeal to the public because it is recognisable, they might

not always provide the most reliable information. What struck me as well was the amount

of information which is completely the same as the information in 'De Volkskrant'.

"(31) "Het terroristische geweld in Parijs heeft niet veel invloed gehad op het veiligheidsgevoel van de

Nederlander. Uit onderzoek onder de 16.000 leden van het opiniepanel van het tv-programma

EenVandaag blijkt dat 87 procent zich over het algemeen veilig voelt in het land."

This article is quite the opposite as the articles in the other three newspapers. Instead of

focusing on the possible threats in Europe after the attack on Charlie Hebdo, or

reporting on the anger and fear this attack causes, it focuses on how surprisingly safe

people still feel in the Netherlands. A positive note, which might just have a great deal of

69

influence on the discourse on safely in the Netherlands - after all, people tend to go with

the herd.

(32) "Vilks was in Kopenhagen een van de belangrijkste sprekers op de bijeenkomst, die draaide

om de vrijheid van meningsuiting."

This article is almost entirely the same as the article 'De Volkskrant' published. The exact

same quotes are used, the news value and angle are the same as well. All newspapers but

'The Guardian' stress that Vilks was speaking in Copenhagen on the freedom of speech,

to Westerners one of the most important and widely discussed human rights, which

makes events like these particularly painful for many of them. Another interesting aspect

to note is that the British newspapers both focus on the attempted attacks earlier

committed on Vilks, whereas the Dutch newspapers stick to the current one.

CONCLUSIONS

From this analysis we can draw several conclusions:

1. The British newspapers tend to focus more on their own situation: how does the

situation in the Middle East affect the domestic situation in the U.K.? What are the

possible consequences for the U.K.?

2. A second matter that stood out to me was the extent of victimising of certain people.

As I pointed out in the analysis above, the British newspapers claim that James Foley

was 'made to recite' a statement, whereas the Dutch newspapers just report that he

made the statement in itself. It remains unclear where the British newspapers got this

information from - or that they simply assumed this.

3. The right of centre newspapers, being 'The Daily Telegraph' and 'De Telegraaf', have

a certain way of writing where they start a new paragraph after every other sentence.

This way there is no start, middle and end of a paragraph, but they all seem like

equally important remarks. The left of centre papers, 'The Guardian' and 'De

Volkskrant' tend to write more in a report kind of way, usually with more depth,

background information and (possible) consequences of reported situations.

4. 'De Telegraaf' and especially 'The Daily Telegraph' often back up their news items

with videos. The left of centre newspapers do use videos occasionally, but the

former two seem to do this with almost every news item they upload. This, in

combination with their short sentences and paragraphs, may appeal to their target

audience, while readers of the left of centre papers are looking more for extensive

articles.

70

5. Even though they differ in language, much of the information in comparable articles

is (almost) exactly the same. Apparently, many of the sources the newspapers use

are the same. However, it is interesting to note that even the quotes are often the

same. Especially 'De Telegraaf' seems to add little 'new' information. An explanation

might be that they simply prioritise other topics over news about IS - this can be

backed up with the data in the table above: 'De Telegraaf's part of the news coverage

I analysed is only 11%. 'De Volkskrant' only partly makes up for that, but still cannot

live up to the amount of news items the British newspapers generate.

6. All the newspapers make a lot of use of direct quotations. Direct quotes are often

used to strengthen an argument, back up a case with quotes from an expert

witness or to make words more powerful. It also releases the journalists from

making (false) interpretations.

7. Relatively much emphasis is laid on the word 'Islamic'. One the one hand, this makes

sense: it is all about the Islamic State, with Islamic extremists fighting against

everyone who dares to disobey them. However, this is a well-known fact, which

could often be omitted in the articles, but nevertheless gets emphasised by the use

of adjectives, making it rather easy for the readers to make negative and violent

associations with the Islam. This applies to all four newspapers.

Figure 6: Number of times specific words are used in the analysed news items

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

The Guardian

The Daily Telegraph

De Volkskrant

De Telegraaf

Gruesome/atrocities

Extremist

Muslim

Islamist

71

It should be said that not all of my expectations are met. For example, I expected the

right of centre papers to be more sensationalist than I found them to be. Content-wise,

they do not differ as much from the left of centre papers as I had expected. The style of

writing is different, but often even the words and quotes are comparable.

As mentioned above, the word Islamic is used quite often, but adjectives such as

gruesome or gruelling and nouns like atrocities or brutalities are not used very frequently. When

they are used, it is often in quotes, not by the journalists themselves. However, this way

they are still capable of giving the news items a particular 'moral' coding. Furthermore, in

certain instants news messages do get another tone by replacing the word 'killer' for the

word 'slayer', giving the message a certain connotation.

72

C O N C LU S I O N

ver the last decades, the world has changed tremendously. This has to do

with many factors, such as the invention of the internet and the introduction

of it to the public in the 1990's. As a result, it rapidly became possible to

communicate incredibly quickly and cheaply, even between different continents - and

relatively anonymously. Still, the technology gets revolutionised every day, creating all

sorts of programmes and websites to get information or share documents or photos, for

example. Information about uncountable topics is endlessly available and spread

worldwide in an instant. What happens on the other side of the world is known to us

only seconds later.222

Besides the technological developments, relationships between countries changed

drastically as well. After the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the

relations between both European countries themselves as between these and other

countries had to be re-established. Six European countries decided to integrate their

markets in order to maintain peace, which led to the current European Union, a Union

with 28 European member states willing to give up (some of) their sovereignty to a

supranational power to strengthen their economical and political position in the world

and act as a precursor to democracy, peace and security.

This has had consequences within the EU as well and beyond: borders and neighbours

changed, causing new and more direct threats to the EU. Furthermore, countries

worldwide got more interdependent in several fields.223 Moreover, the mobility of people

has also increased, for example through the European Union's Schengen Agreement.224

As a result, internal security and external security are no longer freestanding

concepts. They have been growing together for years now, which is getting increasingly

222 Rob de Wijk en Roos Toxopeus, 'Hoe binnen- en buitenlandse veiligheid verweven zijn', p.

421. 223 Isabelle Ioannides, 'Inside-out and Outside-in: EU Security in the Neighbourhood', pp. 118-

119. 224 Rob de Wijk en Roos Toxopeus, 'Hoe binnen- en buitenlandse veiligheid verweven zijn', p.

421.

O

73

recognised since the first terrorist attacks on American soil on 9/11. Several European

treaties have been signed since these attacks, including many adjustments to the

European regulations, agreements and institutions. Where there used to be a clear line

between internal security, taken care of by Ministries of Home Affairs and Ministries of

Security and Justice and maintained by the domestic police forces and external security,

under control of Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Ministries of Defence and supported

by the military, this line is increasingly getting blurred and the distribution of roles getting

more diffuse. Despite the fact that the EU has named the internal and external securities

to be indissolubly linked, and created for example the double-hatted role of High

Representative for the EU's Common Foreign Security Policy and simultaneously Vice

President of the European Commission, with her own 'ministry' in the form of the

European External Action Service, the EU has not yet succeeded in creating one policy

combining internal and external security.225

The rise of the Islamic State and the number of foreign fighters they attract is one of

the most relevant examples of this intertwinement in current days. The technological

developments work in their favour as well, being able to disseminate propaganda more

effectively, address more people and specific target groups, recruit fighters and funds and

communicate with other terrorist groups.226 Moreover, terrorists are no longer bound to

their whereabouts to plan terroristic attacks in other places around the world: planning

an attack on European or American soil from a country in the Middle East is made

relatively easy. The EU recently saw these threats grow, partly because by expanding the

European borders, the EU came closer to the area it considers to be threatening

Europe's democratic norms and values227, but also because they actively fight against

these groups of terrorists, making them a target for retaliation.228 However, one of the

most important causes to fear terrorist attacks in European member states is the growing

number in foreign fighters travelling to Iraq and Syria to join IS and fight in their names.

The radicalised Muslims who decide to take this step and survive the battlefield, often

return back home. With about 11 percent of these returnees turning into active security

225 Tomáš Weiss, 'The Unclear Border between Internal and External Security in the European

Union: Impact of the Lisbon Treaty', pp. 215-224. 226 Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger, ISIS. The State of Terror, pp. 127-129. 227 Isabelle Ioannides, 'Inside-out and Outside-in: EU Security in the Neighbourhood', pp. 118-

119. 228 Andreas Kouwenhoven, 'Nederland steunt srijd tegen IS en 'is dus mogelijk doelwit'', NRC

Handelsblad, 8 January 2015.

74

threats to European countries (based on research in earlier cases), this might not seem as

an enormous threat. However, the fight against IS has been one attracting a record

number of foreign fighters: around 20,000, from which about 4,000 are European. This

makes the number of potential terrorists on European soil quite extensive after all.229

Dealing with foreign fighters is a challenge to many countries in the world. Trying to

keep them home does not seem to be easy and might work counterproductively, making

the radicalised Muslims frustrated and even more likely to commit an attack at home in

name of IS.230 Besides, the Schengen agreement makes it easy for potential fighters to

travel within the EU and even to some countries beyond. Travelling is relatively cheap,

borders are easy to cross and through the internet it is easy to get in contact with terrorist

organisations on the spot.231 Since the foreign fighters may be radicalised, disillusioned,

traumatised, have mental problems and may have received combat training from IS or

other jihadist groups, it is important to provide counter-narratives. However, the number

of potential terrorists has risen so drastically that the capabilities of the intelligence

services are stretched to their limits.232 Despite mitigating factors, especially extremists

acting as lone wolfs might slip through the net and seize the opportunity to commit

terrorist attacks, as we have seen with the French radicalised Muslim Nemmouche who

opened fire on the Jewish Museum in Brussels killing four innocent people.233

Governments are doing what they can against these terrorist threats brought home

by foreign fighters. A number of measures are taken, differing from prosecuting

returnees when they return home to sentencing them to jail or mental hospitalisation, to

taking away their passports in order to make it impossible for them to return to their

home country or even the entire Schengen-area. There is also a call for compulsory de-

radicalisation programmes, although the effectiveness of these programmes will depend

on how it is implemented. Beforehand, it has to be determined who will be responsible

for these programmes, who will create them and who will determine whether or not

someone is de-radicalised and ready to reintegrate in society. All the same, the returning

of these foreign fighters does not always have to be purely negative: since there is

229 Charles Lister, Profiling the Islamic State, p. 34. 230 Robbert Salome and Tobias den Hartog, ''Laat jihadisten naar Syrië gaan om daar te strijden'',

Het Algemeen Dagblad, 24 October 2014. 231 Edwin Bakker, 'Nederlandse strijders in Syrië: een gevaar?', pp. 3-4. 232 Henriëtte van Lyndenlezing, Jihad on our Doorstep: inside the minds of jihadis in Syria and Iraq,

1.21.40". 233 Daniel Byman and Jeremy Shapiro, Be Afraid. Be A Little Afraid: The threat of Terrorism from

Westers Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq, pp. 17-18.

75

relatively little known about what really goes on in the battlefields around IS, European

governments could also aim to use the knowledge of the returnees to their advantage in

return of, for example, cooperation or lighter punishment at home.234

Terrorism and media have an interesting relation. While terrorism needs the media to get

the attention they aim for, it contains all the aspects that sell stories in the world of

media: drama, shock and tragedy.235 However, the last couple of years much focus has

shifted from mainstream media to social media. The amount of users on social media is

still steadily growing, and most of these users are between 16 and 25: the perfect target

group for IS. Without the use of social media, IS could have never gotten this successful.

This mainly includes the use of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, but also to a lesser

extent the use of Instagram, Tumblr and their own websites and created applications.236

Despite the fact that the salafist Muslims reject many modern customs and anything that

would distract them from the words of the Quran, they are skillful at wielding the

internet to their advantages. For good reason the fight IS is fighting is known as 'the

Twitter jihad': never before has a terrorist organisation seen so much response and

followers online.237 Propaganda could be distributed on many different online platforms,

and got widely shared by thousands of sympathisers and followers. Moreover, contact

did no longer go one way, where the terrorist organisations would only be able to sluice

and hope that people would come to them, but it became a two way street: they could

actively approach potential fighters or sympathisers and even aim at specific target

groups, based on the profile information people upload on social media websites

themselves. This means that besides using social media for the distribution of

propaganda, it also serves as an ideal platform to recruit new fighters and funds, and even

to enforce respect, receive recognition and justify their actions.238 In the case of IS, they

also use social media to provoke the United States, another aspect in which they seem to

have been quite successful. However, despite the fact that IS seems to be remarkably

successful at using social media, they do risk overestimating themselves and creating a

234 Henriëtte van Lyndenlezing, Jihad on our Doorstep: inside the minds of jihadis in Syria and Iraq,

32.00'. 235 Transnational Security, Terrorism and the Rule of Law, Terrorism and the Media, Deliverable 6,

Workpackage 4, 23 July 2008, p. 14. 236 Gabriel Weimann, New Terrorism and New Media. 237 Debora Richards, 'The Twitter jihad: ISIS insurgents in Iraq, Syria using social media to recruit

fighters, promote violence', ABC News Australia, 20 June 2014. 238 Gabriel Weimann, New Terrorism and New Media, p. 6.

76

sense of disapproval against them, instead of the support they have been enjoying

recently.239 After all, media can be used from both sides. IS has a way of influencing the

media, but at the same time, journalists also influence the messages they write about the

Islamic State.

Comparing left of centre and right of centre newspapers from both the United

Kingdom and the Netherlands gives an interesting insight on how journalists frame news

messages and shape discourse in these countries. Looking at quantitative data, it becomes

clear quite quickly that events that happened on European soil received far more

attention than the ones that took place in the Middle East. This is not surprising, since

people tend to focus more on what is happening in their close environment. However,

when history repeats itself: a second brutal beheading of an American journalist or a

second attack on cartoonists in Europe, the number of news items dropped significantly

as well: perhaps it was the fear of an overload of these kind of news messages, or just the

fact that the novelty had been already lost, but one way or another, the news value went

down drastically. A striking number of news messages was written on the attack on

satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and the following manhunt and attacks on a kosher

supermarket in Paris. This covered the first attack on European soil during this fight, and

a dreadful one at that, causing the whole of Europe to unite and stand together as a front

against radical Muslims and supporting the Western value of freedom of speech.

Nevertheless, the blow up of the number of news items covering these events could

almost be seen as out of proportion compared to the other analysed events.

Looking at the content of the news items, journalists themselves seem not to steer in

a certain direction. Due to the fact that every journalist writes out of his/hers own

cultural and socio-political background, raised with his/hers own norms and values and

even influenced by his/her educational background, it is impossible to write a truly

objective article, however. Keeping in mind that these newspapers have to appeal to the

(predominantly) Western public and rely on them to buy their news stories, it is not

surprising that the items are framed in a way that they appeal to the public. Despite the

fact that occasionally words get replaced with other words which contain a certain value

(e.g.: use of the word 'slayer' instead of the word 'killer') and the inclusion of coloured

quotes, condemning and disapproving of IS, journalists mostly stay away from using

value-adding adjectives themselves. Much emphasis is laid on the Islamic religion,

however, but despite this not always being necessary, it is not a wrong interpretation or

239 Steve Rose, 'The ISIS propaganda war: a hi-tech media jihad'.

77

factually incorrect. What all the newspapers have in common is the frequent use of direct

quotes: this keeps the journalists free of having to make their own interpretations, proves

their points or strengthens their argument. Indirect speech is not nearly used as much.

Through the analysis of the news items one could also conclude that British

newspapers tend to focus more on the (possible) consequences of action on their

domestic situation than the Dutch newspapers do. This being said, it should be kept in

mind that 'Jihadi John' was identified to be British, and there has not been a Dutch

comparable situation. Besides this, the British newspapers tend to add more personal

characteristics of victims to their stories than the Dutch, making it easier for readers of

the British newspapers to sympathise with the victims.

The Dutch newspapers seemed to be less interested in the news about IS in any case.

The news coverage was far less than in the British newspapers, and the difference

between the content in the two Dutch newspapers was as good as negligible. I expect

this having to do with the Anglophone newspapers having a wider reach worldwide,

although it does not explain the lack of diversity. A striking difference between the left of

centre and right of centre newspapers is the frequent use of videos 'The Telegraph' and

'De Telegraaf' seem to almost always back up their news stories with one or more videos,

whereas especially 'The Guardian' uses more in-depth analysis and extensive articles.

When it comes down to it, all parties frame their messages and send it into the world

exactly the way they intend to. The public is getting influenced from both sides.

However, cultural and socio-political background plays an important role in the shaping

of discourse: it decides for a great part to which side people are most apprehensible.

Western people with predominantly western norms and values will be more likely to

protect these and take stance on the side of the Western countries, considering 'us' to be

'good' and 'the other' to be 'evil' (as depicted in the Western news messages).

Simultaneously, however, Muslims from the Middle East or European with a different

socio-political background and probably strong religious believes, might also be

apprehensible to IS' propaganda, and consider IS to be 'good' and the West to be 'the

other'.

78

During my research I found a quote on the internet, saying: "Everything is related to

everything else, but near things are more related than distant things.".240 This seems to hit the nail

right on the head. Internal and external security can no longer be seen as separate

concepts. The war against IS which started out in Iraq and spilled over to Syria is no

longer solely fought in the Middle East. The external threat is made internal by

technological developments, the interdependence of countries, European integration and

the growing number of foreign fighters. This is all interlinked, the one would probably

not have happened without the other. Based on the analyses of the British and Dutch

newspapers, the claim that near things are more related than distant things is also true:

when such events come closer to home, they automatically become more relevant to the

people there.

240 Waldo Tobler, 'A computer movie simulating urban growth in the Detroit region'. Economic

Geography, 46:2, 1970, p. 236.

79

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

ACADEMIC LITERATURE

Baker, P. et al, 2008, 'A useful methodological synergy? Combining critical discourse

analysis and corpus linguistics to examine discourses of refugees and asylum seekers in

the UK press', Discourse Society, 19:3, 273-306.

Bakker, E., 2013, 'Nederlandse strijders in Syrië: een gevaar?' De Internationale Spectator,

67:6, 2-7.

Berger, J.M. and Jonathon Morgan, 2015, The ISIS Twitter Census. Defining and describing the

population of ISIS supporters on Twitter, The Brookings Project on U.S. Relations with the

Islamic World, Analysis Paper No. 20, Washington.

Bilgen, A., 2012, Terrorism and the Media: A Vicious and Dangerous Symbiosis, Published

online,<http://www.academia.edu/8046908/Terrorism_and_the_Media_A_Vicious_an

d_Dangerous_Symbiosis>, accessed 13 November 2014.

Briggs, R. and Ross Frenett, 2014, Foreign Fighters, The Challenge of Counter-Narratives,

Institute for Strategic Dialogue Policy Briefing, London.

Briggs Obe, R. and Tanya Silverman, 2014, Western Foreign Fighters. Innovations in Responding

to the Threat, Institute for Strategic Dialogue Research Paper, London.

Byman, D. and Jeremy Shapiro, 2014, Be Afraid. Be A Little Afraid: The threat of Terrorism

from Westers Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq, , Foreign Policy at Brookings Washington

Policy Paper, Washington.

Cockburn P., 2014, The Jihadis Return. ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising, London, OR books.

80

Dijk, T. van, 1993, 'Principles of critical discourse analysis', "Discourse and Society", 4:2,

249-283.

Drent, M., Kees Homan and Dick Zandee, 2013, Civil Military Capacities for European

Security. Clingendael Report, Den Haag.

Entman, R.M., 1993, 'Framing: Towards Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm', Journal of

Communication, 43:4, 51-58.

Fairclough, N., 1993, 'Critical Discourse Analysis and the Marketization of Public

Discourse: The Universities', Discourse Society, 4:2, 133-168.

Gerges, F.A., 2005, The Far Enemy, Why Jihad Went Global, New York: Cambridge

University Press.

Ginkel, B. van, 2015, Responding to Cyber Jihad: Towards an Effective Counter-Narrative, ICCT

Research Paper, The Hague.

Gorp, B. van, 2007, 'Het reconstrueren van frames via inductieve inhoudsanalyse:

uitgangspunten en analyses', KWALON, 12:2, 13-18.

Grol, P., Daan Weggemans and Edwin Bakker, 2014, 'De leefwereld en denkbeelden van

Nederlandse & Belgische Syriëgangers: een analyse van elf Facebook-accounts, De

Internationale Spectator, 68:12, 14-19.

Guillaume, X., and Jef Huisman, 2013, Citizenship and Security. The construction of political

being, London, Routledge.

Horváth, J., 2009, 'Critical Discourse Analysis of Obama's Political Discourse', Language,

literature and culture in a changing transatlantic world, International conference proceedings.

Presov: University of Presov, pp. 45-56.

Huysmans, J., 2014, Security Unbound. Enacting democratic limits, London, Routledge.

81

Ioannides, I., 2014, 'Inside-out and Outside-in: EU Security in the Neighbourhood', The

International Spectator, 49:1, 113-132.

Laqueur, W., 1977, Terrorism, Boston, Little, Brown and Company.

Lister, C., 2014, Profiling the Islamic State, Brookings Doha Center Analysis Paper no. 13,

Doha.

McCants, W., 2010, 'State of Confusion. ISIS' Strategy and How to Counter it', Foreign

Affairs, Published online: <https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iraq/2014-09-

10/state-confusion>, accessed 16 June 2015.

Nacos, B.L., 2007, Mass-Mediated Terrorism: The Central Role of the Media in Terrorism and

Counterterrorism, Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

Rood, J. 2014, Een wankele wereldorde, Clingendael Strategische Monitor 2014, Den Haag.

Schrover, M., 2011, 'Problematisation and particularisation: The Bertha Hertogh Story',

Tijdschrift voor sociale en economische geschiedenis, 8:2, 3-31.

Singleton, M., et all, 2014, Addressing the Foreign Terrorist Fighters Phenomenon from a European

Union Perspective, Global Center on Cooperative Security, Human Security Collective and

the ICCT International Centre for Counter-Terrorism Policy Brief.

Soeterik, R., 2014, 'Irak, de Islamitische Staat en de revanche van soennitische Arabieren',

De Internationale Spectator, 68:10, 9-16.

Stern, J. and J.M. Berger, 2015, ISIS. The State of Terror, London, William Collins.

Tobler W., 1970, 'A computer movie simulating urban growth in the Detroit

region'. Economic Geography, 46:2, 234-240.

Transnational Security, Terrorism and the Rule of Law, 2008, Terrorism and the Media,

Deliverable 6, Workpackage 4.

82

Trauner, F., 2011, The internal-external security nexus: more coherence under Lisbon?, European

Union Institute for Security Studies Occasional paper.

Ungureanu, D., 2011, 'Wahhabism, Salafism and the Expansion of Islamic

Fundamentalist Ideology', Argumentum, Journal of the Seminar of Discursive Logic,

Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric, 9:2, 140-147.

Weimann, G., 2014, New Terrorism and New Media, Research series vol. 2, Washington,

DC: Commons Lab of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Weiss, T., 2011, 'The Unclear Border between Internal and External Security in the

European Union: Impact of the Lisbon Treaty', Czech Journal of Political Science, 18:3 215-

229.

Whitehead, J.W., 2013, Terrorism and the Media: A Symbiotic Relationship, The Rutherford

Institute Commentary, published online:

<https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/te

rrorism_and_the_media_a_symbiotic_relationship>, accessed 16 June 2015.

Wijk, R. de and Roos Toxopeus, 2005, 'Hoe binnen- en buitenlandse veiligheid verweven

zijn', De Internationale Spectator, 59:7/8, 421-425.

Wodak, R. and Michael Meyer, 2009, 'Critical Discourse Analysis: History, Agenda,

Theory, and Methodology', Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, London, SAGE

Publications Ltd.

Zandee, D., 2014, 'De nexus externe-interne veiligheid', Magazine Nationale Veiligheid en

Crisisbeheersing, 12:5, 32-33.

83

NEWS ARTICLES

Ajbaili, M., 'How ISIS conquered social media', Al Arabiya News, 24 June 2014,

<http://english.alarabiya.net/en/media/digital/2014/06/24/How-has-ISIS-conquered-

social-media-.html>, accessed 16 March 2015.

Al Arabiya News, 'Foreign fighters still flowing to Syria', 11 February 2015,

<http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/02/11/Foreign-fighters-still-

flowing-to-Syria-U-S-intelligence-says.html#.VNsRwpqRrCo.twitter>, accessed 13

February 2015.

BBC news, 'Syria-bound UK teens stopped in Turkey released on bail', 16 March 2015,

<http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-31901847>, accessed 10 June 2015.

Bild, 'ISIS launcht eigenes soziales Netzwerk', 8 March 2015,

<http://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/isis/launcht-eigenes-soziales-netzwerk-

40068568.bild.html>, accessed 15 June 2015.

Busch, P., 'How will ISIS use media in the war provoked?', Special for CNN, 26 September

2014, <http://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/26/opinion/isis-media-war/>, accessed 13

March 2015.

Chulov, M., "ISIS: The inside story", The Guardian, Thursday 11 December 2014,

<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/11/-sp-isis-the-inside-story>, accessed

17 February 2015.

De Volkskrant, 'IS lanceert eigen sociale netwerk', 8 March 2015,

<http://www.volkskrant.nl/dossier-islamitische-staat/is-lanceert-eigen-sociale-

netwerk~a3891267/>, accessed 16 June 2015.

Ede Botje, H. and Abdou Bouzerda, "De Anatomie van de Islamitische Staat", Vrij

Nederland, 11 September 2014, < http://www.vn.nl/Archief/Buitenland/Artikel-

Buitenland/De-anatomie-van-de-Islamitische-Staat.htm>, accessed 13 February 2015.

84

Fantz, A. and Michael Pearson, "Who's doing what in the coalition battle against ISIS",

CNN, 28 February 2015, <http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/06/world/meast/isis-

coalition-nations/>, accessed 2 February 2015.

Fluit, A., 'Brussel krijgt centrum om ontluikende jihadi's op rechte pad te brengen', De

Morgen, 20 February 2015, <http://www.demorgen.be/binnenland/brussel-krijgt-

centrum-om-ontluikende-jihadi-s-op-rechte-pad-te-brengen-a2225469/>, accessed 17

June 2015.

Groenendijk, P., 'IS uitschakelen? Het is een illusie, zegt defensiedeskundige Dick

Zandee van instituut Clingendael', Het Algemeen Dagblad, 6 February 2015,

<http://www.ad.nl/ad/nl/32380/Aanval-op-Islamitische-

Staat/article/detail/3846005/2015/02/06/Defensiedeskundige-IS-uitschakelen-is-een-

illusie.dhtml>, accessed 11 June 2015.

Holden, M. and Stephen Addison, ''Jihadi John' Reportedly Identified As Mohammed

Emwazi', The World Post - A Partnership of the Huffington Post and Berggruen Institute, 26

February 2015, <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/26/jihadi-john-identified-

mohammed-emwazi_n_6759214.html>, accessed 16 March 2015.

Horrox, C., 'Southall jihadist jailed for 17 years for terror offences', Get West London, 6

February 2015, < http://www.getwestlondon.co.uk/news/west-london-news/southall-

jihadist-jailed-17-years-8593323>, accessed 17 February 2015.

Karouny, M., 'Insight - In northeast Syria, Islamic State builds a government', Reuters, UK

edition, 4 September 2014, < http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/09/04/uk-syria-crisis-

raqqa-insight-idUKKBN0GZ0DD20140904>, accessed 13 February 2015.

Kouwenhoven, A., 'Nederland steunt srijd tegen IS en 'is dus mogelijk doelwit'', NRC

Handelsblad, 8 January 2015,

<http://www.nrc.nl/handelsblad/van/2015/januari/08/nederland-steunt-strijd-tegen-

is-en-is-dus-mogeli-1457246>, accessed 15 June 2015.

85

Landler, M. and Michael R. Gordon, "U.S. to Send Up to 300 Military Advisers to Iraq",

The New York Times, 19 June 2014, <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/20/us/obama-

to-address-nation-on-iraq-crisis.html>, accessed 2 February 2015.

Nelson, S.C., 'ISIS T-Shirts & Hoodies Available To Buy Online', The Huffington Post, 24

June 2014, <http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/06/24/isis-t-shirts-hoodies-buy-

online-pictures_n_5524783.html?1403606851&ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000067>,

accessed 16 March 2015.

NOS Nieuws, 'Alleen luchtaanvallen tegen IS niet genoeg', , 30 January 2015,

<http://nos.nl/artikel/2016419>, accessed 16 February 2015.

NOS Nieuws, 'Eerste Syriëgangers veroordeeld', 23 October 2013,

<http://nos.nl/artikel/565987-eerste-syriegangers-veroordeeld.html>, accessed on 17

February 2015.

NOS Nieuws, 'Jordanië bombardeert 56 IS-doelen in drie dagen', 8 February 2015,

<http://nos.nl/artikel/2018104-jordanie-bombardeert-56-is-doelen-in-drie-

dagen.html>, accessed 16 February 2015.

NOS Nieuws, 'Rechter spreekt verdachte Syriëgangers vrij', 9 February 2015,

<http://nos.nl/artikel/2018221-rechter-spreekt-syriegangers-vrij.html>, accessed 17

February 2015.

NOS nieuws, 'Saudische geestelijke roept Nederlanders op tot jihad', 30 december 2014,

<http://nos.nl/artikel/2011145-saudische-geestelijke-roept-nederlanders-op-tot-

jihad.html>, accessed 28 January 2015.

NOS Nieuwsuur, ' IS verspreidt zich als een olievlek', 4 February 2015,

<http://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2017295-is-verspreidt-zich-als-een-olievlek.html>,

accessed 16 February 2015.

86

NOS op 3, ''Klik. Klik. Klik. Het was een schijnexecutie.'', 16 March 2015,

<http://nos.nl/op3/artikel/2025037-klik-klik-klik-het-was-een-schijnexecutie.html>,

accessed 16 March 2015.

Pheby, J. and Nicolas Revise, 'Anti -IS coalition talks focus on jihadist threat', Yahoo

News, 22 January 2015, <http://news.yahoo.com/kerry-leads-anti-coalition-talks-london-

035710465.html>, accessed 16 February 2015.

Richards, D., 'The Twitter jihad: ISIS insurgents in Iraq, Syria using social media to

recruit fighters, promote violence', ABC News Australia, 20 June 2014,

<http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-20/isis-using-social-media-to-recruit-fighters-

promote-violence/5540474>, accessed 16 March 2015.

Robinson, M., et all, ''I know ISIS butcher known as John the Jailer': French former

hostage says he has a 'rough' idea who masked British jihadi is', Mail Online, 20 August

2014, <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2730336/Find-British-butcher-mask-

Jihadi-filmed-beheading-American-journalist-identified-John-Londoner-gang-UK-

extremists-known-The-Beatles.html>, accessed 16 March 2015.

Rose, S., 'The ISIS propaganda war: a hi-tech media jihad', The Guardian, 7 October 2014,

<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/07/isis-media-machine-propaganda-

war>, accessed 9 March 2015.

Shapiro, J. and Danielle F. Jung, 'The terrorist bureaucracy: inside the files of the Islamic

State in Iraq', The Boston Globe, 14 December 2014,

<https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/12/14/the-terrorist-bureaucracy-inside-

files-islamic-state-iraq/QtRMOARRYows0D18faA2FP/story.html>, accessed 13

February 2015.

Salome, R. and Tobias den Hartog, "'Laat jihadisten naar Syrië gaan om daar te strijden'",

Het Algemeen Dagblad, 24 October 2014, < http://www.ad.nl/ad/nl/32900/Aanslagen-

rond-Canadees-parlement/article/detail/3775003/2014/10/24/Laat-jihadisten-naar-

Syrie-gaan-om-daar-te-strijden.dhtml>, accessed 5 February 2015.

87

The Only Official Website of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, '162 villages are under

YPG's control in Kobane countryside', 14 February 2015,

<http://syriahr.com/en/2015/02/162-villages-are-under-ypgs-control-in-kobane-

countryside/>, accessed 16 February 2015.

Topping, A., et all, ''Syria-bound' teenagers: airlines must do more, says David Cameron',

The Guardian, 23 February 2015,

<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/23/police-interviewed-missing-

teenagers-december-london-school>, accessed 10 June 2015.

Zwaan, I. de, '45.000 accounts in een paar maanden: zo groeit IS op Twitter', De

Volkskrant, 28 januari 2015, <http://www.volkskrant.nl/dossier-islamitische-

staat/45000-accounts-in-een-paar-maanden-zo-groeit-is-op-twitter~a3839303/>,

accessed 16 June 2015.

POLICY DOCUMENTS

Council of the European Union, 2003, A Secure Europe in a Better World, European

Security Strategy, Brussels.

Council of the European Union, 2010, Internal Security Strategy for the European Union:

Towards a European Security Model, Council Document 5842/2/2010, Brussels.

Council of the European Union, 2005, The European Union Counter-Terrorism Strategy,

Brussels.

Council of the European Union, 2010, The Stockholm Programme, Brussels.

European Commission, 2010, The EU Internal Security Strategy in Action: Five Steps towards a

more secure Europe, COM (2010) 673 final, Brussels.

Europol, 2011, EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2011.

88

UN Security Council, 2014, Threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts,

Resolution S/RES/2178.

WEBSITES

European Commission on Schengen Information Service II:

<http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/borders-and-

visas/schengen-information-system/index_en.htm>, accessed 16 June 2015.

European Commission on Visa Information Service (VIS):

<http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/borders-and-visas/visa-

information-system/index_en.htm>, accessed 16 June 2015.

European External Action Service on the Western European Union:

<http://eeas.europa.eu/csdp/about-csdp/weu/index_en.htm>, accessed 16 June 2015.

NATO News: <http://www.nato.int/docu/update/2005/03-march/e0310a.htm>,

accessed 15 June 2015.

The Netherlands Ministry of Security and Justice, news items, Gewelddadige jihadist verliest

Nederlanderschap, 18 December 2014,

<http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/ministeries/venj/nieuws/2014/12/18/gewelddadige-

jihadist-verliest-nederlanderschap.html>, accessed 17 February 2015.

IMAGES

Figure 1: U.S. Department of Defense, Iraq and Syria: ISIL’s Reduced Operating Areas as of April

2015,

<http://www.defense.gov/home/features/2014/0814_iraq/20150410_ISIL_Map_Unclass_App

roved.pdf>, accessed 18 June 2015.

89

Figure 2: Swati Sharma, "Map: How the flow of foreign fighters to Iraq and Syria has

surged since October", The Washington Post, 27 January 2015,

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/01/27/map-how-the-

flow-of-foreign-fighters-to-iraq-and-syria-has-surged-since-october/>, accessed 15 June

2015.

OTHER

Anti Defamation League, 2014, Hashtag Terror: How ISIS Manipulates Social Media,

published online: <http://www.adl.org/combating-hate/international-extremism-

terrorism/c/isis-islamic-state-social-media.html>, accessed 16 March 2015.

BNR Nieuwsradio, interview with Mark Singleton, 10 February 2015:

<http://www.bnr.nl/?service=player&type=archief&fragment=201502100932307200>,

accessed 18 February.

Cockburn, P. and Arnold Karskens, Patrick Cockburn and the Rise of IS, Lecture, De Balie,

Amsterdam, 22 March 2015.

De Standaard, 'LETTERLIJK: Het vonnis van Sharia4Belgium-proces, 11 February 2015,

<http://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20150211_01523511>, accessed 17 February 2015.

Department of Homeland Security, 2010, 'DHS Terrorist Use of Social Networking

Facebook Case Study', Public Intelligence, published online:

<https://publicintelligence.net/ufouoles-dhs-terrorist-use-of-social-networking-

facebook-case-study/>, accessed 27 May 2015.

Hamer, H., 2014, 'Wat bezielt de Nederlandse jihadist?', Broerstraat 5: Magazine voor alumni

en relaties van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, 29:4, pp. 8-9.

Henriëtte van Lyndenlezing, Jihad on our Doorstep: inside the minds of jihadis in Syria and Iraq,

De Rode Hoed, Amsterdam, 25 September 2014,

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XuzojfeJJk>, accessed 15 June 2015.

90

Koning, M. de and Jeroen Kostense, 2014, 'Oh, Oh, Aleppo', De Groene Amsterdammer,

138:38, <https://blendle.com/i/de-groene-amsterdammer/oh-oh-aleppo/bnl-

groeneamsterdammer-20140917-1_20_1>, accessed 10 June 2015.

Schut, B., 2014, 'Vechten op het pad van God', De Groene Amsterdammer, 138:51/52,

<https://blendle.com/i/de-groene-amsterdammer/vechten-op-het-pad-van-god/bnl-

groeneamsterdammer-20141217-1_26_1>, accessed 10 June 2015.

Thatcher, M., Speech to American Bar Association, Albert Hall, London, 15 July 1985,

<http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106096>, accessed 12 June 2015.