The U.S.-led coalition against ISIS launched the Sawab Center Wednesday in Abu Dhabi to combat ISIS radicalism..
The center, focused on Middle East digital communications, will focus its efforts on social media by promoting tools to counter ISIS propaganda online to a youth-targeted audience susceptible to recruitment by the extremist organization.
The Sawab Center introduced its mission on Youtube by launching an introductory video Tuesday.
Richard Stengel, the U.S. undersecretary of state, and Anwar Gargash, UAE Foreign Affairs Minister, were present at the center's launch. In a joint statement published in The National, Stengel and Gargash said that the center's aim was to bolster the coalition's efforts by tackling a new frontier in the war against ISIS, which would "amplify moderate and tolerant voices from across the region."
In the war of ideas, ISIS had appeared to take the lead by attracting a global, mostly young, audience, through its high-tech, Hollywood-like produced videos and video-game simulations. So far, 20,000 foreigners, including 3,400 Westerners, have joined the Islamic State to fight in Iraq and Syria, according to a February report by Russia Today .
Stengel told the Associated Press that Sawab, which is Arabic for "doing the right thing" or "being on the right path," will work on "rectify[ing] the wrong impression that ISIL is beating us in the information war and the social media war."
