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Friday, June 14, 2019

ANALYSIS: IS focus on millennial women is worry for future: Europol

Date created : 14/06/2019 - 22:55 GMT/ZULU

In a report on IS propaganda focussed on women, Europol said that this could "pave the way" for a change in the role of female jihadists in future terror organisations AFP/File

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The Hague

by Elodie Bagnol and Biodun Iginla, France24 News Analysts

The Islamic State group is targeting women from the millennial generation as it seeks new recruits after the fall of its so-called caliphate, the EU's police agency said Friday.

In a report on IS propaganda focussed on women, Europol said that this could "pave the way" for a change in the role of female jihadists in future terror organisations.

"We are talking about especially millennials," Manuel Navarette, Head of Europol's European Counter Terrorism Centre, told reporters in The Hague as he unveiled the report.

"IS propaganda is focussed on women between 16 to 25, a group more vulnerable to these activities and they have access to social media. IS has adapted to the new target".

IS had in particular assigned new and "more active" roles to female jihadists within the organisation, while keeping its fundamentalist ideas about the position of women in society.

"They kept somehow the traditional role given to women: being supportive, taking care of men," Navarette said.

"But then they start asking women to take a different role, to assist as a doctor, to assist in a different way, not only as the traditional housewife."

The Islamic State's "caliphate" in Iraq and Syria fell in March but the group remains active in several countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, as well as still inspiring jihadists through an online presence.

The international community is also torn over what to do with around 4,000 foreign women and 8,000 children linked to IS who remain stranded in Syria and Iraq.

The fear is that the targeting by IS of women for propaganda could pay dividends for jihadists in years to come.

"The worry is that this increase in the involvement of women could pave the way for potentially major changes in the role of jihadi women in the future," the Europol report said.

Navarette said there had been an increase in arrests of women connected to jihadism in France and Britain in particular.

"There could be a kind of relation between the propaganda machine of IS asking, demanding, for more active of specific groups of women and children to be a part of terrorism," he added.

Europol director Catherine De Bolle said that despite the findings law enforcement agencies needed to take a "gender neutral approach" looking at the reasons for radicalisation.

"It's the way to paradise, for both men and women," she added.

Tuesday, February 5, 2019

Strong protest

"A malicious user can send commands to any watch making it call another number of his choosing, can communicate with the child wearing the device or locate the child through GPS," wrote the Commission in its alert notice.

It has directed public authorities across Europe to recall the product from end users.

Enox founder Ole Anton Bieltvedt told us at the BBC that the watch had passed tests carried out by German regulators last year allowing it to be sold.

The version the Commission tested was no longer on sale, he added.

Enox planned to lodge an appeal with Iceland's consumer protection regulator which had complained about the watch to the Commission.

Mr Bieltvedt said Enox's distributor in Iceland had made a "strong protest" and "they have appealed to the authorities in charge with the demand that this test conclusion would be reversed".

The Enox device comes fitted with GPS, a microphone and speaker and has a companion app that lets parents oversee the location of the wearer and contact them.

Tests by security researchers on popular smartwatches aimed at children last year revealed some of their shortcomings.