For the sake of Allah, we will march to the gates…

This is the sentence echoing in the Islamic State viral recruitment video made especially for potential foreign fighters. The video is not the first and will not be the last one of its kind. The Islamic State is undoubtedly the most powerful and the best financed terrorist organization in the world at present, and as evident from the Paris attack in November, its deadly reach extends far beyond the physical borders it controls.

According to an article in The New York Times, based on a report by the geopolitical risk assessment Soufan Group, the number of foreign fighters flocking to Syria and Iraq has increased by 15,000  over the past 18 months. Perhaps surprisingly, it appears that most of those joining ISIS forces hail from the West, where they enjoyed education, freedom of choice and employment. Many appear to have had normative social and family lives, and yet decided to leave “for the sake of Allah”.

Some fighters have returned, disillusioned by the brutality of the Islamic State. Several have reached out to newspapers and shared their experience from “paradise”.

ISIS has been able to recruit high numbers of fighters and continue to increase its power due to its fierce control of territory and resources, that affords the organization highly effective state-like capabilities. The Islamic State controls territory which it uses for proper training of recruits, and runs a state-like economic system.

The organization also embodies a paradox, fighting the Western secular world on one hand, while using its technologies and social media for propaganda and recruitment. This use of media is key in reaching out to a young, impressionable demographic seeking an ideology, cause or sense of belonging. It is a dangerous instrument and the Islamic State is fully aware of its potential.

In reality, life under what the Islamic State presents as a ‘Caliphate’ is a far cry from its staged propaganda, which at times connotes Hollywood. ISIS denies people their most basic human rights and humanity.  To quote Nelson Mandela, South African champion of human rights, “to deny people their human rights is to challenge their humanity”, and we should not let them do so.