Codenames concealing terrorists’ identities, reflecting their ideological beliefs

Shaimaa Yahia

Codenames are an important thing inside terrorist organizations. Most of the names say something about their owners. They reflect their ideological beliefs, refer to places they love or historical figures they cherish.

The idea of giving people codenames started thriving with the rise of dreams for reviving the Islamic caliphate. They also emerged to conceal the identity of terrorists, thus making it difficult for security agencies to track or arrest them.

Codenames are especially used by clandestine groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, by far the first organization to use these names. Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna called his projects after the names of Islamic historical figures. He also gave the members of his organization similar names in order to help them evade arrest.

The use of codenames turned into a normal practice for all terrorist organizations. They legitimized the actions of the emirs of these organizations and protected their moves.

The names also reflected the desire of the terrorist organizations to make their members acquire the traits of the people they are named after.

Al-Baghdadi, al-Halabi, and al-Maqdissi were but a few of the codenames terrorist organizations gave their members to help them conceal their real identities and evade the watch of security agencies.

The codenames also offered insights into the lack of confidence among the members of terrorist organizations which are always afraid that some of these members would report other members to security agencies.

Interestingly, codenames change with every move made by the people holding them. A terrorist can be given a codename in a specific country, but when he moves to another, he is given another name.

The codenames also sometimes included numbers. Each of the terrorists inside some organizations were given numbers, instead of their real names, also to make it difficult for security agencies to track them.

Significance

Hesham al-Najjar, a militancy and terrorism specialist, said terrorist organizations usually give their members codenames in order to make them feel different from other members of society.

“They just want to make these members feel that they are great, compared with the other members of society,” al-Najjar told The Reference.

He said codenames make terrorists feel that they fit into the personalities of other people who played an important role in the history of their countries or the history of Islam.