New report: The Global Jihadist Movement: 20 years after 9/11

EICTP has published a new report

Understanding the Global Jihadist Movement: 20 years after 9/11

Ali Fisher & Nico Prucha, Understanding the Global Jihadist Movement: 20 years after 9/11, EICTP Expert Paper.

Full paper can be downloaded here

Report is also available over IPFS:

https://gateway.pinata.cloud/ipfs/Qmc3UosG4VMoK92JT95UZ6HFHXc7sRScqqj631GD3KfhYd

This report is written as part of the Jihadi Ecology Project

Report Summary:

Terrorist groups remain strong despite Western claims that the groups have been defeated.

Understanding the theology important to the Salafi-Jihadi movement is central to Counter Terrorism policy. Specifically, if policy is to weaken terrorist groups such as AQ and IS beyond blunting their combat capability through superior military power.

Understanding the Global Jihadist Movement: 20 years after 9/11 is written by Ali Fisher and Nico Prucha. It is the first in a series of evidence-based research reports to examine the roots of the resilience shown by the Salafi-Jihadi movement in the face of the Western-led War on Terror.

The research finds:

Western claims that global jihadi groups have been defeated have repeatedly proven to be expressions of profound Western optimism rather than evidence-based analysis.

Despite killing thousands of Salafi-Jihadi fighters and numerous Jihadi leaders, the reality on the ground is that the global Salafi-Jihadi movement has demonstrated enduring resilience, expanded its operational capability, and recruited a large and more diverse generation of followers than ever before.

These circumstances are much worse now than before 9/11.

It concludes the Salafi-Jihadi movement is driven by and draws strength from its specific interpretation of theology.

Key Points

Based on in-depth analysis of the material produced by the Salafi-Jihadi movement in their primary language of Arabic, Understanding the Global Jihadist Movement: 20 years after 9/11 demonstrates:

Military force can blunt the operational effectiveness of the Salafi-Jihadi movement. However, the struggle against the movement is one of disrupting the specific ideas or concepts around which the movement coordinates.

Disrupting the Salafi-Jihadi movement must be evidence-based;
- The theological references in the material the movement produces,
- What it is intended to mean to potential supporters,
- How it is likely to be understood by the target audience,

Running parallel with the need to emphasise theology, policy must be nuanced:
- Salafi-Jihadi groups define the majority of Muslims as apostates. The punishment they seek to impose is death.
- Counter Terrorism policy must be applied with appropriate nuance to distinguish the vast majority of Muslims [who Salafi-Jihadi groups threaten to kill for their beliefs], from the individuals perpetrating attacks inspired by the Salafi-Jihadi movement.

These elements are frequently missing from Western approaches to counter the Salafi-Jihadi movement and specifically claims Salafi-Jihad groups such as AQ, IS, Taliban have all been defeated.

The Policy Challenge

To diminish the effectiveness of Salafi-Jihadi groups, Western policy must have a clear view of the purpose, strategy and tactics of the movement drawing on an evidence-based analysis of what the movement communicates with its target audience.

The orthodox and politically convenient view of decline and defeat of Salafi-Jihadi groups is firmly rooted in a branch of Political Science.

Understanding the Global Jihadist Movement: 20 years after 9/11 shows that the views within the current Transatlantic orthodoxy of terrorism studies have frequently reflected:

The Western-centric perspectives of their authors rather than an evidence-based analysis of how Salafi-Jihadi communicate with their target audience.

The systemic devaluation of Arabic sources and ‘whittling away’ the very theological concepts on which the movement is based.

The devaluation of Salafi-Jihadi theology, expressed in Arabic, is justified by researchers claiming they can ‘uncloak’ the real motivations of the Salafi-Jihdi movement by drawing on superficial pet theories such as crime, rap music, gore porn, and offers of kittens, Nutella, and eating ice cream in a so-called ‘Jihadi Utopia’.

Almost none of this research can provide quotes nor meaningful analysis of previous Salafi-Jihadi writing to support these claims. It appears the current transatlantic orthodoxy simple does not require this type of evidence-based work in publications from the ‘experts’ who make up their number.

It should be obvious that kittens, Nutella, rap music, crime and vague Western notions of creating a ‘jihadi utopia’ on earth are insufficient to explain the ability of Salafi-Jihadi groups to continue, in the face of a physical assault by some of world’s most powerful military organisations and repeated killing of their leaders.

The Taliban returned to power after a 20-year war and repeated assertions they were defeated.

Despite claims IS is defeated, the group still employs tactics including Katyusha rockets, RPG, IED, targeted assassinations and regularly destroys military installations across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

Which European country would accept the claim that a group was defeated if these attacks were perpetrated by a domestic terror group, or the attacks happened within their borders? Why should a different standard be applied in Iraq or other parts of the world?

Further Research

Future reports examine in detail the specific theology expressed in the hundreds of thousands of pages of material the movement have produced, and the resilience of the distribution systems they have developed to distribute their material.

Salafi-Jihadi Ecology Project

This report was written as part of the Jihadi Ecology Project

ISIS: Sunset on the ‘decline narrative’

In 2017 the ‘decline narrative’ had become widely accepted by Western researchers focused on the Jihadist movement. In contrast, in November 2017 we predicted that ISIS media would continue to fluctuate in 2018. This was based on an archive of digital and digitized content. The digital Jihadist content which stretches across more than two decades, 300,000 pages of Arabic text, 6,000 videos, hundreds of hours of audio (including 600 hours of ISIS radio programs). The archive of digitized content stretches even further back, given the nature of content of the 1980s, for example, that was later digitalized and is part of what the Sunni extremist movement shares.

During 2017 much was being written about the ‘sharp decline’ of ISIS media and even demise of a physical Caliphate. Our prediction faced opposition from those who were pushing the ‘post-Caliphate’ decline ‘narrative’ and particularly those who seemed to be staking their reputation on the continued decline correlated to territorial loss.

In January 2018 Jade Parker and Charlie Winter announced “a full-fledged collapse” of ISIS media.^[i] Only days later, it became clear January 2018 had also witnessed a 48% month-on-month increase in ISIS content production.^[ii] In addition, rather than a full-fledged collapse, in March 2018 ISIS were still able to drive traffic to their content, with some videos getting over 12,000 views on Twitter.

As we have said before, just because non-Arabic and faux-Arabic speaking researchers cannot find it, does not mean the content does not exist – nor does it mean the target population for the content cannot find it.

It is clear today that rather than moving from media decline to “full-fledged collapse”, ISIS media continued to fluctuate as we predicted. This more complex representation relies on differentiating decline and degradation from a period of reconfiguration – as we have been saying since 2014.

This post shows that the Jihadist movement is much more complex than those pushing the ‘decline narrative’ suggest. It shows why counting the number of videos has little bearing on the amount being communicated – which after all is the purpose of producing the videos.

Recognising the limits of the contemporary ‘metrification’ approaches, along with the cherry-picking of timepoints and the overemphasis of pictures on which the decline narrative relies, we focused on in-depth analysis of strategy, Arabic documents, audio and video to produce an authentic representation of the movement.

So, how did we know?

Based on a genuine collaboration between subject matter expertise and data analysis, we uncovered the answer as a combination of two factors;

The jihadist movement operates on a much longer timeline than appreciated by pundits looking to produce tweet-ready metrics.
While many western commentators were pushing the ‘decline’ narrative, based on the over-representation of pictures, video production which had been low over the summer had already begun to increase again during the autumn.

These elements and in-depth analysis of the movement allowed us to make the prediction before the event, in contrast to the many ad-hoc descriptive responses after the event.

How did we do it?

After building an archive of over 300,000 pages of Arabic text, and 6,000 videos, and hundreds of hours of audio produced since the 1990s, it was clear that long form matters to the core of the Jihadist movement. And this does not even touch on the wealth of magazines created in the 1980s by Sunni extremist groups.

In the thousands of pages of Arabic text, strategy was clearly articulated for those able to read Arabic and willing to invest the time to understand the references, context and encoded meaning. Getting past what Nico Prucha refers to as the “Initiation firewall”, means you need to have read and consumed the content in Arabic to understand the depth of theology which is used as coded communication. Yet, in most research not even transliterated Arabic keywords that matter for the Sunni extremist movement and are used as codes in English-language publications matter and are properly analysed.

Content, especially Arabic language content, is fundamental to the movement, yet the lingual & theological expertise to understand it is almost constantly neglected and lacking in research. This blind spot allows the jihadist movement to reorganize and recuperate out of view of contemporary research and commentary. This allows the movement to develop strategy and tactics by leveraging a wealth of material shared online – and re-organize and develop new outreach strategy. These online spaces provide a safe-haven of coherent theological framework and invites individuals – based on their individual degree of initiation – into more and more clandestine networks, involving layers of online vetting processes.

These clandestine networks are protected by:

Arabic language required to access clandestine networks, the ongoing paucity of these language skills amongst researchers is appalling (lingual firewall),
Knowledge of the coherent use of coded religious language and keywords, which few researchers can demonstrate in their writing (initiation firewall),
With the migration to Telegram, ISIS succeeded in shifting and re-adapting their modus operandi of in-group discussions & designated curated content intended for the public (as part of da’wa).

Passing these firewalls provided access to what ISIS – and the Jihadist movement more broadly – are trying to achieve. [Spoiler alert] What they seek has nothing to do with ‘Utopia’.

Unfortunately, a rigorous understanding of Arabic and deep appreciation for the theological references that Jihadists use simply do not seem to matter to commentators who have become pre-occupied with the few English items and pictures that they have found (though even these are not necessarily understood).

Using the strategic approach adopted by ISIS, and the Jihadist movement, as a point of departure, we examined the amount of video being produced since ISI transitioned to ISIS.

Using the longer timeline and rolling mean of the number of videos produced, it is easy to see that the most likely outcome would be that ISIS media would continue to fluctuate rather than follow the linear ‘direction’ of decline.

Two points provide an important book-ends that further disrupt the decline narrative. First, the highest peak falls before the much talked-up ‘high-point’ in content production. Second, the next highest period of video production fell at the end of 2016 and is much higher than the rest of 2016, exceeding almost the entire history of ISIS video production. This repeats the finding of earlier research which also highlighted the fluctuation in content.

Just as magazine production going back to the 1980s and 1990s fluctuated, so all forms of media production fluctuates.

Equally, as the end of 2017 approached and many western commentators were pushing the ‘decline’ narrative, video production which had been low over the summer had already begun to increase again.

These findings are in sharp contrast to the massive overemphasis on pictures and tweet-ready metrics, by western researchers.

[Another spoiler alert] those who are able and inclined to read the Arabic magazines of the 1980s and 1990s will recognise all the theological themes, articles on mujahidat, defining wilaya etc. currently being passed off as new or unprecedented by Western commentary about ISIS.

Not all content is created equal.

We have written before about the methodological flaw that results from counting pictures, video, newspaper all equally in the attempt to produce a linear metric. To examine the differences in content we looked at the length of videos measured in minutes.

Three hugely important points emerge. First, the direction of the trendline, second that measured in minutes video production peaked at the end of 2016, and third, the volume of video during late 2017 and early 2018 was higher than it had been earlier in the year.

If you take a view of ISIS from 2013 to present the trend in production is up, not sharp decline.

While picture-centric counting was hailed as showing ‘total collapse’ – the longer, more complex, and arguably much more resource intensive / important videos, were not following that pattern.

Video production in minutes during the second half of 2017 was not in decline but had been increasing. This allowed us to predict that overall production would continue to fluctuate in the face of howls of protest and decliners insisting we were ‘wrong on direction’.

Five months into 2018, the band of committed decliners has thinned significantly. Some are now even trying to sweep under the carpet the earlier claims of collapse, single downward direction, linear / steady decline, or a strong correlation with territory.

Furthermore, the assumed correlation with territory is problematic as the publications from the pre-ISIS era highlights. AQ derived great value from curated videos and writings that spanned from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen etc. where little to no territory was held at the time.

Authenticity

We covered before why basing analysis on a cherry picked high point produces a nice narrative, but not an authentic result.

Contrasting the number of videos produced with the average length of production we find further startling results. The high point of video production comes at one of the lowest points for average length. This means that the high point was produced because ISIS published a higher number of shorter videos. While at other points, such as now, they produced fewer longer videos.

This highlights that counting the number of videos has little bearing on the amount being communicated – which after all is the purpose of producing the videos. Here we see one of the flaws in drawing conclusions from counting the amount of content produced. Producing one long video does not communicate half as much as two short videos so cannot support conclusions of ‘decline’ and collapse. Equally worth noting, the linear trend lines both show a rising trend rather than a decline in number and average length over the entire period.[iii]

Metrification:

Tweet-ready punditry has led commentary to focus on finding and tracking a magic metric rather than developing an authentic understanding of the movement (a trend policy has, to an extent, followed). However, there can be no doubt now that magic metrics pushing decline and full-fledged collapse have failed to provide an authentic representation of the movement.

These metrics have been used to justify pronouncements of decline and ‘total collapse’ in ISIS media and claims production is strongly correlated with territory – which, while headline grabbing, have failed to hold up to scrutiny in 2018, just as the passage of time has shown previous claims of decline and degradation to be more wishful thinking than evidence based conclusions.

Three elements, previously highlighted by Richard Jackson, are particularly prescient when reflecting on the recent metrification of research into the Jihadist movement.

Specifically, the tendency toward:

treating the current problem as unprecedented and exceptional
descriptive over-generalisation,
problem solving approaches that risk reducing research to ‘an uncritical mouthpiece of state interests’

Unprecedented and exceptional

Richard Jackson observed that there has been a “persistent tendency to treat the current terrorist threat as unprecedented and exceptional”.^[iv] Representing the current threat as unprecedented and exceptional in nature, is a helpful tool if one were to want to start analysis at a preferred point – rather than account for what came before – or account for any relationship between previous iterations of the movement and the contemporary situation. This is important not least because ISIS draw extensively on content and experiences from previous iterations of the movement.

There have been a rash of studies over recent years focusing on ‘official’ social media accounts or what is often termed ISIS ‘official’ media. They use data which starts in 2014 (or strangely 2015) and occasionally – the totally bizarre approach of drawing conclusions using only a single time point before 2017. This approach enables a simple metrification – but undermines authenticity by separating the analysis of the movement from its historical roots. The cherry picking of time points allows everything to be boiled down to a magic number without reference to what came before thereby providing a policy friendly ‘narrative’.

However, the Media Mujahidin did not appear one day out of nowhere. It evolved over two decades of online activity – tied into the jihadist tradition of producing media since the 1980s during the jihad against the Red Army in Afghanistan.

A previous post demonstrated that once we get away from the narrow discussion of ‘core’ nashir channels we can escape the over-generalisation based on a tiny sample of channels. Taking a wider perspective shows that rather than being a few disconnected channels, the network structure allows Jihadist groups to maintain their resilience and distribute the full range of content. Jihadists groups have been observed using these structures since 2013, and building on these observations, it is clear that this current iteration, like the movement in general, is neither unprecedented nor exceptional.

Descriptive over-generalisation

Reviewing the articles published since 9/11, Richard Jackson observed “the vast majority of this literature can be criticised for its orientalist outlook, its political biases and its descriptive over-generalisations, misconceptions and lack of empirically grounded knowledge”.[v]

Over the years, metrification and over-generalisation have resulted in numerous claims of degradation and decline, culminating in recent pronouncements of ‘total collapse’. In time, all these claims have been shown to be misplaced. This is because, as noted in 2014, “the nature of the mobile-enabled swarmcast means it can appear to be degraded, but it has really only reconfigured”.

The level of over-generalisation from a few limited observations and ongoing metrification have been key parts of the decline ‘narrative’. Unfortunately, it risks peering down a soda straw at a large-scale complex problem , to borrow an analogy from Kill Chain. For example, the VOX-Pol study Disrupting Daesh concluded “IS’s ability to facilitate and maintain strong and influential communities on Twitter was found to be significantly diminished” and that “pro-IS accounts are being significantly disrupted and this has effectively eliminated IS’s once vibrant Twitter community”.[vi]

These findings are an overgeneralisation, just like previous claims, based on extrapolating from the soda straw perspective of researcher’s inability to find twitter accounts. The evidence from beyond the soda straw shows ISIS continued to drive traffic to their content. Twitter represented 40% of known referrals to ISIS content during the time period of the VOX-Pol study.^[vii] If ISIS had been significantly disrupted – where was the traffic coming from?

This type of over-generalisation has been key to the decline narrative. In another example, Peter Neuman claimed:

Instead of populating mainstream social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, Islamic State supporters have been pushed into the darker corners of the internet, especially the private messaging app Telegram, where reaching out to new supporters is more difficult.

Directly contradicting that claim, in addition to the 12,000 views on a video in March, shown earlier, a sample from consecutive days in May 2018 shows ISIS videos still being watched thousands of times on Twitter – 7,351 views, 9,192 views and 8,699 views on 12^th, 13^th and 14^th May respectively. A clear indication that outreach is ongoing via Ghazwa, as core members access content via Telegram. The success of this uninterrupted outreach process adds to the coherency that ISIS texts and videos offer to their target audiences.

Risks of being an uncritical mouthpiece

A third observation central to the development of Critical Terrorism Studies equally highlights the limitation of an approach based on problem-solving metrification;

“It is fair to say that the vast majority of terrorism research attempts to provide policy-makers with useful advice for controlling and eradicating terrorism as a threat to Western interests”. This problem-solving approach can “be a real problem when it distorts research priorities, co-opts the field and turns scholars into ‘an uncritical mouthpiece of state interests’”.^[viii]

The narrative of ISIS in decline, in addition to undermining what they claim as a “utopian picture of life under Daesh rule”, or what Rex Tillerson referred to as the “false utopian vision”, have been parts of the strategy adopted by the Global Coalition against Daesh.

That the decline ‘narrative’ has been pushed so hard by some commentators insisting on their being a ‘direction’ – there has been a growing risk of some becoming uncritical mouthpieces.[ix] For example, the idea of ISIS seeking to project a utopian vision is uncritically accepted by many Western commentators. This subsequently distorts the interpretation of ISIS media. For Jihadist groups Utopia is not a concept to which they aspire. This is due to the theology which draws a clear distinction between the worldly concerns or the temporal world (dunya) and paradise (janna). Even so, academic references connecting ISIS to Utopia proliferate, without reference to original jihadist content that discuss ‘Utopia’ as a goal for their activity.

More troubling than the lack of critical thinking about the core concepts of the jihadist movement are the whispers of researchers working with / for Coalition members and their contractors one day, and the next day representing themselves as independent journalists writing about ISIS decline or Coalition success.

Clear disclosures of potential conflicts of interest between journalism, research, and Government interests are fundamental parts of producing credible academic findings.

If these whispers are confirmed, it would realise one of the objectives outlined by Jihadists including Abu Mus’ab as-Suri, to show Western society contradicting the values to which they claim to adhere. It would be a completely ridiculous and entirely avoidable own goal.

It would also be a breach of journalistic ethics akin to Sean Hannity’s less than full disclosure and represent one of the most profound breaches of trust in the publication of research since the CIA was found to be covertly channelling money to Encounter Magazine and the Congress for Cultural Freedom.

Conclusion

Problem-solving punditry, metrification, and the ‘decline narrative’ have become widely accepted by Western researchers focused on the Jihadist movement. However, as this post has shown the Jihadist movement is much more complex than those pushing the ‘decline narrative’ suggest.

Recognising the limits of metrification, the cherry picking of time points and decliner emphasis on pictures rather than in-depth analysis of documents and video, will allow researchers to produce a more authentic understanding of the movement than is possible from simple linear metrics.

As Rüdiger Lohlker wrote in September 2016,

“without deconstructing the theology of violence inherent in jihadi communications and practice, these religious ideas will continue to inspire others to act, long after any given organized force, such as the Islamic State, may be destroyed on the ground;”[x]

ISIS has the upper hand by inhabiting places that are blind spots for outsiders. They use these blind spots to their advantage. Rather than collapse, ISIS continue to produce coherent content in Arabic – content of which hardly seems to matter to most policy makers and researchers. They build resilient, regenerative online networks – that are now completely in the dark for outsiders. They have battle-hardened fighters on the ground, and the intellectual capital— “their weapon designs, the engineering challenges they’ve solved, their industrial processes, blueprints, and schematics” – from what Damien Spleeters calls “the industrial revolution of terrorism“.

With the commitment, knowledge and ongoing access to resilient networks, ISIS continue to publish new content (videos, articles, newspapers, radio programs etc.) from locations across MENA and ‘East Asia’.

Notes

[i] https://www.lawfareblog.com/virtual-caliphate-rebooted-islamic-states-evolving-online-strategy

[ii] Analysis: IS media show signs of recovery after sharp decline, BBC Monitoring, (23^rd February 2018)

https://monitoring.bbc.co.uk/product/c1dov471#top

[iii] Worth note here, the R²values are very low – suggesting polynomial or a longer window rolling mean might give better representations, but as we are discussing linear metrics we show it here.

[iv] Richard Jackson, The Study of Terrorism after 11 September 2001: Problems, Challenges and Future Developments, Political Studies Review, 7, 2, (171-184), (2009)

[v] Jackson, Richard. “The Study of Terrorism 10 Years after 9/11: Successes, Issues, Challenges.” Uluslararası İlişkiler 8.32 (2012): 1-16.

Jackson, R. ‘Constructing Enemies: “Islamic Terrorism” in Political and Academic Discourse’, Government and Opposition, 42, 394–426 (2007)

[vi] Conway, Maura, et al. “Disrupting Daesh: measuring takedown of online terrorist material and it’s impacts.” (2017): 1-45. http://doras.dcu.ie/21961/1/Disrupting_DAESH_FINAL_WEB_VERSION.pdf

[vii] Frampton, Martyn, Ali Fisher, and Dr Nico Prucha. “The New Netwar: Countering Extremism Online (London: Policy Exchange, 2017

[viii] Jackson, Richard, “The Study of Terrorism 10 Years After 9/11: Successes, Issues, Challenges”, Uluslararası İlişkiler, Volume 8, No 32 (Winter 2012), p. 1-16 quoting, Ranstorp, “Mapping Terrorism Studies after 9/11”, p.25

[ix] Here ‘uncritical’ refers to critical thought, rather than being negative.

[x] Rüdiger Lohlker, Why Theology Matters – The Case of ISIS, Strategic Review July –September 2016, http://sr-indonesia.com/in-the-journal/view/europe-s-misunderstanding-of-islam-and-isis

Part 6: Substituting the Jihadist Twittersphere for Islamic State Telegrams

Telegram offers privacy and encryption, allowing users to interact using their mobile devices (tablets and smart-phones) as well as laptop and desktop computers. It offers as a secure environment where sharing content is very easy. This includes the option to download large files directly via the Telegram application instead of having to open an external link in a browser to access the new videos and word documents. According to Telegram, the application is a cloud-based instant messaging service, providing optional end-to-end-encrypted messaging. It is free and open, having an “open API and protocol free for everyone,”[1] while having no limits on how much data individual users can share.

Media savvy IS members and sympathizers then took to Telegram where in the meantime, via hundreds of channels, often more than 50,000 Telegram messages are pushed out each week.

Telegram is being used to share content produced by ‘official’ IS channels. As had been the case on Twitter – and as is the nature of online jihad on social media sites – such content is enriched and enhanced by media supporters from within ISIS held territory as well as sympathizers worldwide. The output is mainly in Arabic whereas dedicated linguist and translation departments ensure a global audience is reached. Telegram is being used as a formal communication channel by a range of content aggregators within the movement, rolling out the official IS videos from the various provinces to word and PDF documents released by a rich blend of media agencies, such as al-Battar, al-Wafa’, Ashhad, al-Hayyat and many more.

A media group by the name Horizon (Mu’assassat Afaaq) established itself as a new IS media wing to provide sympathizers advice and tutorials on online security and encryption. This is a current trend and highlights that user security on mobile devices, encryption and general awareness is raising. This chatter on Telegram, arguably, also led ‘classic’ IS media newspapers to pick up this trend and put an emphasis on the “electronic war”, enemy capabilities and operational security advice for IS members and sympathizers.[2]

Sunni Jihadists and in particular IS have a passion to publish and disseminate pictures, conveying coded notions, sentiments and passions. The “Gazwa” channel on Telegram sees itself in the tradition of the classical horseback riding ‘hit-and-run’ warrior, independent of a fixed base or camp.

Following the classical understanding of conducting raids in the desert – as visualized in the execution video addressed earlier, the jihadists on Telegram perceive themselves as a coordination point for raids (ghazawat). These ghazawat are orchestrated on Telegram and then pushed into other social media platforms. Telegram is central to the supply of text for Tweets, disseminating new hashtags, the timing of such raids, and the flooding of comments on Facebook pages and so on. IS media operatives and sympathizers miss Twitter and even from IS official media outlets a return has been demanded – fearing that da’wa on Telegram just being among like-minded people will not work, as outlined in a future part.[3]

Hence, Arabic transcribed keywords in Latin such as “ghazwa” play a major role, and help to identify content quickly and sign up for new jihadist related channels on Telegram and elsewhere. As visualized above – taken from the IS channel Ghazwa on Telegram, the transliteration can vary especially after channels are being suspended.

During the attacks in March 2016 in Brussels, IS media operatives on Telegram prepared French language Tweets with hashtags used at the time of the attack to maximize the reach of pro-IS Tweets. Likewise, other social media platforms are affected by such “social media raids.” By the time such accounts are deleted on Twitter and elsewhere, IS has a new event-driven operation backed by social media raids. As had been the case on Twitter, Telegram is now the main hub for IS to share content reposting from Twitter, other social media such as YouTube, vimeo, DailyMotion, SendVid and Facebook, as well as websites containing IS propaganda, including those hosted on wordpress.com.

The multi-lingual strategic outreach and communication approach is clear: targeting non-Arabic speaking potential recruits in the West remains a high priority of IS while maintaining and ensuring the steady uninterrupted production and dissemination of Arabic content (targeting Arab native speakers worldwide).

Multi-dimension outreach strategy: orchestrating an influence operation during the March 2016 Brussels attack, calling for a “Twitter Campaign”. French-language pro-IS tweets to be copy-and-pasted onto Twitter accounts that will be abandoned shortly after, using respective French mainstream hashtags to inject pro-IS messages into general networks. This method is also used to ensure content moves from Telegram where it is only visible to channel members onto open platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, or blogs such as WordPress.

[1] www.telegram.org

[2] Ali Fisher, Swarmcast: How Jihadist Networks Maintain a Persistent Online Presence, Perspectives on Terrorism, 2015, http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/426/html

[3] Al-Naba’ Magazina no. 54.

Somalia’s Shabab claim disrupting BBC

Harakat al-shabab al-mujahideen, the Somali AQ outlet, just claimed to have disrupted a BBC broadcasting signal in Somalia.

On 9 April 2010 the group was able, with its media outlet al-Kata’ib, to prevent a BBC broadcasting station to take up business. The station would have covered (“with all its equipment and signals”) five regions in “the Islamic provinces: Juba, Shbili al-Salafi, Shbili al-Wasati, Banadir (Mogadishu), Bay and Bakul.”

What follows is the usual ranting on how “crusader forces are endangering Islamic principles and moral values”, also implying that besides trying to persuade the pious Somalis away from the jihadist understanding of Islam by broadcasting crusader propaganda and media. Thus the seizure or destruction (not clear in the statement) of the station was undertaken to protect the Muslims. Some gear was stolen by the Harakat and will be used for future broadcasting/online means and the station, as well as the equipment has been ‘documented’ by Harakat as proof of their actions.

Some of the pictures of the statement, note the inflationary use of the stamp “al-Kata’ib”:

Also, have a look on the BBC site: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8617627.stm

Another “Technical Research and Studies Center” (TRSC) of Jihadism

In the meantime the IT-fluency of AQ & co. has made the round, just as much as AQ’s members and sympathizers who from time to time issue new documents of various technical contents. Most of these documents are quite well and the foundation, the jihadists technical mother of all documents, is the Encyclopedia of the 1980s Jihad that you could consider as being frequently updated and extended. Hence the “TSRC”, which is only explained in Arabic.

The document issued says it all about walki-talkis that have been around every since someone invaded Afghanistan, so it seems.

The detailed technical explanations are in some parts concluded by comprehensive technical pictures or examples from the field. This example here shows UBL in one of his famous and widely spread pictures in the jihadists forums and videos.

Jihadist Forums praise of Ft. Hood Shooter

The statement, by the Ansar multi-language forum, was issued with a corresponding and animated GIF banner. Hassan is praised and portrayed as a brother and a fellow mujahid who undertook a logical and natural reaction as a Muslim in the US Army. As usual this action is displayed as a fulfillment of AQ’s ideological and the implicated alleged religious concepts that go along with it.

Here are some points from the original statement:

—Begin of excerpt—

The actions of Nidal Malik Hasan were not contrary to the religion of Islam, rather they are encouraged by it, for no covenant exists between Muslims in the U.S. and the U.S. government and army. If there was initially some covenant, that covenant is now void due to the various crimes the United States has committed to break it, from them engaging in war with the Muslims, imprisoning Muslims, and by the rape and abuse of Muslim men and women to name a few.
If one does hold the opinion that the covenant stands, they in no way are to condemn Nidal Malik Hasan or his actions, as there are legitimate scholars and opinions which state otherwise. Rather, all Muslims are to regard him as a brother and Mujahid who risked his life in avenging the weak and oppressed Muslims around the world, who based his actions on valid and legitimate texts and opinions of scholars. Even if he had not based his actions on valid opinions and indeed was mistaken, the most which would be said that he made a mistake, and that the sin of the infidels was much worse than his mistake, as Allah said in the Qur’an:

﴿يَسْأَلُونَكَ عَنِ الشَّهْرِ الْحَرَامِ قِتَالٍ فِيهِ قُلْ قِتَالٌ فِيهِ كَبِيرٌ وَصَدٌّ عَن سَبِيلِ اللّهِ وَكُفْرٌ بِهِ وَالْمَسْجِدِ الْحَرَامِ وَإِخْرَاجُ أَهْلِهِ مِنْهُ أَكْبَرُ عِندَ اللّهِ وَالْفِتْنَةُ أَكْبَرُ مِنَ الْقَتل﴾

They ask you concerning fighting in the Sacred Months. Say, “Fighting therein is a great (transgression) but a greater (transgression) with Allah is to prevent humankind from following the Way of Allah, to disbelieve in Him, to prevent access to the Sacred Mosque, and to drive out its inhabitants, and fitnah is worse than killing…” (‘Al-Baqarah: 217)

This was revealed in regards to a group of Muslims who killed some polytheists of Makkah during the sacred months in which fighting was forbidden. Al-Qurtubi said:

Mujahid and others said that the word fitnah here means disbelief, meaning, “your disbelief is worse than our killing them.” The majority said, “The meaning of fitnah here is putting Muslims through trials which may turn them away from Islam and be destroyed,” and that this is a greater crime than their killing in the forbidden months.

If one reads and ponders over the event mentioned, they will find many benefits indeed.

We warn all Muslims, both individuals and organizations, to fear Allah in the views they hold and statements they make in regards to the validity of Nidal’s actions, the character of our brother, and the correct Islamic views in relation to matters of this sort. They must be very careful that they do not knowingly or unknowingly fall into disbelief and apostasy.

In conclusion, we again congratulate all Muslims, especially those in the United States, and especially our heroic brother Nidal Malik Hasan, for indeed he has raised our heads and made us proud. He realized the truth about the “war on terror”, and waged his own war on terror. When he realized the sin of being in the army, and when he came to know he may be sent overseas to fight Muslims, he instead chose to fight those who truly deserved to be fought. He risked his life to show that the Muslim Ummah is one Ummah indeed, and that Muslims must target their enemies wherever they may be, even in their own lands. We hope other “Muslims” in the US army repent from their apostasy and take him as a role model, instilling fear in the enemies of Allah and taking them by surprise wherever they may be.

–end of the excerpt—

What may follow (again, these promises) is a short article in the near future exploiting the specific concepts as indicated above.

Transcript of the one and only az-Zarqawi video

The Jihad Media Brigade, which is part of the as-Sahab Media Foundation, has posted the full transcript of the Zarqawi video. This video is the only one that had been published with Zarqawi taking part as bin Laden or Zawahiri regularly do/have done. Of course, bin Laden is not missing, a still is being shown while his speech is to be heard (all in the english transcript as well). Zarqawi’s voice sounds strange – the whole video is a reenacting of his mentors bin Laden and Zawahiri. Sitting in front of the camera, trying to be as serious and profound, he is obviously reading his speech and seems quite insecure about the setting. He is not always clear to understand as his squeky and excited voice goes on informing the viewer about the greatness of the mujahidin. He does close his eyes remarkably often and seems quite insecure about being infront of the camera – but that’s exactly what the terrorists of these days must do, right?

Unfortunately I cannot provide you with a link to his video, which was aired 25.04.2006, but a link to the transcript provided by the Jihad Media Brigade is to be found below. The Jihad Media Brigade come now and then into action, one of their videos was called U.S.A. They are coming, which was released shortly after the Iraq war and showed clips from training and fighting mujahidin from around the world.

Osama bin Laden appears as a still which a speech – to make the abaya (oath) of Zarqawi clear, after some diputes aroused.

The former hustler he is supposed to have been seems quite nervous infront of the camera – trying to reenact OBL and Zawahiri.

Off to the shooting range – a missile is being fired (which have improved since last then).

This what makes the word shura: a council, or if you like, a meeting of choosen leaders, setting new attacks. A laptop is not missing, it is positioned left on the map – for the better planning – probably with google earth on it back then…

Please note: Translating Terror – Work in Progress; notes on the jihadi translation will be released soon, if I find the time, I will go through the transcript, as there are many errors and some wanted one’s: for our western eyes and ears.

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