Small Wars Journal

ISIS Guide Teaches Jihadis How to Blend In

Tue, 01/12/2016 - 6:06pm

ISIS Guide Teaches Jihadis How to Blend In by Network Writers News Corp Australia Network

These are some of Islamic State’s tips to help jihadists blend in as they plan attacks in western countries.

The 62-page Safety & Security Guidelines for Lone Wolf Mujahideen (Jihadis) provides an unsettling glimpse at the lengths Islamic State recruits will go to in their attempt to avoid detection by intelligence services.

The guide recommends that would-be attackers establish cells with four or five members working with only each other and having no link with any other group, to avoid a mass neutralisation.

“If you are the one who established many independent cells or independent small groups, if you get caught, you could be the reason all those groups and cells get dismantled. So your responsibility at that time would be to put yourself in security, by going to the front lines of the open battlefields in Afghanistan or Iraq, or to enlist for a martyrdom operation, so that your secret goes with you. That’s because your mere presence is a danger to all these established cells and groups,” the guide reads.

Limiting the information known by cell members is also important. The guide uses 9/11 as an example:

“ ... only 4 of the 19 knew about the nature of the operation (they were the pilots) and they only gave them the details at the very end of the preparation,” the guide read.

Would-be jihadis are urged to remain vigilant at all times by paying attention to the news and internet to know what is happening locally and abroad.

They are also instructed to analyse the actions of failed jihadis to avoid making the same mistakes, and to keep updated on interrogation techniques.

Routine is described in the guide as a jihadi’s “enemy”, warning readers to “live as the locals live” and avoid wearing the same clothes or taking the same route…

Read on.