ISIS lures women with kittens and Nutella, CNN claims

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), which controls large swathes of Iraq and Syria win women's hearts through talking online about Nutella and kittens, according to well-respected U.S. TV channel CNN. Although it sounds a bit weird to hear such a claim from the serious and prestigious news channel, CNN's Carol Costello made such a claim. Before starting the conversation with a professor, Costello said: "As ISIS continues to gain territory across the Middle East, the recruitment of young women into its ranks has become increasingly important to the group. And among the most highly sought-after targets are Western women. But how do you relay your message of jihad in a way Westerners understand? How can Westerners understand? Well, you turn to the language of social media, and that seems to be working just fine for ISIS." It was normal to hear this in the opening of the program. But Costello continued: "ISIS is talking online about jars of Nutella, pictures of kittens and emojis. These three images are in part helping ISIS recruiters lure Westerners into their fight because they want people to believe their life on the battlefield isn't so different than yours. They actually eat Nutella and I guess they have pet kittens." An on-air banner appearing on the bottom of the screen read: "ISIS lures women with kittens, Nutella," and was accompanied with a picture of Nutella jars, kittens and emojis.

Costello's words have echoed in social media strongly. While some Twitter users joked with Costello, some others were quiet furious over her words. Max Fisher, content director at vox.com said: "Oh please, we recruited half of our staff with kittens and Nutella." Heidi N. Moore, a journalist, said: "Joke as we will that CNN chyron about kittens and Nutella was genius. That's how you grab a viewer's attention on a long-running story."

Costello's guest, Nimni Gowrinathan, a visiting professor at City College New York, talked about the attraction of women to ISIS. She said initially, ISIS did not have women joining their ranks. And as with a lot of other movements, they realized the value of including women in the movement later on and did form an all-female brigade. And, again, as with other movements, initially they played multiple roles and eventually some of them make it to the front lines. I think the thing to recognize is that women are not fighting for women's rights. The fight for ISIS is a fight for something else. It is the idea of a caliphate. It is a political fight that I think goes a bit deeper than social media, and that is what women are attracted to for a number of reasons, because they feel safer, because they feel their identity as Sunnis is threatened, because they feel that if they're trapped between [President Bashar] Assad and ISIS, they would rather be in ISIS, even if they do have to wear a double veil. But it's important to remember they are not fighting for women's rights, they are fighting to be a part of a particular community that they feel safe in. Joining the fight is appealing to some recruits. In France they actually found that 45 percent of the people calling the hotline to join ISIS were young women." She did not elaborate whether the French women were lured with Nutella and lovely kittens. Instead, she made serious explanations about the women recruitments, based on social facts.