Despite its physical defeat, ISIS still alive online  

Rabaa Nour-Eddin

Refusing to admit to its crushing defeat in Syria and Iraq, the most notorious Jihadist group, ISIS, appears to be winning the war online. According to analysts monitoring Jihadist radicalization and manipulation programme online, ISIS and other terrorist groups have taken major steps to reassemble its propaganda operation and radicalize bigger numbers of frustrated and disadvantaged economically young people from a marignalised background in Arab and Western societies.

ISIS is drawing the attention of vulnerable young people in the Arab world by promising they would have the opportunity to fulfill their economic and social dreams at the Muslim caliphate.

On the other hand, the content of ISIS radicalization propaganda targeting European young people focuses on the problems of identity and social and economic obstacles, which impede their attempts to integrate successfully into their European societies.

Analysts are deeply concerned that ISIS’s innovated Jihadist propaganda appears to have beaten counteracts by security and military authorities in vulnerable countries. The dilemma facing the counterterrorism strategists increased after discovering that most of ISIS’s new recruits had no connection whatsoever with fundamentalist or extremist groups before they decided to convert to the Jihadist ideology.

In an attempt to solve the riddle, Crookshank, who is one of the eminent analysts of Jihadist movements, said that regional and local chaos and crises must have distracted the attention of Arab and Western governments away from ISIS’s systematic programme to innovate its radicalization propaganda. The analyst also believed that economically disadvantaged and marginalized young people sought ISIS identity to overcome their dilemma in this respect.

Crookshank’s finding is supported by Matthew Olsen, former Director of the American National Counterterrorism Centre, NCTC. Olsen said that ISIS gained popularity in vulnerable youth community by wittingly creating that kind of wooing image. NCTC’s former director noted that as a result, radicalized and manipulated young people divested themselves of Western lifestyle and went to war zones to shed the blood of innocent people.

According to analysts monitoring ISIS’s alleged online victory, the Jihadist group’s radicalization tactics included the release of videos featuring European young people smiling as they are torching their passports and declaring their loyalty to the Jihadist group. Counterterrorist strategists admitted that they were unable to find out the reasons how videos featuring ISIS’s brutalities and insensibilities, such as beheading, murdering and lynching, were appealing to Arab and Western young people.

A study conducted by researcher Matthew Goodyear on a group of French young people loyal to ISIS discovered that they were opposing their capitalist societies. Matthew’s study also discovered that ISIS had successfully radicalized the second and third generations of children, whose parents and grandparents migrated to France decades ago; and failed to integrate into the French society. As a result, continued Matthew, they did not have a sense of belonging. France is believed to be the top Jihadist-exporting country in Europe.

According to Norwegian researcher Thomas Heifhammer, ISIS gained popularity in Western societies after it wittingly employed tactics of far-right organisations in Western countries, such as the Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang, which was founded in west Germany in 1970.

On the other hand, pop singers and actors, who converted to the Jihadist ideology, were mobilised on the Internet and on their Facebook pages to post songs and relics singing praise to ISIS and other terrorist groups.

ISIS also uses its mouthpieces, such as Dabiq and Darul Islam magazines, to propagandize its outrageous interpretation of the holy texts. For example, the French Darul-Islam published an article, in which the writer claims slavery is celebrated by the Muslim Sharia; and those who view it otherwise are kafir (blasphemous).

ISIS’s manipulation and radicalization also focus on the Western double-standard approach, which allegedly humiliated Arab people and their regimes. The Jihadist group also posts videos and statements, which call upon angry young people to vent their spleen against the US and European governments over atrocities they allegedly committed against the Arab nations.

Also exploiting the economic hardships in several Arab countries, ISIS tempt vulnerable young people and teenagers by offering them good jobs and wages if they pledged loyalty to the Jihadist group. Further, tucking their heads under the ISIS wing, young people would receive social and financial support to marry and form families. Marriage is a costly endeavour in many Arab countries.

In its radicalizing propaganda, ISIS gives special attention to women and girls and urge them to come forward to play their indispensable social and economic role in the alleged Muslim caliphate.

ISIS’s propaganda machine:

The Jihadist group’s media strategy is based on the Internet and the publication of magazines and periodicals.  One of the ISIS’s powerful mouthpieces is Dabiq, a magazine first published in July 2014 in English and French. The ISIS also launched Dabiq online in 12 languages.

In addition, the Jihadist group opened recording studios, such as Agnad. The terrorist group’s radicalization is also broadcast by television channels (Al-Hayat, al-Eitisam and al-Furqan) and Al-Bayan radio station.