MOSCOW, September 30 (RIA Novosti) - It will take more than just military power to defeat the Islamic State (IS) threat as their ideology may keep on thriving even if all the members of the terrorist group are eliminated, former ideologist of Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya Egyptian Sunni Islamist movement and current supporter of the renunciation of violence, Ibragim Nageh told Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency on Tuesday.
"Weapons are useless against them. You can kill all the members of a terrorist organization, but its idea will keep on existing," Nageh said, adding that even though al-Qaeda lost in many areas, its ideas still can be traced, including on the Internet.
"Everything starts with an idea," Nageh said.
According to Nageh, in order to defeat the IS and terrorist groups alike, all the factors contributing to the development of destructive ideas should be eliminated. "For example, the ongoing political struggle in the Arab world, the non-existent role of the state as in the case with Afghanistan, the economic and political depression and the lack of social justice are among such factors," Nageh elaborated.
Nageh also noted that establishing live dialogue is vital to defeating the spread of the IS ideology. He suggested, that Islamic experts should lecture in universities and answer people's questions.
In Nageh's point of view, the worst thing about Islamic State is their "super-takfirist" approach, allowing the group's members to accuse other Muslims of apostasy and thus justify their killing.
"IS supporters do not slaughter the opponents of the religion, they slaughter Islam itself," Nageh concluded.
The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), is a Sunni extremist group which has seized vast territories in Iraq and Syria. The growth in numbers of IS supporters made experts wonder whether the IS can be defeated by military force solely.
