Historical Context

To understand the women of ISIS and their motivations, it helps to place them in their historical context, among other female terrorists in the modern era. We see women in leftist and nationalist organizations across the globe by the 1960s and 1970s like: “The Red Brigades”, “Red Army Fraction”, “Liberation Tigers of Tamil”, “Shining Path-Peru”, “Popular Front of Liberation of Palestine”, etc. (Raghavan and Balasubramaniyan Reference Raghavan and Balasubramaniyan2014).

Between 1985 and 2010, female bombers committed over 257 suicide attacks representing about a quarter of the total on behalf of many different terrorist organizations. The percentage of women since 2002 in some countries exceeds as much as 50% of the operatives. The women have killed hundreds of men, women and children and their acts have maimed, blinded or crippled thousands more. Dozens more have tried and failed, and allegedly hundreds are being trained for the future (Bloom Reference Bloom2011). By the 1990s and certainly since the 2000s women have been increasingly involved with Islamist and jihadi terrorist organizations throughout the world, like “Al Qaeda”, “Riyad-us Saliheen Brigade of Martyrsas”, etc., as well as right-wing and left-wing terrorist groups, and environmental and animal rights groups, for example (Sutten Reference Sutten2009; Lindemann 2015). Between 1981 and 2007, of all suicide attacks in the Middle East, 26% were women, and woman jihadists were now becoming common place, at least according to ISIS propaganda (Miranda Reference Miranda2015).

“Female terrorists are not a new phenomenon. Women have previously played active roles in Terrorist groups … Rarely; however, have women been part of a terrorist network’s central body or key strategic focus. The responsibility most often expected of women has been” (Zingg Reference Zingg2015:14) “to sustain an insurgency by giving birth to many fighters and raising them in a revolutionary environment” (Petrou Reference Petrou2015).

Like Men

A study from the Queen Mary University of London from 2015 reveals that British Muslim women and girls are just as vulnerable to becoming radicalized as their male peers. The news comes amid reports of girls as young as 14 years old traveling to Syria from the West, to marry Islamist fighters, bear their children and join their communities (Saltman and Smith Reference Saltman and Smith2015). Kamaldeep Bhui claims that gender did not play a significant role in the risk of radicalization: “Women are no less likely in our analysis to have sympathies. If anything, they were more likely to show such sympathy, but not significantly so. There is an increasing epidemic of girls” (McVeigh Reference McVeigh2014). Melani Smith says, “They are going for adventure, just like the young men” (Khaleeli Reference Khaleeli2014).

Jamie Dettmer suggests that some young Western women are attracted to ISIS by the same messages as Western men: ranging from religious obligation to adventure to solidarity with Syrians in the fight against the Assad regime (Dettmer Reference Dettmer2014). The horrors of the Syrian conflict are cited as the motivating factor by many women who have travelled to Syria, says Smith. Khan also agrees that anger about foreign policy plays a part in young people being drawn to extremism. Intense identification with Muslim sufferings abroad, coupled with anger about British foreign policy, can be used to suggest the ummah is under attack, and needs defending. Baroness Warsi suggests that “the British lack of response over the crises in Gaza was a basis for radicalization that could have consequences for years to come” (Khaleeli Reference Khaleeli2014).

Breaking Norms

Young girls want to break the social norms of the patriarchal traditional Muslim system. They feel equal to the young boys beside them (Ben-Israel Reference Ben-Israel2016). They include Aqsa Mahmood, team leader of Al-Hans, “al amriqui” from the USA and the two twin sisters from the UK, Kurdish female Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters, a Western girl who works in Starbucks, etc. “A significant number of women and girls from Western countries have also answered ISIS call to jihad, as part of an active online recruiting campaign. As reported on incredulously in Western media, teen girls from countries such as Austria, England, the Netherlands, and the United States have sought to join the group; an estimated 100 women from Germany – mostly between the ages of 16 and 27 – have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS, some with their husbands while others went on their own to marry or fight in the movement; others have been stopped by authorities en route” (Brooks Reference Brooks2015). Magnus Ranstorp claims that ISIS just recruits anyone, and there are many roles in the proclaimed caliphate (religious-based state) that women can play (Fenton Reference Fenton2016). Bhatia claims that “the rise in female jihad stems from the desire for self-empowerment, political recognition, and gender equality” (Bhatia Reference Bhatia2015:13).

Romance, Marriage, Mothers, Children

Melanie Smith, a research associate with the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence, has been tracking the movements of foreign fighters to Syria. They include 21 women who have traveled from Europe to the country. She said that most are undertaking “typical” female roles: making house and establishing community and support structures – not fighting. Most of the women fit into two groups: those who travel with their husbands to jihad, and those who travel to Syria or Iraq to get married. The latter is “certainly a trend”. She assumes that this is a trend that will grow. “Many questions flood the male foreign fighters on social media about the possibility of marrying them or even being their third wife. They are generally answered in a positive way and asked to move to a more private platform” (Vinograd Reference Vinograd2014).

Smith says the profile of ISIS recruits has changed. “The girls are getting younger,” she says – typically aged 19 or 20 years. Nor do they seem to be particularly fanatical in their piety. The first recruits to Islamic State had practised an extreme interpretation of Islam all their lives. The women responding now, she says, “are going for adventure, just like the young men”. Yet it is obvious from the comments posted online that many are also attracted to the idea of marrying a foreign fighter, seen as a heroic figure willing to sacrifice himself for a cause. The attention from girls and women has even led to some exasperated jihadists to ask their online followers to stop sending marriage proposals on social media, as it is not “halal” – or religiously permissible (Khaleeli Reference Khaleeli2014).

Tatiana Dronzina also suggests romance, partnership, marriage and the desire to gamble, alongside the message that is brought to them, about the multi amount of available men in the ISIS tribe (Ivanova Reference Ivanova2016). Brooks also claims that ISIS has used a romanticized narrative of marriage to attract women as wives and future mothers for jihadi fighters. “Women give birth to the mujahideen [warriors] and they are the ones who raise them and teach them,” notes one Western jihadi woman (Brooks Reference Brooks2015). “For some women, the appeal to join IS and marry a fighter is the start of what they believe is to be the creation of a new nation. To be a founding mother of a nation and have children to continue what they see as the struggle” (Miranda Reference Miranda2015).

The Desire to Gamble, The Goal of Life, Sense of Belonging

Mia Bloom claims that for each “type” of women ISIS is trying to attract, they adopt a different message. For example, they offer older women convert the chance “to create a new identity” and for the young women, the message is also tailored to basically prey “upon their innate altruism to do something important and ‘good’ with their lives.” “Life is inaccurately portrayed as one filled with excitement where they will play an important part” (Fenton Reference Fenton2016).

ISIS may appear to offer an escape from a nation where to be an equal citizen requires abandoning the dictates of one’s religion. From this perspective, the ISIS denunciation of national identity in favor of a faith-based identity transcends borders in a crudely welcoming way. For example: on her blog, Umm-Layth (formerly Aqsa Mahmood) explains that in territory that ISIS controls, Muslim women are not mocked for wearing Islamic clothing and instead receive nothing but “respect and honor” (Zakaria Reference Zakaria2015).

Sara Khan also offers arguments similar to those of Zakaria. Khan says that many Muslim women feel that the UK is increasingly hostile to Muslims. “With Muslim women more likely to be the victims of Islamophobic attacks than men, and facing barriers such as lower levels of employment and qualifications than the population as a whole, this can add to existing feelings of disenfranchisement” (Khaleeli Reference Khaleeli2014). Also “these young girls are the 9/11 generation – and they are constantly told that it is Muslims in this country who are the problem … Media discussions of issues to do with Muslim women have not helped … In the last year, the debates have all been about gender segregation, the niqab, hysteria about halal meat, the charity commission focusing on Islamic charities. That … really is going to alienate them. And they will look to something that offers them belonging” (Khaleeli Reference Khaleeli2014).

Havlicek claims that ISIS sends foreign women a compelling message. “Given the choice of a fairly mundane life in a second-tier job in the West, and this rather heroic and romantic image of jihadi life being portrayed by Islamic State propaganda, which is very well crafted, in a paradoxical way this gives women a sense of agency and empowerment” (Kaplan Reference Kaplan2014). Smith, Sara Khan, and Sayeeda Warsi suggest that joining extremist groups can be seen as cool as well, while the lack of a sense of belonging has led to a renewed interest and identification with the ummah, the worldwide community of Muslims (Khaleeli Reference Khaleeli2014). Kalsoom Bashir, co-director of a British Muslim education organization called Inspire, added that life among jihadists promises status and a sense of belonging – another compelling “pull” factor for young Muslims who increasingly feel left out of mainstream British society. “When they still feel as part of the other, and they have religious ideologies telling them that this is a way to have purpose and duty, that provides a breeding ground for the next step” (Kaplan Reference Kaplan2014). Tatiana Dronzina speaks about “the painful process of finding their own individuality inherent in any young person, almost everyone is looking at this kind of emigration as a transition to a better life, where their values are put into practice, and their feminine essence will find complete satisfaction. They, like any other, need a goal in their life; they need a sense of belonging to a community that shares their values and beliefs” (Ivanova Reference Ivanova2016).

Perešin (Reference Perešin2015) claims that:

In the newly proclaimed ‘Caliphate’ some women see a chance to take part in the state-building process and to participate in the creation of a new society that would be built in contrast to the ‘decadent and morally corrupt Western society, which has no respect for women’. With that in mind, women talk about joining the state, not a terrorist group, and expect to be given an important role in creating the new, ideologically-pure state, where they could live ‘honourably’ under a strict interpretation of Shariah law.

Radicalism, Religion, Islamic-Utopia

After carrying out a series of interviews with teenagers in the banlieues, the poverty-stricken suburbs of Paris which have become a breeding ground for extremism, the French journalist Anna Erelle concluded, “They knew very little about religion. They had hardly read a book and they learnt jihad before religion. They’d tell me, ‘You think with your head, we think with our hearts.’ They had a romantic view of radicalism. I wondered how that happened” (Driscoll Reference Driscoll2015). Magnus Ranstorp claims that “many younger women are rebelling against patriarchal structures and they have a ‘romanticized notion about what the caliphate is’” (Fenton Reference Fenton2016). Dabiq, the online magazine used by the “Islamic State” of Iraq and the Levant for propaganda and recruitment, suggests that the most prominent archetype of women is that of “contributor”: “the woman who performs hijrah to the Caliphate as an essential expression of her female Muslim identity. By fulfilling this obligation, these ‘contributors’ not only actively solve their own individual crises and reverse the ills imposed on them by the West (a topic which is addressed in Dabiq 15’s ‘The Fitrah of Mankind and the Near Extinction of the Western Woman’) but solve the Muslim community’s collective crisis through building an ‘Islamic-utopia’” (Ingram Reference Ingram2016).

Khan says that the older Muslim generation in the UK is more likely to rely on a culturally influenced interpretation of Islam, passed down through community norms and oral tradition, but younger women may rebel against this, using religion to challenge their parents’ strictures on everything from arranged marriages to education. That’s why some of the young girls choose ultra-conservative sources as their guide, upon mainstream interpretations. “There is a feeling that the more hardline your interpretation, the more authentic it is, and that’s not the case at all – it’s just not true of Islamic law” (Khaleeli Reference Khaleeli2014). Another option is that ISIS appeals to some Muslim women, because they present Islamic utopia (illusory and false) (Zakaria Reference Zakaria2015). Anne Speckhard (Reference Speckhard2016) also claims that:

As long as the idea of the longed-for Caliphate continues to carry its euphoric power, and ISIS continues to demonstrate some modicum of success in holding and governing territory, young girls who are angry or concerned over geopolitical events, who become convinced that militant jihad is their Islamic duty, and who feel off their track in the West, while simultaneously enticed via the Internet (often in person) by adventure, romance and the call to live (as they imagine) by Islamic ideals while they contribute to building a longed for utopia—that they will continue to be seduced into the movement, and we will continue to see females leaving the West to become Brides of ISIS.

From No-One Position to Princess Position

Anna Erelle declares that the teenager in the banlieues poor neighborhood: “feels like a nobody and all of a sudden here is this man of 38, nearly twice her age, who has had all these incredible adventures, who is kind to her and telling her he loves her and wanting to talk to her 1,000 times a day” (Driscoll Reference Driscoll2015). “When you get here, you’ll be treated like a princess … This is why girls go there. It’s the dream of a good life. They are persuaded that it’s a paradise and that they don’t have any future in Britain or France and they won’t find good husbands and can never be good Muslims surrounded by infidels. Bilel told Melodie she could have a beautiful life, a big apartment and lots of children” (Driscoll Reference Driscoll2015).

Sisterhood and “Sisterhood”

“By late 2013, British authorities started to note a new trend, the online chatter buried in the slang or otherwise inane emails and texts from the girls like Mahmood to friends back home. Whether it was in their hand or just in their name, the idealist women had begun to actively recruit friends and social media followers to join them in the struggle to create a Caliphate and wage war” (Miranda Reference Miranda2015). Bloom claims “ISIS propaganda also emphasizes sisterhood and the chance to live in a community of like-minded women. In addition to emphasizing that women will be important and significant, they say that they will not be lonely and [will] have a support network of other women. ISIS propaganda also emphasizes sisterhood and the chance to live in a community of like-minded women” (Fenton Reference Fenton2016). Erin Saltman at ISD says: “There is a strong sense that you are joining a family. ISIS really plays up the fact that you are among sisters. Part of it almost plays out a feminist narrative, which says that the West sexualizes women and in ‘Islamic State’ territory, you are treated with respect” (Petrou Reference Petrou2015).

Anna Erelle, the French journalist, tells in her book, In the Skin of a Jihadist, that she met a “maman”, a woman that accompanies the lured teenagers from Western Europe into the “Islamic State” territory in Syria to marry the Mujahideen warriors (Erelle and Potter Reference Erelle and Potter2015). Some of the European women already in the ranks of the “Islamic State” are trying to lure their “sisters” to the marriage beds of the caliphate’s holy warriors. This is ISIS showing, once again, that it is almost as shrewd with social media as it is ruthless on the battlefield. The tweets and blogs apparently are written by Western women married to jihadi warriors. They aim to persuade would-be “sisters” in Europe and the USA to travel to the Middle East to help this “Al-Qaeda spinoff” (ISIS) build its extremist vision of an Islamic society. Potential candidates are told they will not contribute to the revolution through martyrdom but through matrimony. This means child-bearing and not gun-toting (Dettmer Reference Dettmer2014).

Issacharoff (Reference Issacharoff2016) reports that there are 400 women, both Syrian and Western, who operate as ISIS’s female extension. Their role is to supervise the young women in the territory of the “Islamic State”. They are allowed to impose penalties on them like: fines, physical and mental violence and imprisonment. The head of the women is a British woman named Um Abdallah. The role of these women is to recruit young women for private matters for the main leaders of ISIS and the warriors. Sometimes they force the young women to marry the warriors and some of the young females commit suicide because of their pressure (Issacharoff Reference Issacharoff2016). Another example is Aqsa Mahmood from Scotland, who was 20 years old when she changed from fun-loving university student to ISIS fanatic and fangirl in a matter of months and then radicalized and moved to Syria, married a local man then professed a hatred for the West. She changed her name to Umm-Layth, and she “now apparently runs the al-Khanssaa brigade, a female-only militia of jihadists, who find the women for frontline fighters either as sex slaves, if they are deemed inferior, or as wives” (Miranda Reference Miranda2015).

Fans, Teenagers and Celebrity

Magnus Ranstorp, Anna Erelle, Brigitte Nacos and Melanie Smith all agree upon the subject that young women recruited to ISIS is a similar phenomenon to attraction to and admiration of celebrity of young teenagers in the West – fangirls. The really young girls, 14 to 16 years old, are usually recruited in groups, and social media play a significant role. Often, impressionable teens are lured by the idea of marriage to ISIS fighters who are portrayed as attractive and fit. Ranstorp observed that “They are like the Justin Biebers of the Salafi (ultra-conservative evangelical) jihadi world” (Fenton Reference Fenton2016). Al-Amriki (ISIS fangirl who holds several Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram accounts) routinely circulates posts by the ISIS Tumblr network and has gone from criticizing the group to saying ISIS fighters are the celebrities she would most like to meet (Cuen Reference Cuen2015).

Erelle claims that the “caliphates” are young women who had grown up in a free society but were obsessed with jihadist fighters. “To them, jihadists are like Brad Pitt, only better because Brad Pitt is not religious” (Driscoll Reference Driscoll2015). Erelle also characterized the young females as longing to be celebrity themselves and becoming celebrity when they immigrate from their virtual community on Twitter in their teenager’s room to Syria, by their virtual community and by the press (Driscoll Reference Driscoll2015). “After looking at ISIS’s female recruitment sites I wonder to what extent Internet and social media networks are instrumental in turning some impressionable girls and young women into fans of the ‘Islamic State’ and its fighters, just as entertainment media turn some of their peers into passionate fans of pop music stars or movie celebrities,” Nacos claims (Nacos Reference Nacos2015).

Melanie Smith claims that the women tend to be young and “extremely pious and have been ISIS ‘fangirls’ for the duration of the Syrian conflict, active on social media” (Vinograd Reference Vinograd2014). She called these women “Islamic State” “fangirls”, “as though they were groupies for a boy band rather than a movement of violent religious extremists” (Kaplan Reference Kaplan2014). Most worrying, according to Smith, is “the volume of those followers which she numbers in the ‘hundreds’, with the jihadi brides’ chatty street-talking style Tweets and Instagram images hitting their mark. I come across girls every day who say, ‘I’m so desperate to go over there but it’s just so hard for me’” (Miranda Reference Miranda2015).

Smith also adds: “For the moment, however, it’s clear that women are only cheerleaders of such murders. Female members may tweet about practicing shooting or post photos of their guns, but experts say there is no evidence they are allowed to fight. Instead, they are expected to marry, keep house and bring up a new generation – and strengthen the narrative that this is not a terrorist group, but a state all Muslims must join” (Khaleeli Reference Khaleeli2014). “In many ways, ‘jihadi brides’ like Mahmood are not so different from any other online subculture, Bashir added. Feeling marginalized in the real world, they are sold on the kind of alternate reality only the Internet can offer” (Kaplan Reference Kaplan2014).

Aesthetic and Visual

ISIS fangirls’ posts are aesthetic, perfectly designed with clean paint lines appealing to the eye, full of visual images, icons, photographs, GIFs, plus nature and water images, all creating the illusion of an ideal world.

Post-Modern Eclectic 2.0

The blogs have a precise mixing of animals, digital technology, Islamic holism, war and military stuff and teenage Western pop culture: lions, Arabian horses, cats and kittens (the most popular online animal), next to holy books, mosques, minarets, Islamic clerics cuddling cats and kittens in courtyards of mosques. In addition, the blogs have mujahideen dressed in uniforms and armed with rifles softly cuddle kittens, executions, knives, Muslim prisoners dressed in orange and yellow uniforms in Guantanamo, AR-15 (M-16) Kalashnikov, АКС-74 Kalashnikov, etc., side by side with images of hearts, strawberries, plenty of pink color, soft blankets with Disney cartoon pink cat images. All of these images appearing as icons, selfies, GIFs, memes, etc. belong to the world of Web 2.0. See, for example, the blogger who calls herself al-Amriki (the American), “a 19-year-old vegan, who posts pictures of Islamist militants, often with flowers and animals, romantic poetry about jihad and heart-shaped ISIS trinkets. According to her ask.fm page, she’s had over a dozen Instagram accounts banned. She has also purchased several guns” (Cuen Reference Cuen2015). Al-Amriki portrayed herself as a cartoon, dressed in black from head to toe, fully veiled. She holds a Kalashnikov АК-47 and a garland placed on her head. After the Western ISIS fangirls immigrate to the “Islamic State”, they also post a postmodern mixture in Tumblr of: selfies, cats, kittens and sunset photographs alongside quotes from the Koran in the name of Allah, written in Arabic and English, calling for violence and executions. They also have discussions through Twitter and Ask.fm about ways to support the militant movement. For example: Umm-Layth (former Aqsa Mahmood, from Glasgow) had an image of a gun with a rose stuck in the barrel and included calls exhorting Muslims to carry out terrorist attacks in the West.

In some tweets by Zahra Halane, you can find the whole essence and basis of ISIS propaganda. It is also the essence of ISIS Tumblr fangirls – a surrealistic mix of Islam, religion and “militarism” with kittens, pink and strawberry. For example, one of the twin sisters, Zahra Halane, tweets on the subject of her missing ginger kitten (major leitmotif in ISIS propaganda and ISIS fangirls’ Tumblr posts). She said the “tomcat ‘disappeared’ after her husband ‘threw [it] outside’” (Taylor and Narain Reference Taylor and Narain2014). The cat is called Abu Hureyra (religious Islamic motif) after an ancient settlement by the Syrian city of Raqqa (Moore, Hillman, and Legge Reference Moore, Hillman and Legge2000), the “Islamic State” stronghold where the girls are thought to be living. Zahra tweets: “‘Abu hureyra disappeared!!!! inshaa Allah [God willing] we will be reunited in jannah [paradise]’. She accompanied the message with symbols for a crying face and a heart, later adding: ‘my husband threw outside (sic)’” (Taylor and Narain Reference Taylor and Narain2014).

Islam

The blogs are exclusively about “brothers”, mujahideen, imams, clerks, mosques, minarets, the Black Stone of Mecca, the holy city of Mecca, martyrs, Muslim prisoners dressed in orange in Guantanamo, proverbs about Allah, justice, hadiths, etc. There are no female images, only small children or imams kneeling in prayer in mosques, dressed in white traditional Middle-Eastern dress. In some of the Tumblr blogs you can find photograph homage and GIF homage to Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X. After the immigration to Syria you can find images of the blog writers all covered in a black dress from head to toe.

Symbols: Black Flag, Upward Directing Finger, Martyrdom

ISIS is using a uniform design language for raising identification with the role of the “Islamic State”, for the Muslims who live in ISIS territory and for the ones who live in the “Lands of unbelief”. I also found ISIS uniform design language with its symbols on Tumblr and Twitter accounts of ISIS fangirls.

One important symbol of this new language is the black flag that appears in almost every photograph distributed by ISIS. Those loyal to ISIS are embedding the black flag in their social media accounts as a symbol of their affiliation to the “Islamic State”. Another important symbol is the upward directing finger, a seemingly meaningful gesture indicating the principle of Tawhid (Arabic: توحيد tawḥīd, the oneness of God), the indivisible oneness concept of monotheism in Islam. Tawhid is the religion’s most fundamental concept and holds that God (Allah) is One (Al-ʾAḥad) and Single (Al-Wāḥid). Osama bin Laden also used it but only with the ISIS design language has this gesture become particularly widespread and it actually expresses solidarity with its specific radical example rather than merely a general sympathy with the principle of Tawhid.

Another common symbol is Istishhad (Arabic: استشهاد), the Arabic word for “martyrdom”, “death of a martyr”, or “heroic death”. ISIS presents the bodies of ISIS warrior casualties with a small smile on their faces, clean and with no bold stains on their faces, delivering the message that they had fulfilled their wish to be martyred. Additional underscoring of the message stems from the juxtaposition of bodies of enemy victims of ISIS for comparison with those of the martyrs. In such cases the bodies of the “enemy” victims are exposed desecrated to the fullest extent by ISIS warriors. Like other jihadist women, Umm-Layth, for example, posts in her blog in a manner of morbid obsession with martyrdom – “Allahu Akbar, there’s no way to describe the feeling of sitting with the Akhawat [sisters] waiting on news of whose Husband has attained Shahadah [martyrdom]” (Dettmer Reference Dettmer2014).

“Softer Symbols”: Cats, Kittens, Lions and Horses

Other iconic symbols in the ISIS arsenal which frequently appear on ISIS fangirls’ Tumblr posts contain softer symbols, such as animals. For example: green birds embody the hadith of certain souls who sacrificed their lives in martyrdom; lions are also a common symbol of the courage of ISIS warriors and lion cubs serve as a symbol of the future generation of the “Islamic State”. The blogger behind “Musings of a Lioness” wrote: “The Islamic State said that we the media correspondents are Mujahideen too. So whatever happens remember Allah is with us and we have Allah so we have everything” (Cuen Reference Cuen2015). Bilel, an ISIS warrior who lured young Muslim females in France and was described in the book by Erelle and Potter, In the Skin of a Jihadist, wrote to one of the lured girls: “You are a big girl; Dozens of Europeans are making that journey every week in the hope of joining our ranks. Allez, ma lionne!” (Driscoll Reference Driscoll2015). Another animal frequently used in fangirls’ Tumblr blogs is a horse. The Arabian horse is a symbol of power, grace and sensitivity. Arabian horses are the topic of many myths and legends concerning the prophet Muhammad (Schofler Reference Schofler2006).

Other animal symbols are cats and kittens. The positive attitude of ISIS towards cats and kittens is based on the tradition concerning Abu Hurairah, who was one of the escorts of the young Prophet Muhammad. Abu Hurairah was known for his affection for cats. At the same time cat and kitten images are frequently used on ISIS social media accounts to show the human face, so to speak, of the “Islamic State”. Children, imams in mosques and brutal ISIS mujahideen are photographed in thousands of saccharine poses with kittens in order to show that the Islamic State is cruel towards its enemies but compassionate towards creatures innocent of the crime of denial of Islam.

ISIS fighters cradling kittens and images of honeybees are an apparent attempt to soften the image and attract new recruits, especially young females. Shiraz Maher, Deputy Director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at King’s College, London, claims that the use of “softer imagery” is common in ISIS propaganda aimed at Muslims (Dearden Reference Dearden2016). Thus, the softer imagery like kittens in ISIS fangirls’ Tumblr accounts acts as a recurring tool used by the “sisters”, side by side with the “hard images” to lure young Muslim-European females to cross the lines, to also become ISIS fangirls and to immigrate to the “Islamic State”.

Recruiting and Luring by “Sisterhood”

Girls like Aqsa Mahmood, who had changed her name to Umm-Layth, had begun professing the joys of hearing about beheadings of “Kuffars”, non-Muslims, on her Twitter and Tumblr accounts and making a blog that provided practical instructions on how to get into the “Islamic State”/Syria and the rewards awaiting when married to a “soldier of God” and the glory of Islamic war waged by “Islamic State”. She now runs the al-Khanssa brigade, a female-only militia of jihadists, who find the women for frontline fighters either as sex slaves – if they were deemed inferior – or as wives (Winter Reference Winter2015). Umm-Layth has more than 2,000 Twitter followers. She tweets: “I will never be able to do justice with words as to how this place makes me feel.” She cherishes, she says, the friendships she enjoys with “her fellow sisters and brothers in the Islamic State” (Dettmer Reference Dettmer2014).

In one of her tweets, Mahmood said while she felt a sense of community, of belonging, there were also mundane days under strict Sharia laws and their female war was more about supporting the men than taking up arms themselves. But it was from this standpoint that she also encourages others to bring the “battlefield” to Britain, her own boredom apparently prompting her to encourage others to make her own attack, and post it online no doubt (Miranda Reference Miranda2015). Mahmood tweeted: “Our role is even more important as women in Islam, since if we don’t have sisters with the correct Aqeedah [conviction] and understanding who are willing to sacrifice all their desires and give up their families and lives in the West in order to make Hijrah [migration] and please Allah, then who will raise the next generation of Lions?” (Zakaria Reference Zakaria2015). She also has advice for other British women hoping to become “jihadi brides”: “Try and bring painkillers and Diahorea [sic] tablets… lol you will need it for the first month or so,” she posted in April. Later, she wrote, “I will be straight up and blunt with you all, there is absolutely nothing for sisters to participate in Qitaal [fighting]” (Kaplan Reference Kaplan2014).

Other recruiters are the “terror twins” Salma and Zahra Halane (16 years old) from Manchester who followed their brother into IS in Syria in June 2014. The sisters appeared to be typical teenagers, pouting for selfies and shopping (Reilly Reference Reilly2014).

The Halane twins form a particularly vocal sub-cluster of the British female migrant contingent, indicated by their constant resilience in overcoming online censorship mechanisms by alternating usernames, changing Twitter handles and using ‘shout-out’ tactics to regain their follower networks quickly and efficiently. This has allowed for their voices, like many others, to contribute persistently to the propaganda narratives perpetuated by female migrants to IS territory, bolstered by the knowledge that their accounts have established influence. Zahra and Salma have utilized various platforms to achieve such influence, predominantly Twitter and Instagram (Saltman and Smith Reference Saltman and Smith2015:20–1).

More specifically, Zahra Halane’s online identity “demonstrates a higher level of political engagement and a much more direct approach to recruitment strategy” of young Muslim European girls, via her Twitter account (Saltman and Smith Reference Saltman and Smith2015:25).

In February 2015, Zahra Halane published photographs to Twitter purporting to show female migrants being trained in self-defence – wearing Nike Air trainers and shooting rifles at targets. Zahra describes this as a “fun day training … with humble sisters” (Saltman and Smith Reference Saltman and Smith2015:26). Again, the whole ISIS propaganda in one tweet: trained female migrants, Nike Air trainers (a Western brand being used and mixed with jihad), targets, shooting rifles, fun and the cherry on the whipped cream – using the term “sisters” “as a group highlights the importance of ‘sisterhood’ in luring prospective migrants towards ISIS. It is clear from their social media presences that both twins have established strong friendships with other migrants, forming communities of ISIS wives and widows, particularly in Raqqah … this sisterhood concept is leveraged as a recruitment tool, communicating the notion that while a migrant may lose their family as a result of their migration, they will simultaneously gain such a support structure in Syria” (Saltman and Smith Reference Saltman and Smith2015:26).

The Daily Life in the “Islamic State” as Portrayed in ISIS Fangirls’ Tumblr and Twitter Accounts

British Muslim convert Grace “Khadijah” Dare appeared in a documentary 2 years ago with her ISIS fighter husband Abu Bakr and her son Isa in which she boasted about her new extremist life. In the documentary, fully-veiled Dare and her neighbor head to the shops in Aleppo with their children to buy “hummus, nappies and a bucket” while carrying Kalashnikov rifles over their shoulders in case of emergencies. Dare also has a photograph of herself in her Tumblr blog, fully veiled, in black and with a АКС-74 rifle. She posted a slogan: “If I thought Islam was an oppressive religion, I would have left Islam” (Myers Reference Myers2016).

Salma Halane’s attitude through her online persona is particularly well illustrated by her Ask.fm account, in which she responds to questions posed by anonymous senders. In her use of this platform, she responds concerning her relationship with her twin sister, her daily responsibilities in the “Islamic State” and her experience of being married to a jihadist warrior (Saltman and Smith Reference Saltman and Smith2015:25).

Zahra Halane posted a picture – believed to be of herself – in a full veil holding an AK47, kneeling in front of the IS flag, a dagger and a grenade. Previous tweets from the account included messages such as “I support the executions of Syrian soldiers. It’s self defence and pictures of machine guns alongside the Koran” (Taylor and Narain Reference Taylor and Narain2014). Again, in one ingenious tweet, we have the whole picture: ISIS flag, the holy Koran, machine guns, executions of Syrian soldiers, a kitten, a jihadist warrior husband, a married woman, Abu Hureyra and Abu Hurairah (hint embedded in the kitten story). One of the bloggers, going by the screen name “Bird of Jannah” promotes this lifestyle through one of her blog posts quoted here: “Women are not equal to men. It can never be. Men are the leaders & women are special that Allah has given them entire chapter in the Qur’an” (Dettmer Reference Dettmer2014).

One of the most popular ISIS bloggers is Salma-alAnsariya. Her blog urges Tumblr users in the West to plan their own terrorist attacks by saying: “You are living in a place where you can cause great harm to the enemy, the means of harming them are many, so seek assistance from Allah, and do not be weak and you will find a way” (Cuen Reference Cuen2015). Her Tumblr name is Umm Unknown. She posts a few pictures of what they eat “during our days off front lines: Pasta with tomatoe sauce and chicken. Cooked by Abu Sa’d Sudani. But hey, I cut the tomatoes, and that’s the main ingredient for the TOMATOE sauce/paste right? So I guess I also deserve some praise for this dish, lol … Pasta with chicken and sauce and cheese and everything else which makes your taste buds tingle. Made by Abu Sa’d Sudani … A few snacks” (“Umm Unknown” Tumblr).