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Comment by sveme | Hacker News Reader

When you look at the picture and see the number of ISIS members that came from Europe I cannot help but wonder what language they are using internally. Quite a number of the recruits from Germany have a Turkish or German background, some in the UK a Somalian, others a Chechnyan and apparently some even an Asian (according to the pic in the article at least). I doubt that all of them are capable right from the start of speaking Arabic, so what's the command language? English? Hope so, cause that would be hilarious.

Obviously they had to read some Arabic when studying the Quran, but I doubt that would be sufficient.

On a related note, Charlie Winter published a brilliant essay on the ISIS media strategy on the BBC a couple of months ago, Fishing and ultraviolence[1]. Highly recommended.

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-88492697-b674-4c69-8...

(edit: removed superfluous and)

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Dude, ISIL is tiny. They only have about 40k fighters, of which the vast majority are Iraqi and Syrian. The majority of other supporters are either Arabic or Turkish speaking, and usually with Arabic as a second language.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_...

Language is not the problem. They coordinate in Arabic, and usually if there is a Turkish or non-Arabic cell, they usually have a single Arabic speaker.

Their primary problem that ISIL has is that they lack professionals (accountants, engineers, computer scientists).

>> Their primary problem that ISIL has is that they lack professionals (accountants, engineers, computer scientists).

This.

They're trying to set up an autonomous government and country under Sharia law. One of the main tenets of the Caliphate is the idea of holding sway over territory - without territory there is no Caliphate.

In order to hold territory, they need professionals to support the infrastructure of their Caliphate, otherwise, it falls apart. From all the media reports, it would seem this has been the Achilles heel of the organization from the start:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/the-islamic...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/islams-d...

They seem to have a damn fine video production team.

I wonder when the U.S. will target those guys?

Only 1000 from their 15000 foreign fighters are from Turkey, according to the list in Wikipedia. They have more Russian-speaking recruits. I seriously doubt all of them are able to speak Arabic. Some foreigners there speaking English among each other is a very, very likely scenario.

I'm the person you responded to, and I came late to this, but you cannot look at country of origin as a proxy for primary language. Just as most German ISIL fighters speak Turkish, there are similar findings amongst other countries like Russia; although to be fair, I haven't looked into Russia specifically.

I am a German of Turkish (...and Greek ...and Bulgarian) origin. My mother language is German (Fun fact: My mother does not speak German, so, maybe I should also call it my "primary language"). I do speak Turkish but like many Turkish people who have been born in Germany, I can't communicate well in Turkish[1] (and neither in Greek nor Bulgarian). If I were to join an army and communicate under stress (being a pacifist, even the thought gives me the chills though), I'd rather speak German or compromise with English. So, as I said before, I think there is a high chance that they do communicate partially in English. However close-minded they can be, practicality always wins. Always.

[1]: Actually some do speak Turkish somewhat fluently, but I can't tell if being able to describe your favorite cocktail to a bartender in a Turkish hotel proves that you can describe further tactics to fellow combatants under suppressive fire.

Why would they lack those professions? Aren't those some of the most likely groups to become terrorists?

Seriously? They will have no shortage of poor desperate stupid people to fight and die for an insane cause, but how many computer scientists, who could work anywhere in the world, want to go work for this insane organization?

A lot. A simple google search for "engineer terrorist" without the quotes turns up plenty of references if you want to learn more.

A terrorist is different than ISIS. They're not the same thing, and I just don't buy that a lot of intelligent people are joining ISIS, although there could be good ideological reasons to be a terrorist (none that I agree with).

Is this a joke? The more educated someone is the less likely they'll become a terrorist.

There have been many studies refuting that. If anything it's the opposite : the poorer/uneducated someone is the less likely they are to become a terrorist, as there are far more poor than rich.

e.g. http://www.economist.com/node/17730424

"Not in poverty" is not the same as a professional (engineer, dr, etc)!

There's been plenty of reporting about the propensity towards terrorism in engineers specifically. Did you have a specific question, or do you just refuse to do your own research?

The French Foreign Legion manages to get by with lots of soldiers from different backgrounds and languages... so it's not without precedence.

The Foreign Legion trains its recruits to learn French very fast. I saw a documentary on it once - they're not allowed to speak any other language (maybe only during training? I don't remember) and from what I recall, recruits were able to take their training in French in a matter of weeks (i.e., take orders, and understand the material they are taught). Then again, the 'motivation methods' are of a different caliber than those used in the average civilian language course...

French lessons are a core part of basic training in the French Foreign Legion, and if you consistently fail to pick up the language you'll probably get kicked out.

They also get to sing in French about blood sausage, and how the lazy Belgians won't get any. It's their marching song.

I once witnessed a bunch of fresh recruits tonelessly mumbling through the 'Voila du boudin' as best as they could. It was awesome.

That shifts the question to whether new ISIS recruits get lessons in Arabic. I guess kicking recruits out when they don't know Arabic well enough after a certain time is out of the question. Or are they those who get selected for suicide attacks? Okay, that's pretty cynical, I apologize.

Either way, what I find fascinating is that ISIS must be way more complex and sophisticated than is typically portrayed in media. The image that I have is that of barbarians - but in reality, they must have established some level of civil administration - a jihadist bureaucracy. Would love to learn more about this, in case any journalist is reading this.

One of Cracked's writers did a really interesting article about what they learnt from reading ISIS' official magazine[1] which debunks quite a lot of beliefs that the west have picked up about how they think.

[1] http://www.cracked.com/blog/isis-wants-us-to-invade-7-facts-...

That article was really good. I thought Cracked was basically CollegeHumor or something. Never would have expected that article.

ISIS prefers foreign recruits, local recruits often want money, have to go home every year to help the harvest, and aren't willing to follow genocidal orders against their own people. This is all explained in the docs Der Spiegal got a hold of http://m.spiegel.de/international/world/a-1029274.html

ISIS is primarily made up of ex Saddam Hussein henchmen who know a lot about running a state.

My understanding is that foreign fighters are regrouped in units sharing the same language, with probably a few of them in each groups acting as interface with the hierarchy.

1. ISIS doesn't kick people out, they just kill them.

2. I doubt they'd "downsize" just because some of their recruits don't speak Arabic well. They need and want all the bodies they can get. I'm sure there's enough overlap in language skills for effective communication.

3. They want to present the image of a civil government, but really it's a jihadist bureaucracy based on what most would consider barbarism.

That was pretty much all tongue-in-cheek. I guess I have to ramp up on the sarcasm.

I'm absolutly uninformed on the topic. I'd guess that knowelge of (medivial) arabic is a very high priority among muslims radical enough to join IS. So I assume they use a Mix of English, German and mostly bad arabic.

some of the Brits who joined ordered Islam For Dummies - http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/08/two-british-men...

It takes more than truth to raise a family. Even Budda needed rice. And rich men have always been willing to pay poor men to do their dirty work. Belief is just the pitch.

Did you respond to the wrong comment?

apparently. Yay mobile.

I saw a documentary on this not too long ago where they had a guy embedded with ISIS. The explanation was that they'd be broken up into fighting groups by language and there'd be someone there who can speak arabic and the foreign language.

Even if they all came from Arabic-speaking countries, they would still need to select a common language. Moroccan dialects are not mutually intelligible with Arabian peninsula dialects. So they would have to revert to the older common dialect to communicate.

And that doesn't even take into account people who might speak Albanian, Armenian, French, Farsi, Kurdish, English, Pashto, Balochi, Dari, Tajik, Bengali, Russian, Urdu, or one of the Turkic languages.

Given the public image and media strategy of the group, I guess that Arabic is their common tongue, even if English would be more effective.

From experience, the types of muslim Iranians & Kurds who are rotten enough to join ISIS would speak decent arabic.

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