Special to WorldTribune.com

LONDON — Al Qaida’s largest network has used soccer to recruit for the wars in the Levant.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has been using soccer for online recruitment for its campaign in Iraq and Syria.

ISIL, deemed the most powerful Al Qaida-aligned force in the Middle East, has posted videos that feature European stars said to have joined the war against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

“He played for Arsenal in London and left soccer, money and the European
way of life to follow the path of Allah,” ISIL, introducing a football star
turned jihadist, said.

In an eight-minute video released in April 2014, ISIL featured a masked
Al Qaida fighter identified as Celso Rodrigues Da Costa. Da Costa, a
Portugese national, was presented as a French player for the British soccer
team Arsenal.

“We are in need of all types of help from those who can help in fighting
the enemy,” Da Costa, who resembles soccer star Lassana Diarra, said. “For
those who think that they cannot fight they should also come and join us for
example because it maybe that they can help us in something else, for
example help with medicine, help financially, help with advice, help with
any other qualities and any other skills they might have.”

This marked the third soccer player said to have joined the Sunni revolt
in Syria. In October 2013, Burak Karan, who played for Germany, was killed
in a Syrian Army attack near Turkey.

The European Union has reported increasing recruitment by ISIL and its
rival Nusra Front for the Defense of the Levant. Many of the thousands of
Europeans who joined the war in Syria ended up under ISIL’s command.

Al Qaida and the Palestinian movement Hamas have long used soccer for
recruitment and propaganda. Former soccer players were identified as
participating in major attacks, including the bombing of commuter trains in
Madrid, Spain in 2004 and the plot to blow up Russia’s Sapsan railway in
2011.

“Mr. Da Costa’s projection of himself as a soccer star signaled an
apparent perception among jihadists that three years after the capture and
killing of Al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden the movement is in need of
celebrities,” James Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological
University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore,
wrote in an analysis for Eurasia. “Bin Laden’s successor, Ayman Zawahiri, a
dour 62-year-old medical doctor in hiding, doesn’t quite cut it as a
charismatic figure.”

  Al Qaida using soccer videos to recruit European jihadists, EU, Islaimc State of Iraq and the Levant, Nusra Front