Ex-ISIS Recruit Says Americans Are Easy to Enlist Because They're “Dumb”

A former ISIS operative says Americans are easy to recruit because they're “dumb” and “can buy guns."

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Complex Original

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Harry Sarfo is a German citizen who went to Syria last year to join ISIS. After having second thoughts, he escaped and returned to Germany. On re-entry, he was captured, and is now in prison. While serving a three-year term, he is talking about what he learned. In a long interview with the New York Times, Sarfo revealed what ISIS thinks about Americans: that they are not so bright and have easy access to weapons.

“For America and Canada, it’s much easier for them to get them over the social network, because they say Americans are dumb — they have open gun policies. They say we can radicalize them easily, and if they have no criminal record, they can buy guns, so we don’t need to have no contact man who has to provide guns for them.”

 Upon arriving in Syria, Sarfo was told to head back to Germany, where the terror group had big plans.

“They said, 'We need people who are willing to give their lives, especially in suicide missions where they can take as much people as possible with them.'" Sarfo told the Times. "They want to have loads of attacks at the same time in England and Germany and France. They said, 'Would you mind to go back to Germany to stage attacks?'"

Perhaps the eeriest part of the story comes when Sarfo remembers talking to ISIS higher-ups in April 2015, a few months prior to the November ISIS attacks in Paris. They wanted him to find additional recruits in Germany. When asked about France, however, their tone changed. 

"My friend asked them, 'So what about France?'" Sarfo said. "And they started laughing—really serious laughing, with tears in their eyes. They said, 'Don't worry about France. France, we have enough people.'"

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