Terrorism, while not new in the history of humanity, has become a major issue and challenge for contemporary society worldwide. Recently it has become embodied and symbolized by the “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria” (ISIS) in its many permutations in the Middle East, the focus of massive military intervention on the part of major world powers and of study, analysis, strategy and planning. One aspect that has distinguished ISIS from previous terrorist movements is a major migration of women, especially but not limited to Western Europe, joining the jihad proclaimed by the religious leaders of ISIS. This introduction to the special issue on Female Migration to ISIS surveys and identifies the known possible roots of the phenomenon and related issues, summarizes major known points relative to it, and outlines the future agenda of work, not only academic but also practical and strategic, to be followed. Balanced recommendations on how to build a promising intervention strategy not only based on military force are put forth for consideration and discussion. While based on research, this article should be considered more of an editorial, generally introducing the field, summarizing existing work, especially the content of this special issue, and pointing out work needed in the future.

This essay presents the analysis, approach and understanding of the underlying reasons why females join the “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria” (ISIS), accept its rules and impositions, play an active role in it, and often actively recruit other women to join ISIS as perceived by an experienced and savvy communications expert and professional who also took active part in anti-terrorism campaigns in Pakistan. Previously he was a journalist who gained a deep understanding of the political and policy-making dynamics in his country. Especially valuable is the section on the “Way Forward”; that is, how to effectively tackle the recruitment campaign and methodology of ISIS.

The phenomenon of female migration to ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) is in fact an undervalued form of revolution for Muslim women. It is, however, a bitter form of striving for women’s emancipation. By transmitting extremist thoughts in the education of children and on the Internet, women empower their position in a patriarchal environment. The women of ISIS use their traditional role of motherhood to participate in the global jihad. By staying in her own tradition, the mother is the first one to create would-be fighters. Hence, the martyr becomes the mother’s creation. They use the mass weapon of education in a reactionary way to demand their place between the men. The process of jihadism amongst women is multidimensional. Herein lies the girl power that can be considered as a manifest aspect. Women recruit potential supporters of ISIS, translate documents, write poems and give Islamic lectures on the Internet. The phenomenon of female migration to IS can also be seen as a romantic urge to return to the golden era of the Moorish caliphate and even to the beginning of Islam in the 7th century. The women of ISIS make efforts to emancipate, however, by making a U-turn.

More than 550 Western women have moved to Syria and Iraq to join the “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” (ISIS), showing a success of ISIS in attracting women from the West that no other jihadist group had before. To explain the reasons for such success, it is important to understand how ISIS lures women from the West, why ISIS persuasion tools are so successful, what motivates women to join such a notorious terrorist group, famous for its brutal violence, mistreatment and enslavement of women and what role women expected to play in the “Islamic State.” Understanding the motives why ISIS Western female migrants left their Western countries of residence and moved to ISIS-controlled territories is crucial to find appropriate measures to prevent and stop the radicalization of women, to cut the support that ISIS receives from its female sympathizers, to properly treat female returnees and to prepare appropriate measures against women ready to plot against their countries of residence in the name of ISIS goals.

This paper explores the motivations of Western women who traveled to Syria/Iraq to support the Islamic State (IS) or Daesh. It draws on previous studies of the phenomenon, insights from practitioners and informal interviews with an individual with first-hand insights. The different motivations are categorized into three levels: macro, meso and micro. The author rebukes the intractable stereotype of the “jihadi bride” that (inadvertently) suggests that women are driven mainly by personal motivations or the prospect of marriage, and demonstrates that female Western supporters of IS/Daesh are motivated by various factors. These include ideological or religious motivations, the pull of the cause, frustration and anger over the perceived worldwide oppression of Muslims, but also the search for a purpose in life and for a sense of belonging. Women have been affected by group dynamics and experiences in their past (including sexual abuse). Some women were attracted by the prospect of a clean slate, adventure or a (religious) husband. The author underscores that, in order to tackle the phenomenon of women supporting IS/Daesh, it is essential to deepen our understanding of its appeal on women, which requires acknowledging the diversity of women who joined IS/Daesh and recognizing the complexity and multitude of their motivations.

This article is part of an effort to understand the enthusiasm, attraction and admiration of the organization “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria” (ISIS) among the young Muslim female in Western Europe. The article specifically focuses on microblogging (Tumblr and Twitter) contents of young Muslim girls from Western Europe. The study offers a review of ISIS-adoring Tumblr fangirls in the West through the prism of cultural interpretation. The young girls, whether themselves manipulated or manipulating others, become part of a worldwide viral system produced in perfect unison and generating propaganda enticing more and more young Muslim girls in the West to become viral ISIS recruits. After maintaining for a while Tumblr and Twitter accounts, some of them even undergo the “giant leap” and migrate to the “Islamic State” in Syria, continuing there to reinforce their blogging and twittering efforts, reporting on their daily lives and attempting to tempt or to trap more young girls to join the new “Islamic State”.

Historically, women in Pakistan’s northwestern territories bordering Afghanistan have played a critical role in providing money and men to jihadist organizations such as the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria” (ISIS). Lack of education, too little exposure and a male-dominated conservative milieu constitute some of the ingredients of support for these outfits. This was true for over three decades and the phenomenon remained restricted to the rural, backward northwestern regions. But since the early 1990s, outfits such as the Al-Hudda Foundation – an exclusively women-focused organization – began serving as the initial hooks for middle- and upper-class women whom the Foundation targets. It brainwashes women into using hijab, and also into believing that they need to forge an alliance against the West and work for an Islamic, Sharia-based state. This advocacy turns many affluent women into religious radicals who can potentially work as the first line of recruits for extremist outfits like Daesh/IS. However small their numbers, these women represent a big threat to the global liberal values of society.

As of the beginning of 2016, out of 100,000 “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria” (ISIS) fighters in Iraq, Syria, Sinai and North African Countries, one-third were foreign-born fighters from European and Asian countries (AFP Tunis 2013). Although most of the men came alone, seduced by advertised sexual adventures, the official guiding rule by the ISIS Caliphate was to establish true marriage with real Muslim brides (Milton and Dodwell 2018). The Western women were then addressed to come and help in administrative, teaching and nursing tasks while also instituting families with jihadi fighters. Estimations are that at least 450–500 Western women of different ages left their countries to join ISIS mujahedin. For these mobilization efforts, social networks were utilized to serve as means of communication, coordination and conversion of women’s minds. The skilled usage of different levels of social networking tools, combined with precise audience targeting, turned the efforts into powerful recruiting instruments for mobilization of women into terrorist activities. The ISIS strategy included careful selection of different scenarios and storyboards for different target audiences, thus maximizing the impact of the exposure to the message and mobilization.

The “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria” (ISIS) is the main source of instability, not only in Iraq and Syria, but also throughout the Middle East. The instability poses a danger for the other parts of the world because of the influx of foreign fighters to the region. Extremists have taken advantage of the continuing conflicts in Iraq and Syria, with Syria in particular serving as a magnet for thousands of foreign fighters from more than 90 countries. While most of these ISIS combatants are men, many women have left their countries behind to join the “caliphate” and support its cause. Social media have played a key role in luring women to join ISIS. This study therefore analyzed the ISIS organization’s social media propaganda and grass-roots recruitment activities aimed at women in Turkey. The results of the analysis provide important information about the strategies that ISIS uses to spread its ideology.

Criminological research usually directs its focus at traditional forms of offending. The purpose of this article is to discuss the extent to which traditional criminological theories can be used to understand a modern form of terrorism. The main issue to explain is why young men and women from a Western European country, such as Sweden, are joining Daesh in Iraq and Syria. The conclusion is that many criminology theories are useful to analyse the factors behind the affiliation to Daesh. The majority of those recruited into this organization have in many respects a similar background to individuals recruited to other forms of serious organized violent crimes. It should be noted that many of the theories discussed in the paper are more relevant for the understanding of why men join Daesh. When it comes to the recruitment of women these theories’ explanatory value is more limited. However, this applies also to these theories’ ability to explain female crime in general.

In this paper, Moroccan female migration to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is explored within the overall framework of Moroccan counter-terrorism policy. According to available data, Moroccans are considered as one of the main suppliers of fighters to ISIS. However, as it will be highlighted in this research, there is a scarcity of data related to Moroccan female migration to ISIS, to their sociodemographic profile, methods of their recruitment and programs of their reintegration once they come back home. This article focuses on Moroccan counter-terrorism policy and analyzes the extent to which it provides an exemplary precedent in effectively fighting terrorism. This policy includes, as will be examined, repressive and “soft” counter-radicalization and de-mobilization measures.

The mother–child relationship is essential in the development of a healthy child, who can grow up trusting his/her own perceptions and understanding of the social environment. Teenagers naturally experience a period of transition in search of their own identity as individuals, thus being really exposed and vulnerable to being recruited by jihadists. In this particular stage of development, the teenager tries to free himself/herself from the tutorship of the family and looks to experience something new outside the family frame. One of the defining characteristics of this stage is a tendency to take things to an extreme and to see things in black and white, while emotions are experienced as very intense, overwhelming and sometimes difficult to control. Teenagers are easy to impress, convince and manipulate, especially by their social milieu outside the family of origin. In the cases when the relationship with the family of origin becomes tensed – whether the child has been neglected or spoiled during childhood, or when there are tensions between parents or the family is conflicting – the teenager looks for validation outside the family environment. Any opportunity to do something out of the ordinary and apparently easy to accomplish might seem attractive for this category of individuals, especially for those that do not enjoy family support. The illusion of becoming famous or the attraction of glamour might seem desirable at this age. This is one of the main reasons why Jihad has had such a significant impact on Western converts to Islam. Therefore, the aim of this study is to provide an analysis of the case of Boicea Luigi Constantin (Umar al Rumaani), a Romanian that adhered to the extremist ideology of the Islamic State, who does not come from a Muslim family, yet underwent a fast self-radicalization process. In order to better understand Boicea’s case, we will try to present the result of the investigation conducted on the family environment, his interests manifested at an early age, and the tragic events that contributed to his radicalization; in other words, we will try to present the general context in which self-radicalization occurred.

This article offers an introduction for constructing family self-help groups or parent associations in the field of countering violent extremism (CVE) and deradicalization. These support group interventions are an essential addition to recently developed family counseling CVE programs, which have been created in multiple countries since 2012. Based on interviews with parents of deceased foreign terrorist fighters, this article was able to identify the most pressing practical needs of parents and to suggest specific measures to address these. The most important needs voiced by parents are: loneliness, trauma, understanding, acquiring a death certificate, access to personal files, problems with child care (criminalization), and fear of the media. Support groups can be designed to address these issues with a specific CVE focus.

This article, presented as part of a panel on “Community-based preventive and remedial measures” at a conference on Responses to Female Migration to ISIS, is on ways in which local communities are able to strengthen social cohesion and prevent growing polarization, especially in areas where radicalization to violent extremism takes place. The analysis is based on the Human Security Collective (HSC)’s work in Palestine, Libya, Tunisia and the Netherlands where we support local communities and the professionals who work with them on addressing systemic causes that lead to exclusion, alienation and possibly radicalization leading to violent extremism. We have learnt that approaches to prevent the attraction to violent extremism networks require methods and processes akin to those developed for conflict transformation. Some of the characteristics of this approach include the inclusion of different stakeholders, local ownership in defining problems and seeking solutions, the building of trusted relationships, the mentoring of young women and men who take on a peer-model role, and the development of innovative small-scale community activities that can then be taken up by the wider community. HSC and its partners connect these local community initiatives to policymakers at municipal, national and international levels. Through the process of facilitated dialogue we aim to create “safe spaces” where persons from different backgrounds and with different interests are able to meet and exchange practices and policies. In this way, policies are validated by lived realities and citizens become aware of the way that policies that influence local security are developed and executed. This dialogue leads to a mutual understanding of and improvement in security-related policies.

To effectively address/counter/neutralize the areas in which ISIS/ISIL/IS/DAESH has had success in its strategy, operation and tactics, the international community must deal with the following three issues: (A) multifaceted recruitment counter-efforts; (B) looking at women as survivors of ISIS on a continuum from free agent to victim; (C) the need to investigate and monitor the movement of people with concern and respect for human rights and international treaties. The role of different actors is examined in detail. The need for international efforts and coordination is also addressed. Concrete recommendations are provided. The list of members of the International Task Force that worked on this Conclusions and Recommendations is given.