How ISIS Retains Power: Exploiting Weak Governments and Social Media

This essay examines the strategies employed by groups like ISIS to maintain power, focusing on their exploitation of societal gaps left by weak governments. It highlights how ISIS leverages propaganda and social media to recruit disillusioned youth, offering them a sense of purpose and belonging. The essay also discusses the role of governments and society in preventing radicalization, emphasizing the need for vigilance and proactive measures to counter the appeal of extremist groups like ISIS. The analysis points out that the failure of governments to act on intelligence and the susceptibility of youth to online radicalization are key factors contributing to ISIS's continued influence. This essay is available on Desklib, a platform providing study tools and resources for students.

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Groups like ISIS: Surprising ways groups like Isis stay in power.
Many young Muslims becoming swept up into joining violent extremism, a concern that
remains to be addressed is why these cases are on the rise. This essay explores some of the ways
groups like ISIS stay in power by filling societal gaps left by weak governments.
Although Isis propaganda, many times suggests youths will have an active role when they
join the group, in reality, they are heavily controlled immediately they arrive. For a while now,
battles over individual identity have been one of the main reasons that have persuaded some
young Muslim to pledge to the utopian objectives of radical Islamists such as Isis. According to
FBI reports, ISIS preys on youth who are disillusioned or lack no sense of purpose and belonging
(Haq). Evidence from a slew of many former radical recruiters has shown that many groups
pursue to free their victims from being caught between the traditionalist systems that their
parents or guardians impose and the more unconventional liberal expectations of their colleagues
at school. A study by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue released last month indicated that young
women to are not safe from these trap of the extremist group (Whittaker and Densley).
In the contemporary world where terrorism has thrived, Isis has used the internet to its
advantage to draw youths and women into extremism. The Internet has been a double-edged
sword, applied by the government to track down Isis group and also the terrorist groups also use
the same channel to target the youth from around the world. And according to Olsen Mathew,
who is the director of National Counterterrorism Center, various terrorist groups such as Isis now
conducts the most socialite propaganda tool of any terrorist group, as he informed CNN in a new

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piece on ISIS enrollment. Social media has been a may drive, and an instrument that draws the
youth and women around the world in joining this extremist group (Reitman).
For a group of radical Muslim extremists, ISIS has been successful in luring youths into
its ranks. Especially those youth waging jihad, fighting as ISIS recruit is an achievement, and
this has been a significant force. The United States Justice Department and FBI have for a while
indicated in their reports that the only way that the group would be effectively eliminated would
be through the religious appeal it preaches to the young Muslims. Nevertheless, ISIS continues to
appeal to the youth a misguided sense of religious responsibility (Einashe).
Through critical analysis, the recent increase in youths joining the ISIS can partly be
blamed on various governments around the world for not being vigilant enough and failing to act
on the intelligence in time. There is still more that can be done because the cases of youth and
women recruits happen on a daily basis.
Despite the blame that one can put on the government, the society at large should also be
vigilant. Issues of youth Muslims joining extremists groups such as ISIS is a threat to the
national security and should be a concern of every citizen. It is upon everyone to be wary of
those around them at all times.

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Work cited
Einashe, Ismail. Jihadi John and London’s Culture of Gang Violence. 13 Mar. 2015,
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/jihadi-john-and-londons-culture-of-gang-
violence.
Haq, Husna. “ISIS Excels at Recruiting American Teens: Here Are Four Reasons Why.”
Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 2014. Christian Science Monitor,
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2014/1022/ISIS-excels-at-recruiting-
American-teens-Here-are-four-reasons-why.
Reitman, Janet. “U.S. Law Enforcement Failed to See the Threat of White Nationalism. Now
They Don’t Know How to Stop It.” The New York Times, 3 Nov. 2018. NYTimes.com,
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/03/magazine/FBI-charlottesville-white-nationalism-
far-right.html.
Whittaker, Andrew, and James Densley. “London’s Gangs Have Changed, and It’s Driving a
Surge in Pitiless Violence | Andrew Whittaker and James Densley.” The Guardian, 15
Jan. 2019. www.theguardian.com,
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/10/london-gangs-changed-
violence-waltham-forest-drugs.