By: Bert Thompson
Most of the world is familiar with the work of the Beatles: Abbey Road, The White Album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the list of famous albums goes on and on. The arguably most influential band of all time has had its name distorted in recent months, with it no longer applying to the Fab Four. No, “The Beatles” now refer to a new John, Paul, Ringo, and George: a group of radical British terrorists who are part of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
A specific group of British hostage-takers within ISIS – also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or the Islamic State (IS) – has risen to international prominence in recent weeks because of the videotaped executions of two American journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and a British aid worker, David Haines. Nicknamed by their escaped captives as “The Beatles” because of their British origins, this band of Brits is represented by frontman “Jihadi John,” the tall man with a London accent who stars in each execution video, his name a tribute to the peace-promoting John Lennon.
ISIS has set lofty goals for itself, namely the creation of an Islamic caliphate that spreads across the Arab world. While its name may be a recent development, the organization’s history reaches back a decade to the al-Qaeda affiliate, al-Qaeda in Iraq. The group transformed into an independent organization following a public split with Ayman al-Zawahiri and al-Qaeda’s Senior Leadership in February 2013. Their regional and international profile has grown significantly since then, thanks in part to their ability to recruit foreign fighters and their social media profile.
Beyond using the main ISIS propaganda channels to promote the now-infamous videos of Jihadi John, the British foreign fighters created their own media outlet in December 2013, Rayat al-Tawhid, to represent their cause. Rayat al-Tawhid brandishes its own YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram accounts. Through the media outlet, the British fighters declared that others should leave “the gangster life behind and join the life of jihad.” And it seems to be working.
The Syrian Civil War has attracted an estimated 12,000 foreign fighters during the last three years. Those 12,000 fighters are believed to have come from 81 different states, and roughly 3,000 have arrived in Syria from Western countries. Most foreign fighters have joined Ahrar al-ham, Jabhat al-Nusra (the official al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria), or ISIS. Of the 3,000 from Western countries, about 400 were estimated to have come from the United Kingdom, per an official UK March 2014 estimate.
Jihadi John presents another challenge to a British government already operating in crisis-mode. Prime Minister David Cameron and his coalition government launched an apparently successful intelligence campaign to identify the “Beatles” frontman. Cameron’s government — which is also dealing with the Scottish independence vote — has to worry about Britons returning from Syria into the UK with plans of carrying out attacks. Cameron raised the UK terror threat level from “substantial” to “severe” in the days after James Foley’s execution and introduced new powers to allow police to confiscate the passports of suspected terrorists and to prevent UK citizens from reentering the country for a period of time.
Despite this, not everyone related to the British government is playing in tune concerning the threat of “The Beatles” or Jihadi John. Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge, made several controversial comments over the summer related to the threat of ISIS. In his comments at the Royal United Services Institute, a British defense and security think tank, Sir Richard argued that groups like ISIS and others “should seldom be given, either by the Government or the media, the oxygen of publicity” and that the media makes “national security monsters out of… rather pathetic figures.”
Even if “The Beatles” and Jihadi John do not pose a threat to the British homeland, they do attract similar extremists from Britain and other Western nations to the Middle East. It is clear that ISIS uses Jihadi John as its executioner in order to send a message to the Western world. ISIS leadership want to convey to Western audiences that their fighters can look and sound just like anyone in the West. They hope that these videos will convince other Westerners to come join them in their fight against the West and Western ideals and will scare domestic audiences.
While their name and their tactics have captured the world’s attention, “The Beatles” and Jihadi John do not impress everyone. Ringo Starr, the drummer of the real Beatles, declared, “What they [ISIS] are doing out there is against everything The Beatles stood for.” He asserted that comparing the “ISIS Beatles” to the Fab Four was “bull—-.”
Well said, Ringo. Well said.
