Cyber jihad between ISIS and America

Mohamed Abdul Ghaffar

Terrorist organizations have sought to exploit all the tools available to them to spread among individuals in various countries around the world, aiming to spread their ideas in the first place and then attract more individuals to fight within their ranks and serve them, and the technological means have been at the top of these tools, despite the opposition of major countries, especially the United States.

Many studies have tried to focus on this confrontation that is taking place in cyberspace, including a study entitled “Cyber Jihad: A Study of ISIS and the US Strategy to Confront It” by researcher Engi Mohamed in the Journal of the Faculty of Economics and Political Science at Cairo University in April 2021.

The researcher considered that ISIS exploited cyberspace and various digital platforms in an unprecedented way compared to its counterparts in other terrorist organizations, as it succeeded in dealing with the complexities of the internet in a professional manner, either at the level of media platforms issued in its name or modern technologies that it employed, or at the level of the nature of the topics it presented to the public and the persuasive means it relied on.

The study indicated that the media supremacy of ISIS is due to it considering media as another battlefield for it, and that these digital media platforms affiliated with it are a source of authority and power. Among the most prominent digital platforms that broadcast ISIS news are Afaq, Al Furqan, Al-Ashhad, Al-Waad, Al-Battar, Al-Hiyah, Al-Samud al-Gharib, Granddaughters of Aisha, East Africa, and Tarjuman Al-Aswarti.

The study explained that after analyzing ISIS’s media content, it became clear that the organization relies on two types of messages addressed to the public in order to suit the target audience, namely positive messages of reassurance and violent messages of intimidation.

As for the positive reassuring messages, they targeted the population in areas under the control of the terrorist organization, such as the city of Raqqa, and 25% of these messages focused on emphasizing the services provided by the terrorist organization to citizens, such as providing basic services, food and housing, and its ability to achieve justice and safety. The rest of the messages included videos of good-looking young men from different countries calling on the city’s residents to join the terrorist organization.

Meanwhile, the violent and intimidating messages presented by the terrorist organization to various individuals around the world focused on the violent framework of theatrical form, which facilitates the acceptance by individuals of the violent events presented by the organization as if they were part of video games or movies, focusing on explaining the victory of its fighters.

According to the study, ISIS was not satisfied with focusing on the target audience in Arab countries as al-Qaeda did, but it also addressed foreign recipients, especially Europeans, which enabled it to attract a large number of terrorists and sympathizers from European countries after it focused on addressing their subconscious.

The study indicated that the term cyber jihad became widely used after 2011, after terrorist groups intensified their activity rates on the internet.

With the increase in the attack on digital accounts provided by the terrorist organization, cyber attacks against ISIS increased, especially in the period from 2015 to 2018, which ISIS faced with great flexibility, whether in focusing on various social media applications such as Telegram, or publishing materials through many URLs linked to a number of platforms to disguise cyber surveillance and ensure that this material is not deleted.

The study indicated that ISIS exploited its digital media to urge lone wolves who believe in its ideas to carry out terrorist operations in their countries of origin. This was evident in the issue of Al-Ramiya magazine in the summer of 2016, which focused on urging followers of the organization in European countries to carry out single attacks against soft targets, which the magazine described as represented by commuters of public transportation, young people who play in parks, and the elderly.

Europol reports on the social and demographic reality of lone wolf attacks in the European Union indicated that 73% of the perpetrators of these operations were citizens of the country that was subjected to these terrorist attacks, and 14% of those who enjoyed permanent residence in the country in which these operations were carried out. The percentage of refugees among the perpetrators did not exceed 5%, while 6% of those infiltrated illegally into the concerned country.

With this great development of ISIS in exploiting technological means, countries have sought to confront this matter, led by the US Department of Defense, which sought to integrate cyber operations with its traditional military capabilities and strategic planning for military operations, as it formed integrated cyber teams with regional leadership inside and outside the United States, taking advantage of the US Patriot Act issued in 2001 following the events of September 11, 2001.

The aforementioned law was amended to expand the powers of the federal government in the field of combating terrorism, especially in cyber monitoring and interception of communications to facilitate the arrest of terrorists. The law also contained provisions for documenting financial transactions with the aim of combating money laundering and obstructing the financing of terrorist organizations.

The United States has also cooperated with the global coalition against ISIS with the aim of providing a leading force for cyber warfare. According to General Stephen Townsend, the former commander of the global coalition against ISIS, they secretly participated in a series of cyber attacks against ISIS in 2017, under the name of the Joint Task Force Ares. The campaign succeeded in eliminating ISIS’s computer systems and devices in Iraq and forced the organization’s members to leave their heavy commanding positions, which facilitated the process of targeting them.

The administration of former US President Barack Obama also made cybersecurity an essential part of his country’s homeland security priorities, establishing the National Infrastructure Protection Plan, Information Sharing and Analysis Center, and the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office.

The study concluded that the war on ISIS prompted the Pentagon to prepare its forces to start multi-domain operations with the aim of integrating cyber operations along with all other forms of military operations.