Jihadi gift shop in Turkey sells Islamic State gear
QMI Agency
First posted: Saturday, August 09, 2014 11:24 AM EDT | Updated: Saturday, August 09, 2014 11:28 AM EDT
An entrepreneur in Turkey has taken Islamic clothing to a level we could not have predicted.
According to Joseph Dana, the Middle East correspondent for the London-based magazine Monocle, a non-descript store in Istanbul called Islami Giyim is selling Islamic State-inspired clothes.
IS is the extremist group that has captured wide swathes of northern Iraq, executed non-Sunni Muslim captives, displaced tens of thousands of people, and drew the first U.S. air strikes in the region since Washington withdrew troops in 2011.
Dana's blog features photos of T-shirts, sweatshirts and cargo paints featuring the logo of the terrorist group.
In an interview, the owner, who refused to give Dana his name, said, "I am not an ISIS member, nor have I ever been one. I am responding to a market demand. This is Islamic clothing. What else can I say?
Dana says IS (formerly ISIS) "has an incredibly savvy marketing and branding campaign. The group uses social media platforms, especially Twitter, to mould a specific media narrative and recruit funds, as well as fighters, from across the globe.
"The popularity of ISIS clothing - most notably T-shirts emblazoned with the group’s initials flanked by AK-47s - demonstrates the next phase of ISIS’s international branding campaign," he writes on his blog.
Islami Giyim’s Facebook page, which features photos of the merchandise it sells, has 6,400 likes.
The ISIS logo.
Jihadi gift shop in Turkey sells Islamic State gear | Weird | News | Toronto Sun
QMI Agency
First posted: Saturday, August 09, 2014 11:24 AM EDT | Updated: Saturday, August 09, 2014 11:28 AM EDT
An entrepreneur in Turkey has taken Islamic clothing to a level we could not have predicted.
According to Joseph Dana, the Middle East correspondent for the London-based magazine Monocle, a non-descript store in Istanbul called Islami Giyim is selling Islamic State-inspired clothes.
IS is the extremist group that has captured wide swathes of northern Iraq, executed non-Sunni Muslim captives, displaced tens of thousands of people, and drew the first U.S. air strikes in the region since Washington withdrew troops in 2011.
Dana's blog features photos of T-shirts, sweatshirts and cargo paints featuring the logo of the terrorist group.
In an interview, the owner, who refused to give Dana his name, said, "I am not an ISIS member, nor have I ever been one. I am responding to a market demand. This is Islamic clothing. What else can I say?
Dana says IS (formerly ISIS) "has an incredibly savvy marketing and branding campaign. The group uses social media platforms, especially Twitter, to mould a specific media narrative and recruit funds, as well as fighters, from across the globe.
"The popularity of ISIS clothing - most notably T-shirts emblazoned with the group’s initials flanked by AK-47s - demonstrates the next phase of ISIS’s international branding campaign," he writes on his blog.
Islami Giyim’s Facebook page, which features photos of the merchandise it sells, has 6,400 likes.
The ISIS logo.
Jihadi gift shop in Turkey sells Islamic State gear | Weird | News | Toronto Sun