Targeting Jihadi Teens

"ISIL has hundreds of thousands of Twitter accounts that they use for terrorist propaganda and to get defectors to join them in Syria, to compel lone wolves to attack us here and for terrorist financing."
"We need to be watching their Twitter accounts so that we know that next attack is coming to Vancouver, Ottawa, and they're quite transparent, so we need to be watching this and protecting ourselves against it."
"We're losing the war on digital terrorism."
"Those are the types of counter-terror messages we need to get out there. - [such as] - You will no longer be able to go to McDonald's. You will no longer be able to drive a car. You won't be able to go on dates. You can't listen to iTunes. Those are actually simple but effective things that matter to all of us."
Christine Duhaime, Toronto

Lawyer, law author, speaker, founder of @DFInstitute. Inter alia, anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing, #financialinclusion & regulation

All of us? Surely not! Well, perhaps on second thought, a specific demographic. Teens, for example. Teens for whom all of these things are important to their way of life. Who aren't aware that in Syria wearing blue jeans is a punishable offence. Who would want to risk a whipping for wearing jeans? It's the vulnerable Muslim teens, in particular teen-age Canadian girls from Muslim families being recruited online to become 'brides' for Islamic State jihadis we're talking about here.

They're the concern of Chiristine Duhaime a lawyer practising in Toronto operating a counter-terrorist financing and anti-money laundering practise. And she was speaking before a Senate committee on terrorism. The parliamentarians heard her speak of "Twitter terrorists" exploiting social media for the purpose of luring vulnerably romantic-minded young women who think of chivalry and revolution and forging their way into a new future by departing Canada to join young men in Syria and Iraq.

Ms. Duhaime spoke of counter-terrorism intelligence agencies not taking the issue of digital terrorism seriously enough, and which terrorist groups like Islamic State were using to full advantage, in the Twitterverse where youth tend to exchange messages, bypassing the knowledge of their parents who have no idea, it seems, that their young women are flirting with jihad and the cutting off of all contact with their families in plans to flee abroad to forge a new life for themselves.

She spoke of a Tumblr post she had accessed where a Canadian who had joined ISIL in Syria made calls for sympathizers to "collect money from others" for ISIL fighters, assuring donors that terrorist financing is possible "safely and securely", informing them how to contact him through instant messaging. She gave another example through Twitter messaging where a Canadian Twitter account wants to know if a Yazidi slave girl can be bought and delivered to Kuwait.

Twitter terrorists, it seems from her testimony, stay abreast of Twitter trends targeting countries such as Canada, France, Russia, Germany and the United States for rich recruitment opportunities. Trending hashtags to tweets are utilized to reach new audiences among teenage populations. She spoke of a Twitter terrorist as one who was in all likelihood a victim of radicalization herself, working to recruit others to the jihadist cause.

The government, she asserted, needs to take this issue seriously enough to launch an online counter-offensive meant to target anyone considering joining Islamic State; in the process reminding the young that their vaunted way of life in the West that they're prepared to throw overboard to their dreams of beginning a brave new life, will require of them more sacrifices than they will be prepared to accept.