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You Need Recommendations and a Guarantor to Join ISIS, According to Leaked Documents

The leaked ISIS recruitment form has 23 questions, ranging from education and work experience to "level of obedience" and "chemical knowledge."
ISIS photo via Wikicommons

Read: Why Does Radical Islam Appeal to So Many Young Men?

A trove of leaked documents from ISIS has been obtained by numerous media organizations, including German outlets and the UK's Sky News, providing a window into how the world's most famous terrorist organization operates.

These documents include recruitment records revealing the names of 22,000 people—of 51 different nationalities—who have allegedly left their homes to join the Islamic State. The form would-be fighters reportedly have to fill out has 23 questions, which begin with basic information you have to provide when you do anything: name, date of birth, education. You know the drill.

Then they get kind of weird. The form asks about any "previous fighting experience, blood type, special skills, level of obedience," any "chemical knowledge," and whether the applicant would favor frontline fighting or training as a suicide bomber.

New recruits also have to write down a person to recommend them and a guarantor. Some of the released records list well-known jihadists as recommenders, while others rely on people like a "20-year-old from Minneapolis with just a high-school education" to vouch for them, according to NBC News.

NBC News also added that the documents were leaked by "a man who claims to be a disillusioned ISIS fighter who recently defected."

German authorities are going over the files now, and they reportedly believe the documents to be genuine.