Report: Jihadis Urged Black Americans to Convert to Islam After Baton Rouge Shooting

Using social media platforms, jihadis have exploited ambush attacks on the police in an attempt to recruit black Americans to their cause, urging them to convert to Islam and make war against the U.S. government.

The Foreign Desk reports that such attempts were made after both the Dallas and Baton Rouge shootings. After saluting the Dallas rampage against cops in an al-Qaeda forum — “By the grace of Allah, 4 officers dead, inshallah” — a jihadi suggested, “We may think of using this ‘racism’ topic as an opportunity to increase the division of the kuffar through propaganda and instigate more attacks on them!”

He therefore suggested his followers “make propaganda pictures and inspiring media works to instigate more black people attacking the US government.”

ISIS also got in on the act, posting “a purported list of Dallas police arrests, urging people to compare ‘the ratio of the ‘White vs Black & Latino.””

ISIS also posted a list of Dallas police salaries, with the claim America is “buying the consciences of the people.”

After the Gavin Long ambush attack in Baton Rouge, a jihadi used the encrypted Telegram platform to urge his “brothers” to “take this opportunity and do dawah to the black community in U.S. about the level of dignity they get when joining Muslim Community and help them in fight [sic] the US government.”

Dawah is the formal invitation to convert to Islam. According to The Foreign Desk, the channel carrying this message was later deleted by Telegram administrators.

Earlier attempts to recruit black Americans to jihad have been made, including a video from Somalia’s al Shabaab that echoed Black Lives Matter talking points.

ISIS and other jihadi groups sought to exploit racial tensions after the Ferguson riots, with one Islamic State supporter claiming, “In Islam there is no racism, and we think black people will wake up and follow the example of Malcolm X and others who understood that this way is the only way to justice.”

After the Baltimore riots, the leader of a pro-ISIS militant group in the Gaza Strip claimed the Islamic State was taking advantage of “growing movement within the black community toward Islam and the racist policies of the U.S. government,” although he made no claims about how successful the effort had been.