THE SHIITE JIHAD IN SYRIA AND ITS REGIONAL EFFECTS

BUILDING AN ARMY FOR ZAINAB n 31
trination. With ISIS advances in Iraq in late spring 2014, these strategies saw
further development among Shiite militias.
Internet Recruitment for the Iraqi Front
In Iraq, Internet recruitment of Shiites to combat ISIS was used even before
the crisis exploded onto the world stage. Starting in May 2014 and rising
throughout June and July, as ISIS advances hit front pages, new and established
militia groups alike quickly engaged in recruitment efforts utilizing
techniques learned over the previous year. For the first time, LIH posted a
recruitment poster with embedded phone numbers to its Facebook networks.
Additionally, the Badr Organization, HHN’s Liwa al-Hamad, Liwa Dhulfiqar,
the RRF, and the Badr-linked Saraya al-Aqidah all issued embedded
images with phone numbers during this period.
Newer Shiite militia groups with links to Iran, such as QQAFA, Fatiyan
Aqidah, and Liwa Sadiqin, all embraced this recruitment strategy and heavily
marketed themselves and their phone numbers on Facebook. (See appendix
8.) Saraya al-Aqidah went a step further than most groups by issuing
uploaded images used for fundraising and recruitment that would connect
a caller with the office of the group’s leader, Sheikh Jalal al-Din al-Saghir. 175
Starting on April 22, 2014, after a taklif sharii was issued calling for the
group’s assembly, Kataib Hezbollah announced the creation of Saraya al-Difa
al-Shabi (KH-SDS), a fighting force for combat in Iraq. At this time, notices
with KH-SDS’s new logo and a text-based phone number were posted on
Kataib Hezbollah’s social media networks. The group’s creation came about
six weeks before Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki called for volunteers to
join in the fight against ISIS. 176
On May 22, 2014, Kataib Hezbollah officially announced the establishment
of KH-SDS in a video clip that also claimed to detail how foreign intelligence
agencies were backing Sunni insurgent and terrorist organizations in
Iraq. 177 In early June, Kataib Hezbollah uploaded more images, mainly photos
of recruitment numbers broadcast on television, and then reposted these
images on Facebook and Google+.
Coinciding with these posts, on June 17, 2014, KH-SDS uploaded video clips
previously shown on the group’s al-Etejah TV network. These recordings gave a
brief explanation for KH-SDS’s founding and then presented phone numbers
for Kataib Hezbollah branches in Shiite population centers from Baghdad to
Basra. About a month later, al-Etejah aired clips of fundraising attempts for