Professional actors: How IS Yemen produces its videos?

Ahmed Sultan

Hedaya Media Production Institution, which is affiliated to al-Qaeda in Yemen, has released a new video in which it throws light on the techniques used by the Islamic State (IS) group in the making of media materials, including videos.

Called ‘Baghdadi’s Hollywood’, the video contains new scenes of IS fighters playing roles in the videos.

The video is part of a series of materials released by the institution with the aim of uncovering the reality of the media machine of IS.

It contains also information about the first video IS released when it established its new base in Yemen.

In the IS video, the organization claimed that its members would be in Yemen to Yemen to fight the pro-Iran Houthi group.

Nevertheless, the institution showed that IS fabricated videos in order to deceive the Yemeni people. It says IS had never fought the Houthis.

Struggle for power

Yemen has been the scene of a struggle for power between al-Qaeda and IS. This struggle was concentrated in Kubzah, a village of al-Bayda province.

IS fighters staged attacks against the strongholds of al-Qaeda in the village. Al-Qaeda countered by shelling the camps of IS in another part of the same village.

Last month, the media office of what is called the ‘IS Yemen Province’ aired a video in which the new leader of IS in Yemen, Abu al-Walid al-Muhajir, appeared.

Abu al-Walid took over the IS leadership in Yemen, after Saudi Arabia arrested his predecessor Abu Osama al-Muhajir.

Abu al-Walid said in the video that IS Yemen insists to fight al-Qaeda there because of the war it launches against it.

He described the leaders of al-Qaeda in Yemen as a bunch of ‘infidels’.

Al-Qaeda reacted by issuing a number of videos, including the latest by Hedaya Media Institution. In this video, the institution says IS kills children, women and elderly men.

It also shows one of the leaders of IS in Yemen reading out a message from the central IS leadership in which the leadership asks the members of IS Yemen to renew allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Meanwhile, the Counterterrorism Center at West Point Military Academy has released a new study that talks about the media machine of IS.

According to the study, what is called the Central Media Agency of IS sends directives to the various IS provinces about the nature of the media materials they should produce and release each time.