Diplomats have quietly opened a new front in efforts to stem the flow of Britons travelling to fight in Syria by spending nearly £200,000 on "social media activity" to deter would-be jihadis from leaving the UK,The Independent on Sunday can reveal.
Fighters for al-Qa'ida-linked groups in Syria's civil war have proved adept at using social networks such as Twitter and Facebook to recruit foreign fighters, with messages and images exhorting young Muslims to join a holy war against Bashar al-Assad's brutal regime.
Anil Khalil Raofi, a 20-year-old student from Manchester who last month became the latest Briton to die in Syria, is known to have left Britain after reading posts by a fellow Briton, Ifthekar Jaman. The 21-year-old from Southsea, Hampshire, had joined the ultra-violent al-Qa'ida splinter group, Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil), currently embroiled in rebel infighting. Raofi, an engineering student, had begun posting instructions on how other Britons could join him prior to his death.
Now the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) aims to counter the pro-jihadi propaganda glorifying the conflict by setting up its own online project to convince British Muslims not to go to Syria.
Documents seen by The IoS show that the FCO was granted £173,000 in urgent funding for "social media activity to deter UK residents from travelling to fight in Syria". The spending, part of a project entitled "FCO deterring Syria foreign fighters activity", had to be approved by a special Treasury unit, the Efficiency and Reform Group, because it fell outside public sector spending limits. But although the budget and aim of the internet campaign can be revealed, the precise methods being used to win the battle for the hearts and minds of young Muslims are unknown.
Last week, The IoS made repeated requests to the FCO to detail which channels it uses in its social media programme and how it uses them. But the department said only that it was "emphasising the genuine risks of travel and the reality of the dangerous situation on the ground".
In the United States, the State Department has started using an official Twitter account with a department crest to target Islamist extremists or potential terrorists online, messaging recipients with the hashtag #thinkagainturnaway.
But Whitehall reticence on whom it messages, and how, suggests that the British project may be posting material or approaching individuals without declaring its origins, for fear of losing credibility with its target audience. Official FCO Twitter and Facebook accounts rarely contain material directly addressing potential jihadis.
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