[7][verification needed] Sheikh al-Arefe himself has denied allegations that he issued such a fatwa, dismissing it on his Twitter account as a "fabrication",[8] and stressing that anyone who circulates or believes it is insane.
[9] Other allegations of this practice stem from the Tunisian government propaganda in its war effort against Al Qaeda-linked terrorism in the mountainous Jebel ech Chambi region bordering Algeria.
[15] According to the British tabloid the Daily Mirror, there were reports in 2014 that Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters told families to "hand over [their] daughters for sex".
[18] In December 2014, the Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights announced that one member of ISIL had killed at least 150 females in Fallujah, including pregnant women, who refused to participate in sexual jihad.
[23] On 7 October 2013, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported that "sex jihad" to Syria was "an elaborate disinformation campaign by the Syrian government to distract international attention from its own crimes.
"[24] Hilmi M. Zawati, an international criminal law and human rights jurist, argues that the fatwa was fabricated and widely disseminated by the Syrian government and its allies with the aim of tarnishing and stigmatizing the jihadist rebels among the conservative community in Syria.