Although Donald Trump has promised to wipe them off the face of the earth, the Islamic State (ISIS) is going all-out in their support for him, precisely because of his plan to engage the terrorist organisation head-on if he wins the White House this November.
According to Foreign Affairs magazine, interviews with ISIS supporters and recent defectors indicate that the jihadis are rooting for Trump to beat Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
This is because they think Trump will help lead the United States and the West toward their own destruction after their envisioned final apocalyptic battle with the Muslim militants' army in the Syrian town of Dabiq.
The jihadis and their supporters believe that in that final battle, the West will be defeated, allowing Muslims to conquer the whole world before the coming of their Mahdi, the purported final redeemer of Islam who some Muslims believe will rule the world for a period of years before the day of judgement.
Foreign Affairs spoke with 12 ISIS supporters and former members of the group who said that they are all rooting for Trump to win the U.S. presidency this November 8.
In the interviews, ISIS supporters and defectors said Trump's hard-line stance on Muslim migration plays into the jihadis' propaganda claims that the West is at war with Islam.
Last December, Clinton also raised this point, saying that ISIS was using clips of Trump's comments to help recruit disenfranchised Muslims from around the world to join its ranks.
ISIS supporters believe that if Trump wins, his fiery rhetoric will lead to the radicalisation of Muslims in the U.S. and Europe and encourage them to carry out lone-wolf attacks inside their home countries.
They also think that Trump has poor leadership skills and that he will make faulty and unwise decisions as the commander-in-chief of the U.S. military, which would eventually lead to a weaker America—one that they believe the jihadis could defeat in the final battle in Dabiq.
