ISIS has a name for the Muslim ban, and it confirms some of our worst fears

FILE - In this Friday, April 26, 2013 file photo, masked Sunni protesters wave Islamist flags while others chant slogans at an anti-government rally in Fallujah, Iraq, 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Baghdad. “We can’t stop this thing, but we can limit it,” a former Islamic State group commander told the Associated Press of the Sunni militant group’s ambition to create a self-styled caliphate. “Daesh has nothing to lose,” he added, using the group’s Arabic acronym. ”They like it when (they are) hot in the news.” The former commander was interviewed at an Iraqi prison where he is now held and works as an informant. (AP Photo/Bilal Fawzi, File)

Rukmini Callimachi, a New York Times and AP international correspondent, is on the streets of the city of Mosul in Iraq, which has been partially retaken from ISIS. The fight for Mosul has raged since November, involving well over 100,000 soldiers. ISIS and supporters took the city in 2014, after American troops followed Bush-era orders and largely departed the nation under President Obama in 2011. In a series of tweets today, she reported what she was seeing and hearing on the ground.

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Iraqi coalition forces have won East Mosul and forced ISIS forces to the other side of the Tigris river. Having been on the ground for the beginning of the battle, Callimachi notes one very important difference between 2016 and 2017: Iraqis and ISIS are talking about Donald Trump’s Muslim ban. And one of the two groups is “openly celebrating” it, calling it the “Blessed Ban.”

The account would seem to confirm that ISIS is attempting to use Trump’s Muslim ban as propaganda to polarize Muslims. By painting the United States as uniformly anti-Muslim, ISIS can more easily pitch and maintain their simplistic and violent narrative, which pits Muslims against the West.

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