The demonic regime of the group known as the Islamic State, also known as Daesh, has digressed from any theological base, any political sensibilities and any semblance of moral sanity. But the leaderless acts of fighters, each one more gruesome than the next, are nothing but desperate attempts to preserve self-respect and self-dignity in a war that they are bound to lose. These are five reasons why such evil will not prevail:

Following the gruesome immolation of Jordanian pilot Muadh al-Kasasbeh, Muslim scholars and clerics across the globe have openly denounced Daesh’s Islamic allegiance. Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed el-Tayeb, the former head of Egypt’s oldest degree-granting university, has not only condemned their barbarity but has also branded Daesh as the enemies of the Prophet Mohammed. Some even see its theological geology as literalistic, essentially reviving dormant traditions that no other Islamic group has even attempted for centuries.

Such an obsession over medieval practices has led Daesh to justify the reported crucifixion of children, the enslavement of women and the slaughter of anyone even close to be considered as an apostate. Their emphasis on Dabiq, the apocalypse and the name of their monthly magazine, has led it to create propaganda videos involving ancient weaponry and armies on horsebacks. Their ultimate aim of establishing a caliphate has attracted many to join the movement, but at the same hand, through its sheer banality and cruelty, has only drawn other Islamic groups further away from supporting its cause.

A wave of reports of defectors, or the hundreds that have been killed in attempting to do so, only indicate that Daesh is collapsing from within. Many have defected simply due to moral sickening over tactics of mass executions. One such defector is Abu Khadija, a Syrian who recently defected after the beheadings of 38 Kurdish and Alawite war prisoners as he felt that he couldn’t “cut a human being’s head with a knife.”

Rumors have also arisen regarding an internal coup enacted by the governor of Raqqa. I’m absolutely convinced that there cannot be a collective passivity in seeing prisoners thrown off buildings, people burned alive or women forced into sexual slavery.

With electricity being cut and empty food shelves, the quality of life in territory held by Daesh is deteriorating fast. The growing discontent amongst residents and even recruits have led to internal uprisings that have only been met with new levels of violence. The pathology of killings is also swaying many away from its opaque ambitions. If Daesh’’s goals lie in establishing a caliphate and ruling by sharia law, its weakening legitimacy only hampers it further.

Not only has this prompted Jordan’s king to vow a relentless war on Daesh, but it incentivized other regional actors to step up their responses. The United Arab Emirates has now re-implemented its air strikes campaign.

The besieging of Tikrit in the past week has shown decisive advancements by Iraqi forces and Kurds, with commanders claiming to seize almost the entire town within days. The Kurds were also able to drive Daesh out of Kobane, a strategic city to which large amounts of weaponry and fighters had been dedicated. On top of this, US-American airstrikes have been critical in destroying Daesh’s largest stream of income: refining oil.

Faced with the cacophony of news and headlines detailing the complex strategies behind Daesh, it’s important to remember: they are not to be feared. The more we fear, the more likely they are to win. In Abu Dhabi, students are vulnerable to slurs of stereotypes and baseless conjectures on the Middle East, ranging from Daesh invading the UAE to the extreme of the UAE supporting Desh itself. It’s important to separate such rumors from fact, because not doing so would extend the very lifeline that Daesh depends on — attention from terror. As frequent social media users, it is just as imperative that we suffocate the dissemination of their propaganda, whether it's videos of lone-wolf decapitations by Jihadi John or clips lamenting the heroism of foreign Daesh fighters. The bottom line is that Daesh’s ideology is impotent, and I strongly believe that our ability to drown out the support and fear for Daesh is the first step to crippling such evil.