Doc studies role of social media in luring ISIS recruiters

Last year, a 20-year-old Australian named Sara Harris created a Twitter account.

On this account, Sara posted about injustice to Muslims worldwide and used a quotation from the Koran as the inspiration for her cover photo.

Soon, the Sydney native struck an online friendship with a woman from Raqqa – the de facto ISIS (Islamic State)capital in Syria – named Umm Hamza. Sara wrote in private messages that she wanted to move to Syria, believing it was a path Allah had set for her. It didn’t take long until the women were communicating weekly.

As Umm Hamza continued to strive to bring Sara into Syria, she likely did not suspect that the Australian’s profile was, in fact, a total fabrication.

“Sara Harris” was a fake name and her story of religious devotion a lie as well. In actuality, this Twitter profile was formed to lure ISIS recruiters.

This operation is the main attraction from Undercover in ISIS, a new documentary from filmmaker and foreign correspondent Martin Himel. The film uncovers the intricate process in which the terrorist organization attracts people from around the world to join their jihadist group.

“[ISIS recruiters] know how to approach people and they know people are susceptible,” Himel says. “We had to create character models of people… and they would have to be very real.”

In the film, “Sara” and fellow undercover operative “Theo” – both counter-terrorism professionals in reality appearing under these code names – are prompted to go off Twitter onto encrypted communications apps to keep in touch with ISIS recruiters.

“Theo” was eventually asked to meet up with a terrorist cell working in Belgium. This message came to him just six months before the attack on the Brussels airport earlier this year.

Although “Sara” knew she was speaking with a dangerous woman, the Australian found herself connecting with the recruiter.

“They know the cyber world very, very well,” Himel says, of the ISIS recruiters featured in the film. “Yet their ability to connect on an emotional level really was the big eye opener for me.”

During a good portion of the film, we are listening to “Sara” as she speaks to Umm Hamza, acting and improvising over the phone to help convince the ISIS recruiter of her passion for the cause. Their conversations are arresting and suspenseful.

We witness as Sara grapples with this unexpectedly genuine even human connection with the woman on the other end of the line.

“She’s warm, she’s amiable, she’s able to connect,” Himel says of Umm Hamza. “That’s what recruiters do very, very well. Sara had an issue about betraying this woman who… she liked.”

Himel was making a film in Northern Iraq with Kurdish fighters when he says he became interested in understanding how people joined ISIS and the role that social media played in this process.

The filmmaker, who is a Toronto native and ex-foreign correspondent for Global and CTV News, says he didn’t think this investigation would initially yield results.

Eventually, the CBC interest in this project was so strong that Himel only had a few months to complete the editing process. (The filmmaker only wrapped shooting in June.) He credits his many years as a foreign correspondent for helping him stay on deadline.

“I don’t know of another film that has captured social media interactions [with] people from ISIS who want to recruit,” Himel says. “To me, that is an unprecedented achievement.”

Undercover in ISIS premieres on the Documentary Channel Sept. 25 and 26 and is expected to be repeated this fall.