Twitter supporters of the Islamic State group (ISIS) are using protests and unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, as anti-United States propaganda and to sow terror in America, reports say.
"It's horrible," Joyce Karam, the Washington Bureau chief for Al-Hayat, writes, according
to Vox.
"Most of the tweets when you look up "فيرغسون" ([Arabic] for Ferguson) are ISIS driven."
Journalist Souad MeKhennet, an associate at Harvard's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, has written the jihadists are incorporating Ferguson into their recruitment strategy, Vox notes.
"According to interviews and social media, members of the group and sympathizers with its jihadist ideology are closely tracking the events in the St. Louis suburb," she wrote for
The Washington Post.
"One argument [jihadis have] been making for years is that racism and discrimination are rampant in some parts of the West, and they're hoping the Ferguson riots could help recruit black Americans."
Vox notes the tweets and pictures of police and protesters battling are good for anti-American propaganda to Muslims around the world — a strategy used by the Soviets in the early 1950s.
Vox points out Soviet propaganda also used racial unrest to win alliances with nations in Africa and Asia that were gaining independence at the time.
According to
the Jewish Press, Al Nusra Al-Maqdisiyya, a group of pro-ISIS activists, called for lone-wolf attacks in the wake of a decision not to indict Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of unarmed black teen Michael Brown.
"O lone mujahid, you must use the breakdown of security in #Ferguson to increase the burning in America. They are squabbling over worldly [matters], so you send them to hell! #ISIS," the group tweeted, the Jewish Press reports.
The account
earlier this year called for attacks against Twitter employees,
Vocativ reports.
"Ferguson is a golden opportunity that will not return. Wake up and occupy them with the mujahideen and spill their blood in the roads and neighborhoods," another tweet reads, Vocativ reports.
The Jewish Press reports that according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, Al Nusra Al-Maqdisiyya also tweeted:
"The Islamic State never took Afro American as hostages, because they know that the #US media wouldn’t care #FergusonDecision"; "Every non-white family (Indians, Hispanics, blacks) in the US has been experience & is experiencing Mike Brown tragedy-like for last 500+yrs"; and, "Muslims stand by it’s black brothers and sisters. Your all welcome to Islamic State we will embrace you and love you. #WeRAllBlack #Ferguson."
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