CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VI (1) Contemporary-Eurasia-VI-1-engl | Page 92

I NESSA A RZUMANYAN
more diverse nationalities, it is now important to determine how
exactly the members of ISIS join the organization, how the
propaganda is run and which are the main locations that are under the
attention of ISIS recruitment.
The topic is not of a less importance for Armenia as well: it is
important to understand how active the recruitment processes in South
Caucasus are to determine the level of threat for the country. Since the
collapse of the Soviet Union Armenia has been in the situation of
geographical and geopolitical blockade and its only way or “window”
to Europe has been neighboring Georgia. However, recent news,
statements by world officials and the IS members themselves as well
as official and unofficial statistics have shown that the Islamic State
has been finding new potential members to recruit from Georgia,
hence studying the issue of ISIS recruitment at the example of Georgia
carries big importance for Armenia as a matter of security, it will raise
awareness and help get prepared for the possible upcoming threats.
It needs to be mentioned that due to being a relatively new issue
and due to the secret nature of this topic, there have been some
limitations and difficulties in finding relevant data for further research.
The sources used include scholarly articles, media, ISIS press and
analyses of documents. The limitations of the study are the time
limitations, secret nature of the topic and some information possibly
lost in translations.
Literature Review
There have been many studies on the Islamic State, however there
have been not so many researchers conducted on issues connected
with the recruitment of ISIS, especially in regards to Georgia. Still,
some scholars have covered the issue of foreign fighters in this
terrorist organization, through analyses of motives, incentives, tactics
and the life after being recruited. The majority of the scholars have
come to the conclusions that the main ways of luring foreigners to
becoming an ISIS fighter lies in their online propaganda and
“attraction” through social media. Some scholars, on the other hand,
try to explain the attraction of foreigners to fight for ISIS through their
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