2016 Postmortem

DetlefK

(16,423 posts) Wed Sep 21, 2016, 07:02 AM Sep 2016

ISIS wants Trump to be President: 1. he's the "perfect enemy" 2. he will bring about the End-Times

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/trump-extremist-web-forums

“It’s clear they find his comments, they find his demeanor, they find his approach, in some way serving the goals of ISIS in some manner, whether it be in having a ground war in Syria or weakening the United States,” Laith Alkhouri, a counterterrorism analyst and co-founder of the threat intelligence firm FlashPoint, told TPM. “They believe that with the U.S. weakening down that the Caliphate will actually rise.”

Alkhouri researches online networks used by terrorist groups and their supporters, including one dark web site he described as a “holistic jihadist web forum” the also serves as an Islamic State mouthpiece.

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The replies that followed predicted that Trump “ will be a disaster to America,” while celebrating that he could bring the end-of-days battle in Syria that jihadists call for.

“Trump's governance will be the destroyer of America and its traitor Arab allies," one commenter said.

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Dov Zakheim, a conservative foreign policy adviser, asserts that Trump’s rhetoric would be used as a recruiting tool.

“If he gets elected it could be a rallying cry for ISIS and al Qaeda and all these extremist groups,” Zakheim said. “They could say ‘see they really do hate you, and if you are Muslim and you think you can get along in the West, you are kidding yourself. “

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Mara Revkin, a PhD student at Yale who has studied ISIS governance, told TPM that in her interviews with both current Islamic State supporters and defectors, Trump is viewed as the ultimate enemy, someone who may push the U.S. into a ground war in the Middle East.

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Revkin reported that an Islamic State sympathizer from Anbar province in Iraq, with whom she had been corresponding over Twitter direct message, told her that any of the Republicans were preferable for ISIS to Democrats.