Video - Syrian comedy troupe & filmmakers use humor to counter ISIL propaganda.

Video - Syrian comedy troupe and filmmakers use humor to counter ISIL propaganda.(AJ).

The six young filmmakers behind the sketch starring Hereh, known as the Daya Altaseh collective, have been producing videos, some satirical, some not, about the Syrian civil war since 2013.

Initially, their preferred target was Bashar al Assad, Syria’s president. Once in a while, they skewered the country's ineffective, fractured political opposition. “We go after everyone, including the free government,” said Daya Altaseh’s founder, Maen Watfe, 27, referring to the Syrian National Coalition, the country’s main dissident group. “We support them, but we also criticize them because we want them to be better.”

A few months ago, the activists began to turn most of their satirical firepower on ISIL. Their objective was twofold. To the outside world, said Watfe, they wanted to show that the armed group was not the true, or at least not the only, face of the war against Assad. To young Syrians, they wanted to convey the idea that the radicals were hypocrites and their agenda a perversion of Islam.

Comedy, a language that most Syrians speak fluently, was as as good a weapon against ISIL propaganda as any, they figured. “It affects people the most. It makes them stop being afraid of ISIL,” said Watfe. “Because we make them look silly.”

Attacking ISIL — even through comedy and even from the relative safety of Turkey — is a risky business.

According to police sources quoted in Turkish media, the group has about 3,000 members inside the country.

The young people running Daya Altaseh appear to be in the fighters’ crosshairs. Threats and insults have poured onto their Facebook page.

Earlier this year, said Watfe, the filmmakers decided to move out of their apartment in Gaziantep after “large, bearded men” interrogated their landlord about their work and whereabouts.

They happened to have been out of the house at the time. “If not, we’d probably be on a beach somewhere, wearing orange jumpsuits,” said Aya Brown, the lone woman in the group. Hmmm.....As they say 'We only need to fear, fear it self. Read the full story here.