ICYMI: Offing the boss: Does killing terrorist leaders make us safer?

2016/06/01 Leave a comment

Another interesting piece by Doug Saunders:

But does it work?

One reason why Mr. Obama’s Taliban-termination received hardly more attention than his other acts on Monday is because people increasingly feel like it doesn’t. The Taliban appointed another leader, its third. Al-Qaeda has sprung back to life. Some have likened decapitation policies to Whac-a-Mole games: Bash a bad guy, and another one springs up.

Boss-offing is not a mysterious topic: In recent years, an entire science of decapitation analysis has sprung up.

The most influential number-crunching was conducted in 2009 by Jenna Jordan, a researcher at the University of Chicago (she is now at Georgia Tech). She analyzed 298 incidents of “leadership targeting” over six decades and looked at their impact on the organizations whose leaders were the recipients of these abrupt terminations.

Her results were far from encouraging. Her data showed that decapitation, on average, “does not increase the likelihood of organizational collapse beyond a baseline rate of collapse for groups over time.”

In fact, the extremist groups most likely to fall apart (that is, to stop being able to commit attacks and wage war) are actually those whose leaders have not been killed: Hitting the head honcho actually seems to help groups keep fighting longer – perhaps because it rather literally injects some fresh blood into the organization.

More recent analyses have questioned these findings. Certain groups have indeed self-imploded following the untimely demise of their figurehead: Peru’s Shining Path faded into irrelevance after its leader Abimael Guzman was captured; Italy’s Red Brigades did not outlast its founding leaders; the capture of Abdullah Ocalan disempowered Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party for a decade.

In a big-data study last year, Bryan Price of the U.S. Military Academy analyzed 207 terrorist groups from 1970 to 2008, but instead of looking at their effectiveness, he examined their longevity.

He found that taking out the executives “significantly increases the mortality rate of terrorist groups, even after controlling for other factors” – but it often takes longer than we’d like. Counterterrorism, he concluded, is a long game. He also found that the groups most likely to implode after things blow up in the head office are nationalists. Groups that see themselves as religious, he found, are more tolerant of bloodbaths at the top. Of 53 religious groups, only 19 have ended – 16 of them after their boss was wiped out. But of the 34 such terrorist groups still in existence (including al-Qaeda and the Islamic State), 20 have endured a decapitation strike.

There are other good reasons to knock off the kingpins: Inspiring morale in your troops, hurting jihadi recruitment by looking all-powerful, sowing moments of chaos that can be exploited. But there’s no reason to think they’ll make the fight any easier, or the world less bloody.

Source: Offing the boss: Does killing terrorist leaders make us safer? – The Globe and Mail

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No Community Should Have To Publicly Denounce Extremism | Jack Jedwab

2016/05/26 Leave a comment

Good piece by Jack Jedwab, quoting Rima Elkouri:

When I was employed by the Jewish community, I would occasionally be asked by the media to disassociate myself from individuals or groups that identified with the community. There is a need for greater empathy with members of communities for whom such disassociation is commonplace.

In September 2014, La Presse‘s Rima Elkouri decided to disassociate herself from barbaric acts taking place in Syria. In a climate where the failure on the part of individuals of the Muslim faith to denounce such action is deemed a tacit endorsement, Elkouri chose to respond to such a request on the part of an obnoxious reader of the newspaper.

Paradoxically, Ms. Elkouri is not Muslim. In her response, she noted that it’s never enough for the broader population when large Muslim organizations denounce the Islamic State. Hence, she pointed out that “sometimes it’s our citizens of the Muslim faith that feel compelled to denounce barbaric acts with greater vigour than the rest of us so as not to be seen as guilty by association.”

Elkouri added: “… Muslims, we tend to forget, are the principal victims of jihadists. They are no more likely to have ties with the Islamic State than do Christians with the Ku Klux Klan. Why this persistent societal demand for Muslims to break ranks with a group with which they do not associate? Why this hunting that regards silence with suspicion.” (Editor’s note: blogger’s translation.)

Elkouri concludes by disassociating herself publicly from this absurd logic.

As a solution to the real problem of terrorism in our society, it is counterproductive to collectively accuse persons of being complicit because they happen to share the same faith as a perpetrator of a heinous act. For the time being we can be thankful that in Canada when it comes to such forms of collective stigmatization, it’s the cooler heads that continue to prevail.

Source: No Community Should Have To Publicly Denounce Extremism | Jack Jedwab

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France’s Weird Jihadi Re-Education Camps Could Become ISIS Incubators – The Daily Beast

2016/05/18 Leave a comment

Valid debate, given the prevalence of radicalization within French prisons:

Young men from the northern districts of this most Muslim city in France are expected be among the first to be called up when the government in Paris kicks off its Orwellian new plan to fight the so-called Islamic State.

The idea is to herd suspected extremists into mysterious “deradicalization centers” all over the country. There are an estimated 9,000 radicalized—or “potentially radicalized”—jihadis believed to be in France, officials say. Another 2,000 French nationals are thought to have gone to Syria or Iraq to fight for the Islamic State.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls said last week that France will establish as many as 13 centers all over the country—picture an odd mix of halfway house, prison, and sleepover camp—where Islamist radicals or those who show signs of wanting to join the jihad in Syria and Iraq will be housed and “re-educated.” Oh, and they’ll be monitored “day and night” for 10 months while wearing special uniforms, Valls said.

But will Valls’s centers help stem the rising tide of radicalism in France or will they become, as one Muslim leader in southern France put it, a “French Guantanamo”?

Some say it would be better to help French Muslim religious leaders police their own. Several are quietly teaching their adherents how best to fight ISIS. But since some of them adhere to fundamentalist Salafi doctrine, they often are labeled as Islamist political extremists.

The core, critical difference is that followers of ISIS are takfiris intent on waging their murderous version of jihad against those who do not share their beliefs down to the letter, including fellow Muslims.

Most Muslims, even the very devout and conservative, do not agree. Indeed, they see the takfiris as deeply dangerous and divisive for the global community of believers. But these are hard distinctions for an aggressively secular French government to make.

“My combat against Daesh [ISIS] is very well known but it doesn’t make the papers,” Sheikh Abdel Hadi, the Algerian-born imam at the Es-Sunnah mosque in a gritty area of Marseille, told The Daily Beast. “We know our people better than the politicians in France do.”

Abdel Hadi, 54, has been giving courses to young people all over France, Italy, and Spain about how best to explain to Muslims and non-Muslims that ISIS’s ideology has nothing to do with Islam, and he has shown them how to prevent ISIS from recruiting.

In contrast, Valls’s plan calls for specially trained psychological counselors and teachers who will administer a treatment program for men and women between the ages of 18 and 30 who haven’t been convicted of committing actual crimes but whom judges deem a threat to the republic.

“Each era has its challenges,” Valls said at a Paris press conference last Monday. “The fight against jihad is undoubtedly the big challenge of our generation. Radicalization and terrorism are linked. We are faced with a stubborn phenomenon that has widely spread through society and which threatens it because it could expand massively.”

Asiem el Difraoui, a political scientist known for his studies on jihadists, told Le Parisiennewspaper that he was against what he called “these jihadist academies” because the group setting might foster radicalism much the way the French prison system does, not discourage it.

“Some radicals are masters are dissimulation,” he said. “All you need is one leader in there to take over the group.”

Source: France’s Weird Jihadi Re-Education Camps Could Become ISIS Incubators – The Daily Beast

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Methods For Reforming Neo-Nazis Help Fight The Radicalization Of Muslims

2016/05/11 1 Comment

More on Hayat-Germany and some of the similar counter-radicalization approaches:

Hayat-Germany grew out of a program called Exit-Deutschland, which targeted neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists, groups that German authorities have been working to deradicalize and fold back into Germany society for years. Berczk says the Hayat program is premised on the belief that the lessons from working with right-wing extremist programs can be applied to radical Islamists as well.

“There is a commonality between extremist ideologies,” she says. “But also if we are talking about sects and cults, there are certain things that all these groups have in common.”

That’s good news because it means authorities can mine their long experience with neo-Nazis and apply it to the relatively new problem they face with ISIS now. Of course, each case is different, which is what makes deradicalization complicated.

But in a general way, Hayat-Germany says the key component in these programs is family. Studies have shown that by strengthen family ties, parents and siblings end up providing the support young people were missing and subsequently sought and found in extremist groups.

Among other things, Hayat counsels the families to avoid confrontation when they are trying to convince relatives to come back from Syria. Recruiters in the jihadist camps tell new arrivals that conflict with their families is inevitable. They warn them that if they reach out to those they have left at home, they’ll be chastised and ordered to return.

The problem with their families, the recruiters say, is they just don’t understand ISIS followers and the depth of their faith. If families get angry — even if it comes from worry — this plays right into the recruiters’ hands.

That’s why Hayat tells parents not to demand a return, but instead to suggest their relatives leave Syria and settle in a third country, far away from the battlefield, and start a family and a new life. Once the young people are out from under ISIS’ spell, families have a better chance of convincing them eventually to come home. Strategies to make this happen come from counselors at Hayat.

Quintan Wiktorowicz, an academic who did field studies on radicalization in Jordan and the U.K., now runs Affinis Labs, which tries to use innovation and entrepreneurship to solve community problems like radicalization. He was responsible for engagement programs at the White House and developed counter-radicalization initiatives for the State Department. He says Hayat’s remedies — from hotlines people can call to engaging the families of radicalized youth in counseling sessions — are strategies that have been effective across ideologies.

“Although there are different pathways to radicalization and the ideologies vary across extremists groups, the underlying drivers are very similar,” he said.

The drivers usually come in three parts: an extreme level of frustration, a sense of powerlessness and exposure to an ideology that not only resonates emotionally, but also offers a solution to the frustration.

“The mechanics, whether you are a right-wing extremist or embracing ISIS, are very similar,” he says.

Source: Methods For Reforming Neo-Nazis Help Fight The Radicalization Of Muslims : Parallels : NPR

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Procès pour terrorisme: «l’islamophobie» n’est pas une raison pour cacher la preuve au public

2016/05/09 Leave a comment

Good decision:

La Cour du Québec a réitéré le droit fondamental à un procès public jeudi et rejeté la demande de deux accusés de terrorisme, qui souhaitaient qu’une partie de la preuve amassée contre eux soit cachée au public sous prétexte qu’elle risque de compromettre leur droit à un procès équitable en alimentant « l’islamophobie » et « le climat de panique » au Québec.

La requête avait été présentée par Sabrine Djaermane et El-Madhi Jamali, deux anciens élèves du collège de Maisonneuve arrêtés il y a un an et accusés d’avoir tenté de rejoindre un groupe terroriste à l’étranger et d’avoir planifié un attentat à Montréal.

En attente de leur procès, tous deux souhaitaient empêcher la publication d’éléments de preuve résumés par les enquêteurs de la GRC dans une demande pour obtenir un mandat de perquisition.

Leur demande s’appuyait sur le témoignage d’une témoin experte, Valérie Amiraux, sociologue et titulaire de la Chaire de recherche du Canada en étude du pluralisme religieux à l’Université de Montréal. Avec l’aide de deux collègues, cette dernière a produit un rapport de 22 pages sur l’effet que pourrait avoir la divulgation de la preuve au sein de la population québécoise.

Dans son rapport, la professeure souligne que l’image publique des musulmans s’est considérablement altérée depuis le 11 septembre 2001, « notamment par l’effet du traitement médiatique des informations ». Elle ajoute qu’il existe « une antipathie généralisée vis-à-vis des musulmans au Canada » et que « l’islamophobie s’est banalisée au Québec » dans la foulée des débats sur les accommodements raisonnables et la Charte des valeurs. Le contexte s’apparente à ce que certains sociologues appellent une « hystérie politique ».

Dans ce contexte, le dévoilement de certains éléments de preuve est « problématique », conclut-elle, car « ces éléments […] sont particulièrement susceptibles d’aider à tracer des liens entre l’islamophobie, le climat de panique et le sentiment d’insécurité ».

FRONT COMMUN DES MÉDIAS

Les avocats de La Presse, Québecor et de Radio-Canada ont fait front commun pour s’opposer à cette requête au nom de la liberté d’expression et des principes établis qui veulent que la justice soit publique au Canada.

La juge Lori Renée Weitzman leur a donné raison. La magistrate a résumé l’affaire à un conflit entre deux droits fondamentaux protégés par la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés : le droit des accusés à un procès juste et équitable, et le droit à la liberté d’expression.

La juge reconnaît que la témoin experte possède une grande expertise en sociologie et traite d’enjeux réels.

«Nul besoin d’un expert en sociologie pour affirmer qu’en 2016 au Québec, la population musulmane confronte des préjugés et stéréotypes à leur égard.»

Extrait du jugement

Mais pour la cour, l’existence de ces préjugés ne justifie pas de restreindre l’accès du public aux procédures judiciaires. « Sans minimiser l’étendue de l’expertise de Mme Amiraux, la faille dans son opinion est qu’elle extrapole des données qu’elle maîtrise parfaitement en sociologie pour arriver à une conclusion portant sur le système de droit criminel canadien, sans avoir les connaissances requises dans ce domaine », poursuit la juge.

Elle rappelle que selon la Cour suprême, « la bonne administration de la justice comprend le droit prévu par l’article 11 (d) de la Charte, qui garantit un procès public, et le droit à ce que les médias aient accès au procès et rapportent ce qui s’y déroule ».

Source: Procès pour terrorisme: «l’islamophobie» n’est pas une raison pour cacher la preuve au public | Vincent Larouche | Procès

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Islam and terrorism: Gurski

2016/05/02 Leave a comment

Phil Gurski, citing the recent Environics Institute survey on Canadian Muslims, on how integration and participation in Canadian society highlights the “acceptance of the rules of the road in a democracy:’

And yet it would at the same time be difficult to maintain that these groups represent normative Islam.  A very small number of the world’s billion and half Muslims resort to terrorism, and even if we include those that support violence the resulting figure is still minimal.  It should therefore be obvious that Islam does not lead inevitably to terrorism.

Where then does Islam enter into the solution?  We need look no further than to our own country for the answer.  The recent Environics poll on Muslim Canadians provides some intriguing material.  Carried out a decade after the first such survey, the poll shows that a majority of Canadian Muslims feel that this country allows them to practice their faith freely, are proud Canadians, want their communities to integrate into the greater Canadian polity and, of greatest importance for this article, want to cooperate with government agencies to address radicalisation.  This last finding coincides with my experiences and exchanges with Muslim communities across Canada during my time with the federal government.  In addition, the spike in Muslim voting in the last federal election clearly demonstrated that Canadian Muslims engaged in the political process to effect change.  That is the hallmark of one’s acceptance of the rules of the road in a democracy.

The incidence of Islamist terrorism will unfortunately be with us for some time.  Whatever happens to Islamic State and others, the spectre of jihadism will find another body to invade and wreak havoc.  Combating terrorism will take many forms and involve many actors.  Some of the most crucial actors will be our fellow Muslim Canadians.  We have the advantage here that we can have this dialogue about religion: as I heard repeatedly in the UK, EU nations struggle with this topic.

In the end we in Canada will not solve terrorism on our own, but we can make a contribution.  Yes, a small number of Canadians will venture down the path of Islamist violent extremism, and others around the world will act in similar ways.  We cannot, however, allow the fringe to dictate our relationship with our co-citizens who make a real contribution to the success, and envy of many, that is Canada.

Source: Borealis Threat & Risk Consulting

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Supremacist attitudes are a universal enemy

2016/04/26 Leave a comment

Amira Elghawaby of the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) on the link to supremacist attitudes:

What we seem to miss while seeking to understand these senseless acts of violence committed in the name of any religion, or political ideology, is that this nihilistic hate is often based on supremacist attitudes.

Instead of constant condemnations of those who say they are fighting and killing in the name of Islam, we must universally condemn those who paint the world in the false dichotomy of black and white, good and evil, or right and wrong.

Anyone who implicitly or explicitly advocates the supremacy of a particular group over another should think twice about how this dehumanizes fellow human beings around the world.

We have to acknowledge that nationalism can also be used to create and bolster a sense of righteousness and dominance in the minds of some. That isn’t to say that being proud of one’s country, or fellow citizens, is blameworthy. But we should beware of how nationalism may disconnect us from others in the world, or even within our own communities, and how it can be manipulated by agenda-driven interests and metastasize into something more sinister as we witnessed in Brussels with the unwelcome appearance of neo-Nazis at a recent weekend memorial.

Consider what fuels those who support such attitudes, including what fuels them to support the likes of Donald Trump. The head of the U.S.-based National Policy Institute and a white nationalist, Richard Spencer, told VICE News last December that “[Trump’s] basically saying that if you are a nation, then at some point you have to say, ‘There is an ‘Us,’ and there is a ‘Them.’ Who are we? Are we a nation? In that sense, I think it’s really great.”

Supremacist attitudes are dangerous, not least because they also make it harder to engage in meaningful discourse around the drivers of violence. Our best chance of fighting extremist ideology is to find our common humanity and not simply reinforce false polarization within our societies. The doubling of hate crimes against Muslims over the past three years here in Canada speaks clearly to this.

Source: Supremacist attitudes are a universal enemy |

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High-school students need to learn more about Holocaust to dissuade teens from joining ISIL, group says

2016/04/19 Leave a comment

One effort to improve awareness:

“It’s very topical: we’re talking about 17-year-olds and 16-year-olds being lured into ISIS,” said Berger. “The question is, if these students were educated about genocide, that would certainly help to a large degree.”

Kyle Matthews of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies is supporting Berger’s initiative.

“It struck me that we’re not teaching our youth enough about genocide when we have Canadian and Quebec youth leaving to commit genocide overseas,” said Matthews.

“Something is missing in our core education when not just a couple of a bad apples but a significant number are embracing an ideology that encourages slaughter (and) extinction.”

Matthews says it is important to preserve the memory of such massacres: there are no survivors left of the Armenian genocide and Holocaust survivors are elderly and dying.

Genocide education is sporadically available around the country. The Toronto District School Board has offered a course since 2007 that investigates examples of genocide in the 20th and 21st centuries, including Armenia, the Holocaust and Rwanda.

Berger, a filmmaker and university lecturer, carries on her mother’s message in her own school presentations on the Holocaust — one in which Kazimirski still figures prominently through a posthumous video testimonial about the harrowing experiences she endured.

In her school visits, Berger learned that teachers are afraid to teach it and don’t have the tools.

“An ethics teacher came up and told me that kids are graduating from Grade 11 without knowing what the word genocide means,” Berger recounted.

About 18 months ago, she founded The Foundation for the Compulsory Study of Genocide in Schools. In Quebec, Berger is lobbying for changes to a textbook for a course called “Contemporary World” to include a full chapter on genocide instead of the current few paragraphs. She also wants help for teachers.

Berger says a meeting with Education Minister Sebastien Proulx is scheduled for early May and that a previous petition as well as meetings with provincial legislators and teachers’ unions have been positive.

David Birnbaum, the legislative assistant to Proulx, has helped Berger navigate Quebec bureaucracy and bring the matter to the attention of the national assembly.

Birnbaum said academic studies suggest a relatively high level of ignorance about the Holocaust and genocide in general, but adds the matter is tackled in the current Quebec curriculum.

“There are a range of places … where the Holocaust and the concept of genocide are mentioned and it’s always a challenge to make changes to the program,” Birnbaum said.

“But my own priority is to make sure that Heidi Berger gets to make her case as clearly and directly as she can.”

Quebec title: Une Québécoise réclame une formation sur le génocide dans les écoles

Source: High-school students need to learn more about Holocaust to dissuade teens from joining ISIL, group says | National Post

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ISIS Targets American Imams for Believing Muslims Can Thrive in U.S. – Also in Canada

2016/04/16 Leave a comment

Does undermine the American right’s characterization of American Muslims:

Three American imams got put on ISIS’s hit list for promoting the idea that Islam and the West can coexist.

The terrorist group’s latest issue of propaganda Dabiq attempts to theologically justify an attack on the religious leaders in an article titled “Kill the Imams of Kufr in the West.” The men are worse than hypocrites, ISIS says, because they say Muslims can thrive in America.

“The person who calls himself a ‘Muslim’ but unapologetically commits blatant kufr [disbelief] is not a munafiq [hypocrite], as some mistakenly claim. Rather, he is a murtadd [apostate],” Dabiq claims.

The Daily Beast will identify two of the Americans with pseudonyms because of the direct threats on their lives. A third, who gave The Daily Beast permission to use his name, responded with dark humor.

“Nothing like a death threat with a danish and a latte in the morning,” Suhaib Webb told The Daily Beast.

This is the first time ISIS has put out a direct hit on U.S. imams.

Webb is treated with contempt by jihadists who call him “the joke of al-Azhar,” a reference to his time at the esteemed Islamic university in Egypt.

“I mean, it’s certainly concerning,” he said, adding that he’s been contacted by the Department of Homeland Security about the threat. “They maybe want to brief me on things to look for, to be cautious of,” he said.

The irony of being on the most extremist group’s hit list isn’t lost on Webb, who for years has been accused of Islamic extremism by the far right in America.

“In a way, [Dabiq]’s attacking what many of us think makes our country awesome. And at the same time, it repudiates people on the right,” he said. “If people like myself are radical extremists, then why is ISIS putting a death threat on us?”

Meanwhile in Canada:

Just days after celebrating cultural bridges, a Toronto imam has been targeted in a Daesh hit list.

The self-declared Islamic State called out Shaykh Abdullah Hakim Quick along with other Muslims in the West, urging followers to kill them for speaking out against the group and betraying their interpretation of Islam.

Quick works with the Canadian Council of Imams, which hosted its first annual dinner on Monday night, honouring political leaders and community members.

“It was a really good vibration that came out of that meeting, a lot of unity between people of different faiths,” Quick told the Star.

“So here comes the devil, as we would say, screaming out against us the next day.”

Quick first learned of the threat on Wednesday from a fellow imam in the council, but though he says he has contacted law enforcement and is taking precautions, he will not be intimidated.

“I will continue to do what I have to do,” he said. “Putting my trust in God. This is what Muslims do when they find themselves in difficulty, and continue on to do what’s right.”

Michael Zekulin, a terrorism researcher at the University of Calgary, says the threat is typical of Daesh’s propaganda tactics, but not necessarily legitimate.

Daesh has implored its followers to go after others in the past, he says, like Calgary-based cleric Syed Soharwardy and UFC fighter Tim Kennedy.

“It never resonated,” Zekulin said. “It’s not something you dismiss and laugh off, but at the same time I’m not sure that simply because they mentioned this individual all of a sudden (he) is a serious immediate target.”

He says more than anything the threat demonstrates the sophisticated, extensive nature of Daesh’s communication network.

Toronto imam lands on Daesh hit list

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How Germany Has Resisted the Influence of ISIS | TIME

2016/04/14 Leave a comment

Good article on some of the initiatives Germany is taking to reduce the influence of ISIS (likely other factors also at play):

But Germany also acted early to counteract Islamist propaganda, dating back to before ISIS even emerged as a global terror network. Soon after the deadly shooting at Frankfurt airport in spring 2011, the government instituted a program that may seem counter-intuitive: it began making Islamic studies available to students of all ages, particularly around North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany’s most populous region and home to its largest Muslim communities.

Teachers in this region, whose capital is Düsseldorf, were given a “crash course” in the new Islamic curriculum, which was designed with the help of local imams and religious experts, says Ali Bas, a regional lawmaker who lobbied for this initiative and helps oversee its implementation.

As of this year, 17,000 students in the region were taking courses on Islam, a small fraction of the roughly 300,000 Muslim students in the region but double the number at the start of 2015. By next year, Bas expects the program to grow at an even faster pace, as the first group of teachers are due to complete their degrees in Islamic education and join the faculties of schools across the region.

One of their aims, says Bas, is to make young Muslims feel accepted, “to give them the feeling that they are important in our society.” The broader intention, he says, is to undermine the work of ISIS recruiters, who typically stoke feelings of alienation and social resentment. “Accepting this religion is, for us, a very important aspect of making younger people stronger against extremism,” says Bas, who is an ethnically Turkish Muslim.

The Signpost program, which Sauerborn established in 2014, takes a more targeted approach. With three offices around North-Rhine Westphalia, it offers parents and teachers a place to turn for advice when they see signs of radicalization among young men. In many cases, the program’s counselors go to the schools and hang-outs of devout Muslims in Düsseldorf and other cities to offer guidance, not only on questions of religion but also on social or financial issues, like finding a job or resolving a conflict with a teacher.

German converts to Islam are also invited to seek help from Signpost counselors, who often try to ensure that a convert does not become estranged from his family. “We’d call his mother and say, ‘Look, he’s just a Muslim,’” says Sauerborn. “’That’s not a crime. That’s his choice. That doesn’t mean he’s being radicalized.’”

The hardest part of the program’s mission is winning the trust of the Muslim community, especially among young men who might already feel persecuted or unjustly scrutinized by the authorities. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s domestic intelligence service, pays the salaries of all of the program’s counselors, defines their responsibilities and oversees their work.

But the agency does not use them as informants, says Sauerborn, who sits on the executive board of the Düsseldorf police department. “There is no information exchange, and on that point the Federal Office is very consistent,” he says. “They have never asked for personal information about the people we work with. They just want us to be here to meet their needs.”

One of the program’s counselors agreed to talk to TIME, but only on the condition of anonymity so as not to alert other members of the Muslim community that he works for the German intelligence service. Over the past two years, he says he has worked with about 30 young men in Düsseldorf, some of whom had plans to travel to Syria and join ISIS.

“They think they need to go there and defend Islam, because of these propaganda videos and everything they’ve been told,” he says. In their attempts to dissuade such people, “we don’t say directly that [ISIS] is wrong, that it’s all lies. We have to speak with the people in such a way as to analyze the situation, to see what [Islamist] groups they are attached to, what they want to do in Syria. And then we try to provide concrete help.”

Source: How Germany Has Resisted the Influence of ISIS | TIME

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