A British jihadi has released a guide to the caliphate using western lingo in the style of a travel book, avoiding all mention of Isis war crimes and summary mass executions.
Abu Rumaysah al Britani, a man from Walthamstow in London who skipped bail to join the Islamic State group, has released a guide to the caliphate that ignores war-crimes and genocide, instead selling the Islamic State with the language of the west, of Costa coffee, of Cadbury’s chocolate, of holiday resort levels of comfort and climate.
The ‘Brief Guide to the Islamic State’ talks the about cosmopolitanism and ethnic diversity of the region that runs counter to the group’s medieval interpretation of Islam and the Islamic State militants’ destruction of ancient historical sites and images of mass killings it releases almost daily.
“If you were worried about leaving behind your local Costa coffee, then you will be happy to know that the Caliphate services some of the best lattes and cappuccinos around”, the guide reads. “The Caliphate offers an exquisite Mediterranean climate that has all the makings of a plush holiday resort.”
The guide states at one point that in terms of transport “everything is on the table: zeppelins, hovercrafts, trams, microlites”.
But Dr Nafeez Ahmed, security analyst and editor of Insurge Intelligence, told Channel 4 News: “I think the intention is to try raise doubts among disenfranchised British Muslims… there is a clear effort to push people to have a different perception of what the Islamic State is doing.
“What they are trying is to get away from a lot of the imagery that we have seen of huge barbarisms, of atrocities against thousands of people, very credible reports from many independent sources of mass rapes and terrible oppressive crimes.”
The guide ends with a threat. The man who fled the UK and was pictured days later holding his baby in one hand and a machine gun in the other concludes the guide by saying: “When we descend on the streets of London, Paris and Washington… we will spill your blood, but we will also demolish your statues, erase your history and, most painfully, convert your children.”
This comes just pages after saying “Twix, Kinder Surprise, Cadburys – yes, yes we have it all”.
Channel 4 News has also seen threats on Twitter, now removed from the site, made against Home Secretary Theresa May and Prime Minister David Cameron. The threats were made by the account which first shared the guide, under the name Abu Rumaysah.
“I would also like to remind the Cameron regime that if they value security they will refrain from harming Islamic activists in their midst,” he wrote.
“Theresa May should pay careful attention to these words, because any wrong move from her will prove disastrous.”
The 10,000-word guide was released online yesterday and was widely shared in jihadi networks and by analysts of Islamic State in Europe and the Middle East. His Twitter account has now been taken offline.
Abu Rumaysah told Channel 4 News in 2014: “I one day hope that Britain gets to live under the Sharia.”