WUNRN
http://www.rferl.org/content/islamic-state-fighter-online-dating-syria-tajikistan/26979106.html
IS Militants Use Social Networking to Attract Women to Syria +
April 26, 2015 – Reports have emerged about young
Chechen women who met North Caucasus militants online and traveled to
Syria to join them.
In one case, an 18-year-old woman "married" her
virtual boyfriend, a 25-year-old resident of Kabardino-Balkaria, before heading
out to join him in Syria.
A similar phenomenon is also happening in Tajikistan, according
to a report by RFE/RL's Tajik Service, Radio Ozodi.
Radio Ozodi
spoke to a 20-year-old Tajik
woman named as Manzura (her name has been changed to protect her identity) from
the city of Kulob, who described how she had started to chat to a young man she
met on the Russian social-networking site Odnoklassniki.
Manzura talked to the young man, who went under the name
Firuzi Mujohid ("jihadi fighter"), every day, but he would not tell
her his exact location. Firuzi would only say that he was "in a country
that is like paradise," Manzura recalls.
After some time, Firuzi admitted to Manzura that he was
in Syria and that he was "waging jihad" there.
Firuzi invited Manzura to join him so that she could
"find a path to paradise," a chat-up line that in this case was
likely a euphemism for joining the Islamic State (IS) group and becoming a
"jihadi bride," the wife of a militant.
"During our chats, he asked for my details so he
could buy me a ticket to come to him," Manzura told Radio Ozodi.
At this point, as things seemed to be getting serious,
Manzura asked Firuzi to tell her his real name. Manzura's young admirer turned
out to be Umar from Dushanbe.
Firuzi/Umar sent Manzura some photographs of himself that
had been taken before he went to Syria and some other snaps showing him in
Syria posing under an IS flag. Trust was growing between the young pair.
But while Umar was a militant fighting in Syria, his
Internet dating style appears to have been fairly standard. When Manzura didn't
log into Odnoklassniki for a while, Umar invited another girl -- a 21-year-old
from his hometown, Dushanbe -- to join him in Syria.
The budding friendship between Manzura and Umar came to
an abrupt halt when the "other woman" flew to Syria and apparently
married her prize. Umar's new bride took down her husband's Odnoklassniki page
and warned Manzura to stop communicating with her spouse.
But even after his marriage, Umar was not deterred from
attempting to pursue his romance with Manzura.
"Even after that, this man proposed that I come to
Syria and become his second wife," Manzura says.
Was Umar an IS "honey trap" who was recruiting
young Tajik women to come to Syria and join the militants? Manzura thinks her
young man might have used his courtship skills to recruit other women.
Tajik psychologist Zarina Kendzhaeva tells Radio Ozodi that extremists are recruiting girls who
have "lost hope and meaning in life." "Basically, they quickly
believe what they are told and do not have their own clear opinions. They think
that this is the only way out for them," Kendzhaeva says.
But is IS just targeting weaker, vulnerable women? There
is evidence to suggest that some of the Tajik women who have been recruited by
IS to join the militants in Syria are not those who have "lost hope"
but are well-educated young professionals. These young women are likely
targeted deliberately.
In late February, the Tajik authorities prevented
25-year-old Shahnoza Bozorzoda from traveling to Syria. Bozorzoda was not a
"hopeless" young woman but a medical student from suburban
Dushanbe. Like Manzura, Bozorzoda had decided to go to Syria after she met a
militant, Sabzkadam, on the Internet, in her case via Facebook.
Bozorzoda and her militant friend continued their online
relationship via the instant-messaging apps WhatsApp and Viber, according to
the Tajik authorities.
The method that Sabzkadam reportedly used to woo
Bozorzoda appears to differ somewhat from that used by Umar to attract Manzura.
Sabzkadam seems to have tried to appeal to Bozorzoda's
sense of justice and duty, sending her various photographs and videos of the
war in Syria. These had a "psychological impact" on her, a spokesman
for Tajikistan's Interior Ministry said. Sabzkadam also told her about the
"path of jihad."
When Sabzkadam later wired Bozorzoda some money, she
dropped out of medical school and flew to Turkey. She was stopped before she
managed to cross into Syria, however.
While Umar appears to have been searching for a Tajik
wife when he targeted Manzura, Sabzkadam likely targeted a medical student for
a reason: the IS group needs medics to treat its wounded and sick
militants. Both IS and other militant groups in Syria have called on women with
medical qualifications and skills to come out and join them.
Although Bozorzoda was stopped before entering Syria, if
she had joined IS she would not have been the only female medic to have done
so. "Bird of Jannah," a Malaysian woman who writes an online diary
about her experiences being the wife of an IS militant, is a doctor who
practiced medicine in Malaysia before joining IS in Syria.
It is not known exactly how many Tajiks have gone to
Syria to fight alongside militants. Edward Lemon of the University of Exeter,
who tracks Tajik militants in Syria and Iraq, estimates that between 100 and
200 Tajiks are fighting in Syria.
Most of those are with the IS group, he believes.