Members of a Port Elizabeth family have reportedly sold off their assets to move to Iraq and join terror group “Islamic State”. One member, who just recently got married, left her husband to allegedly join the terrorist organization.
The news comes in the wake of a Daily Maverick report that a Johannesburg man had travelled to Syria to fight for ISIS. He is believed to be using the pseudonym Abu Hurayra al-Afriki and has called on other South Africans to join him.
The report quoted an expert as saying that it was inevitable that there would be South Africans fighting with the terror group, as it drew supporters from around the world. The expert, a political science lecturer at the University of the Free State, said that about half of ISIS fighters are foreigners.
The expert also said that ISIS was using social media to target the youth and was romanticising its “jihad” movement, saying that “sharia law” was the answer to the problems Iraq and Syria.
According to the report, it is illegal for South Africans to fight in a foreign country (or within South Africa) without the authorisation of the National Conventional Arms Control Committee.
A spokesperson for the State Security Department, Brian Dube, said that any South Africans caught contravening the Act would be prosecuted.
According to latest information more than 20,000 foreigner fights in the rank of ISIS.
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