By: Junaid Zahid
Part 1
ISIS has significantly expanded its efforts to set traps for various segments of society, targeting people of all ages and backgrounds in multiple ways.
The group that ISIS focuses on the most is the youth. Therefore, they strive to present their traps in an appealing way to ensnare young people and exploit their energy for their own benefit.
In this short article, we will examine some of these traps and how they function, as recognizing them requires serious attention. These traps are designed to influence young minds and recruit them to follow ISIS’s ideology.
1. Deception through Social Media Platforms
ISIS utilizes social media as a key tool to deceive and manipulate, successfully recruiting a significant number of young individuals. They primarily target young people who are highly sensitive and quick to react, exploiting their naivety to draw them into their trap.
They utilize social media platforms to showcase video clips of their limited “achievements,” which captivate and manipulate young minds, pulling them into their web of deceit.
The digital world is accessible to almost everyone; anyone with access to a phone and the internet is vulnerable to ISIS’s manipulation. Thus, young people must use this access wisely to avoid falling into the group’s traps, which bring nothing but misery and destruction.
Every year, ISIS spends a significant portion of its budget on propaganda via television, radio, and other internet networks, broadcasting in over a dozen languages. A large part of this budget is provided by powerful nations (like the U.S.) to help ISIS achieve its own hidden objectives.
Those who lead these social media channels claim that what ISIS is doing is spreading Islam globally and establishing an international Islamic caliphate.
However, anyone involved in these online networks should be aware that ISIS can never represent true Islam. Their beliefs do not align with the idea of establishing a global Islamic society.
ISIS is essentially an un-Islamic, Western ideology that was created to tarnish the reputation of Islam’s sacred concept of jihad. They use every possible means to achieve this objective.
Ultimately, ISIS’s narrow and self-serving ideology will never truly win over the youth. Instead, they will exploit young people as human resources to fulfill their vile and destructive goals. Once they achieve their objectives, these young people will be discarded and forgotten.
