In the last month alone, it has been held responsible for attempting a genocide against the Yazidi minority sect, as well as the extermination of the Turkmen Shia Muslims of Amerli.
These come on top of the wholesale massacre it committed against the Sunni peoples of the Shu'aytat tribe in East Syria in August, as well as countless other summary executions of people it deems to be its enemies.
We must not be fooled
into thinking that ISIS only beheads its Western captives; last week, a
Kurdish man - unarmed, of course - was executed in front of a mosque in Mosul in a video entitled "A message written in blood."
But because it was directed at the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, this
particular piece of propaganda did not receive widespread coverage in
the international media.
A cursory glance at ISIS
propaganda suggests that the West is its primary target. While this may
be the case in terms of the group's long-term ambitions, events on the
ground in Syria and Iraq paint a very different picture, with ISIS
predominantly killing those it deems to be "apostate", including its
co-religionists.
In light of events in Syria and Iraq, the international community must react robustly and swiftly. This week's NATO summit is fortuitously timed, and one would hope that the ISIS crisis takes its place at the top of the meeting's agenda.
However, as I've said before,
a strategy of solely Western intervention would play right into the
ISIS ideology. Indeed, it would be exactly what the group wants. As
such, it is paramount that other states -- particularly those within the
region -- step up to the plate as well. Countries such as Turkey and
Saudi Arabia must actively respond instead of leaving it to others.
It is not just the
international community that has a responsibility, though: the media
must act as well. It is paramount that it carefully considers its
treatment of ISIS propaganda, with its twin aims of intimidation and
recruitment.
Every time a still or
clip from an ISIS video is shown, the group gets what it wants: the
oxygen of publicity. Of course, it is necessary that people the world
over are aware of the atrocities occurring at the hands of ISIS, but
journalists must be careful not to do the jihadists' job for them.
This also involves
establishing a firm no-platform policy for al-Baghadi's stooges in the
West. These insidious individuals thrive on media attention, which they
use to amplify their otherwise ostracized voices.
As Quilliam's last report, which looked at extremist content online, showed, it is an unfortunate truth that online censorship does not work.
Any attempts at
censorship in the aftermath of the Foley killing were always doomed to
failure. Simply put, corporations and governments are unable to remove
propaganda from the internet at the rate that it is uploaded. More
effective than government-led censorship was the "ISIS media blackout,"
in which users across the internet resolutely refused to publicize ISIS
material. After all, videos like these have minimal propaganda value if
they have no audience.
At the same time, instead of publicizing what ISIS wants, we must popularize what it doesn't.
The anti-ISIS fatwa recently released by prominent Sunni British imams
would be a good place to start, because it dismantles any sense of
legitimacy for the self-proclaimed "caliphate" and directly calls for
Muslim communities to take an active stance in opposing this appalling
group.
More initiatives like
this must emerge. That they have not materialized already is testament
an untenable situation in which the vast majority of Muslims, who are
invariably moderate, are largely silent, something which leaves
extremists to dominate the discourse on Islam.
The time has passed when
we can allow ISIS to popularize itself unchallenged. Challenging ISIS
propaganda must be at the forefront of international policy towards
Syria and Iraq. And it is not just something for governments to deal
with. People all over the world, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, are
responsible too.
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