ISIS Draws Experienced Jihadists and Youth Alike From North Africa

A reporter for Mahgarebia, Mohamed Saadouni, pointed out last month how telling it was that a counter-gang unit in Morocco had busted a ring of pro-ISIS youth.  That is a counter-gang unit and not at counter-terrorism unit like the one which busted up a Moroccan ISIS recruiting cell the week prior.   The ISIS recruiting cell, led by a primary school teacher, had been sending fighters to Iraq and Syria in coordination with ground commanders there.

There’s a picture of a relationship here between seasoned and capable jihadis in the networks of North Africa and the numbers of disaffected youth they have to draw from for recruiting.  A recent number for Tunisia estimates that 3000 fighters have made it from there to the Syrian theater.  The new generation of young fighters are in great number in Morocco and North Africa and are easily accessible to former Al Qaeda, ISIS, Ansar al Sharia, and other splinter groups both socially and geographically.

Saadouni points out that while the ISIS recruiting cell was sending fighters to the Syrian theater, the younger and newly formed group, deterred by the air strike campaign, chose to spread both horror and Shariah law in their home kingdom.  Unlike homegrown terror in the West, the international and regional jihadi networks can manufacture fighters from ideological cultivation in their youth and plug them right into the neighboring ISIS Algerian branch.  From that point there are no good outcomes.  They may end up on the battle field in Iraq or Syria, wage violent jihad at home, or use their battle field experience at home when they return.

The new group formed in Morocco took the name, ‘Ansar Islamic State in the Maghreb Al-Aqsa.’  They give their allegiance to ISIS in Algeria whom are largely former Al Qaeda.  All of this should remind us that in many parts of the world it is not ‘terrorism’ per se.  It is kinetic war and it is ideological war.  Saadouni’s description of the behavior of the young Moroccan gangs may as well describe the Shariah gangs in London.  Such visions realized would look like Al Bashir’s regime in Khartoum which can force black Africans to take on Arab names and identities or force them into slavery all while eradicating those who don’t comply to Shariah law with weapons of conventional warfare on a mass scale.