ISIS warlords now targeting football clubs for child recruits as mosques no longer deemed secure
The terror group even hosts a 'Jihad Olympics' inspired by sports fan bin Laden
ISIS warlords are now targeting football clubs in a bid to find new young recruits to send on deadly suicide missions.
The terror group has ditched its traditional mosque recruitment policy as they are no longer seen as secure because of increased surveillance.
The news comes just days after dramatic footage captured an 'ISIS child suicide bomber' wearing a Barcelona shirt being stripped of his explosive belt just before it was about to be detonated
Abu Otaiba, the 'war name' of a self-taught imam and Islamic State (ISIS) recruiter, has told how he now uses soccer to attract recruits.
“We take them to farms, or private homes. There we discuss and we organise soccer games to bring them closer to us,” he said.
Otaiba said he was now recruiting outside of mosques because they “are filled with intelligence officials.”
The Jordanian now only uses Mosques as a venue to identify potential recruits whom he then approaches elsewhere.
Top recruiting spots now include football clubs and other sports clubs as so far they don’t figure prominently on intelligence’s radar.
Officially ISIS sees all sport as an 'invention of infidels designed to distract the faithful from their religious obligations.'
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In May, the group slaughtered 16 Real Madrid fans while they were watching the Champions League final in Iraq.
Four gunmen started firing indiscriminately at their victims after bursting into a Real Madrid Supporters' Club based in Baquba around 40 miles north of the capital Baghdad.
However, many jihadist and militant Islamist leaders are either former players or football fanatics.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State’s caliph, was a fervent soccer player while in a US prison in Iraq where he earned the nickname 'Maradona'.
Osama bin Laden - rumoured to be an Arsenal fan - even hosted his own mini World Cup during the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Teams formed by foreign fighters based on nationality played against one another in downtime.
Now with ISIS under increased military pressure in Syria and Iraq, the group appears to be turning to sports and soccer for new blood.
ISIS has urged boys in various towns, including Raqqa in Syria and Mosul and Tal Afar in Iraq, to participate in what it dubs the 'Jihad Olympics' - inspired by bin Laden's tournament.
Boys, despite a ban on soccer jerseys and the execution of 13 children in early 2015 for watching an Asian Cup match on television, play soccer or a tug of war during the events and are awarded sweets and balloons if their team is victorious.
The boys’ families are invited to watch the games.
Foreign fighters have even been allowed to own decoders for sports channels and watch matches in the privacy of their homes.
“IS policy towards soccer is driven by opportunism and impulse. The group fundamentally despises the game, yet can’t deny that it is popular in its ranks and in territory it governs,” said a former Raqqa resident.