Picture of Western teen jihadi sparks fears of Islamic State propaganda coup
Another young convert “misunderstanding” Islam in exactly the same way as millions of other Muslims and converts. At least that’s what the media and political elites tell us – as if they understood Islam better than the devout.
“Sparks fear of ‘propaganda coup.'” It should spark fear of the Islamic texts and teachings that command holy war.
If the Islamic State is not Islamic, what is it? How did this misunderstanding of Islam become so widespread? Why are so many more Western Muslims and Muslim converts than ever joined al Qaeda joining the Islamic State?
And while Muslims in the West condemn the Islamic State, where are they teaching against the ideology that gave rise to it?
Right now, nothing is being done to stop jihad recruiting in US mosques, even as several hundred young Muslims from the US have gone to wage jihad for the Islamic State.
“Picture of white jihadi sparks fears of Islamic State propaganda coup,” Telegraph, December 27, 2015The appearance of a photograph appearing to show a young white ‘jihadist’ armed with a rifle sitting alongside Islamic State fighters has led to fears of a major propaganda coup by the extremist group.
The picture shows the youth, named in some reports as Jonathan Edwards, sitting in front of a black flag of the type used by IS, also know as Isil, wearing a bullet proof vest.
Next to him sit two beared men, both clutching weapons, wearing similar dress – apparently fighters with the jihadi group which has spread terror across large parts of Syria and Iraq.
But doubts about the authenticity have emerged after a blogger, who calls himself Abu Dawud, claimed on Saturday that he had fabricated the image in order to hoax the British media.
The picture was posted on Twitter by Dawud, an English-speaking blogger who claims to be based in Yemen.
A caption to the photograph – which first emerged on December 3 – claimed that the young man had joined IS after missing the Universities and Colleges Admission Service (Ucas) deadline for applying to university.
It reads: “Meet Jonathan Edwards – applied for UCAS to [sic] late and wasn’t accepted in any university, so he joined the Islamic state.”
With some social media users claiming Edwards is British or Australian, the recruitment of a white man to the terror group would be regarded as a significant propaganda exploit.
However, there had also been also questions over the authenticity of the photograph, with speculation that it may have been deliberately doctored to spread fear and confusion or simply be a sinister hoax.
Experts from the intelligence services were understood to be trying to identify the young man in the picture in order to establish whether it is genuine and, if so, how he came to join the group.
The counter-extremism think tank Quilliam is also trying to determine the photograph’s authenticity and the identity of the man.
Haras Rafiq, of Quilliam, told the Daily Mail: “I have not come across this picture before. It is also strange that one post has called him ‘Jonathan Edwards’, rather than him taking on an Islamic name. But having said that I am not going to discount it.”
Mr Rafiq added that IS had access to sophisticated editing software which could allow it to manipulate such images for its own effect.
Shiraz Maher, of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, at King’s College London, said that while hundreds of western Muslims had travelled to join the terror group, there were no known white converts in Syria and if IS had recruited one the group might have been expected to publicise the matter widely as part of its own propaganda offensive.
Mr Maher said: “I don’t think there’s enough evidence to say it’s a British fighter or that the picture is 100 per cent authentic. There aren’t many white English converts in Syria. If he’s happy to sit there with his face uncovered we’d have seen it in a bigger propaganda hit.”
Most fighters who have travelled to join IS in Syria and Iraq are of Asian or African background, with around 60 Australians and around 500 Britons among them, although Khalid Mahmood, Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, has suggested the true figure for British recruits could be as high as 2,000.
Scotland Yard said nobody with the name Jonathan Edwards has been reported missing. The Home Office refused to comment on individual cases.
Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said in October that up to five Britons were joining armed groups in Syria every week.
A British-born man using the name Abu Abdel Malik al-Britani was reported by IS sources to have been killed on Tuesday in Syria, along with two Canadian fighters.
He was pictured outside a sports shop holding a US-manufactured M16 assault rifle
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