Quora Answer: What Should I Do if I Know Someone Who Supports ISIS & Extremism?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “What should I do if I know someone who supports ISIS and extremism verbally but idly?”

You should report this person to the authorities.  Groups like ISIS can exist because there is a larger number of people who are sympathisers, supporters and enablers.  To eradicate these groups, we must find and utterly eradicate their support.

Very few people start out as active participants.  They begin as sympathisers, then graduate to supporters, who advocate and recruit others to their cause.  From there, they become enablers, those who have moved from moral support to logistics support.  These include women who have willingly become brides to these fighters.  From there, it is a small step to become an active participant.

From an intelligence perspective, the security services do not have that level of penetration within the community to identify sympathisers because these communities are close knit and suspicious of outsiders.  Very few are foolish enough to openly advocate.  As such, we depend on people who have encountered these people to inform the authorities so that action can be taken.