How ISIS is radicalizing people today

ISIS has lost thousands of fighters, whether by death or imprisonment, and has also suffered the demise of the caliphate it declared in Iraq and Syria. But the global reach of the group, also known as ISIS, remains vast, in part because of its sophisticated media production and the people who consume it around the world.

On New Year’s Day, a man carrying an ISIS flag killed at least 14 people when he drove his car into a crowd of people in New Orleans. Authorities say there is no evidence that the man, Shams al-Din Bahr Jabbar, had active links to the terrorist group. But the FBI said it was “100 percent inspired by ISIS.”

It is not yet clear what specific content Mr. Jabbar viewed online or how he was radicalized. Experts pointed out that placing the flag on the truck resembles the flag depicted by ISIS in a photo Media campaign He urged his followers to “run them over without mercy.” Authorities said he posted several videos on his Facebook account before his attack, in which he pledged allegiance to ISIS.

From online videos to social media platforms — and even the Islamic State’s weekly newsletter — the group that wants to force all Muslims to strictly adhere to the religion’s oldest teachings has a very modern media strategy.

“Terrorism is basically communications,” said Hans Jakob Schindler, a former UN diplomat and senior director of the Countering Extremism Project, a think tank with offices in New York and Berlin. “It’s not a war, because ISIS clearly can’t defeat the West militarily, right? “They tried and it didn’t end well.”

Terrorist bulletin

How did ISIS maintain its influence? In part, by turning its movement into a global franchise outside the Middle East, with branches active in Afghanistan, Somalia, Mali, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Caucasus and Turkey, among other places.

But the glue that holds the disparate branches together — and also helps inspire “lone wolf” terrorists like Mr. Jabbar who carry out their own attacks — is the Islamic State’s complex media operation. Experts say that while it is doubtful that the media operation has a physical headquarters, it is highly centralized and under the control of its Information Directorate. Much of its production appears to come from its subsidiaries in Africa, which have recently been the most active in terms of attacks.

The group also publishes a weekly online newsletter called “Al-Naba”, or “News”, which contains details of the group’s latest exploits, and implicitly encourages its followers to commit acts of violence.

“The Al-Naba newsletter comes out like clockwork every Thursday, which is one of the most impressive things the group is able to do,” said Cole Bunzel, a researcher on militant Islam in the Middle East at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

“They have an editorial. It covers the different provinces, as they are called; They cover the attacks from that week. They are counting the number of attacks and injuries they claim. This is the main way they stay connected to their global support base.

The latest edition of the newsletter, published on January 2, did not mention the New Orleans attack, and ISIS did not claim responsibility.

The news was initially spread through the messaging app Telegram and other platforms, and is constantly adapting as various channels are shut down, said Aaron Zelin, a fellow at the Washington Institute who has tracked the activities and propaganda of Islamist groups for more than 15 years.

The group’s supporters also posted messages on Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms, according to the researchers. When their user profiles are blocked, they often create new ones. Mr. Zelin said ISIS used decentralized internet tools that are difficult to shut down, and moved some of its messages to the dark web.

Terrorism analysts say it has been easier for extremists to connect with potential supporters on social media because of a lack of effort by some companies that run the platforms and by governments to impose a crackdown.

Mr. Schindler said that in light of the New Orleans attack, both political parties should ask: “Why doesn’t this huge industry with these profits help our security agencies prevent such attacks?” “Why don’t we get information, as we do from banks and every financial institution in North America and around the world, that there is a terrorist here, or information that there is a radicalization process going on?”

Terrorism experts say ISIS’s control over media and message is key to its success. Al-Qaeda, which spun off from ISIS in 2013, laid the groundwork, publishing electronic and print magazines and producing videos as well as social media.

“Kill them where you find them.”

In January 2024, the extremist group revived a campaign directed at its followers around the world: “Kill them wherever you find them“A reference to a verse in the Qur’an.

The idea, which first emerged in 2015, was to encourage potential followers of the organization to commit acts of jihad at home rather than travel to Iraq and Syria. This idea became even more important once the caliphate was defeated.

During the period when ISIS controlled territory in Syria and then Iraq (2013-2017) and was keen to gain followers in the West, it was known for publishing horrific images of violence, such as the beheading of photojournalist James Wright Foley.

Now, experts say the growing challenge is that social media platforms are doing more of the work to spread the Islamic State’s message, as algorithms seeking to boost engagement take some users deeper and deeper into the extremist worldview.

“Terrorist groups don’t have to do so much to radicalize people anymore; “The algorithm does it for them,” Mr. Schindler said. “The goal of the algorithm is to keep the user on the platform, give them what they want, and if it happens to be Islamic extremism or if you are in the process of radicalization, your worldview changes.”

In Syria, where the Islamic State exploited a long civil war to seize a large swath of territory and eventually lost it to US-backed fighters, the organization began to recover, and its attacks accelerated. This trend may continue, because the regime of President Bashar al-Assad was suddenly overthrown in December by another extremist group, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which was once linked to the Islamic State and al-Qaeda.

The situation remains fluid, however Some analysts fear That the Islamic State could regain ground amid the chaos. The group’s newsletter spoke disparagingly of HTS and described “jihadists-turned-politicians,” but did not call for attacks on them.

Meanwhile, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and other rebel groups say they must take on the role of guarding Islamic State prisoners in eastern Syria and managing camps housing some 40,000 Islamic State fighters and their family members — a task they have done for nearly five years. Kurdish-led Syrian Defense Forces, supported by the United States. Many terrorism experts wonder how Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which had links to the Islamic State but later broke away bitterly, could carry out its suppression mission.

ISIS recently renewed its “Break the Walls” media campaign, which encourages imprisoned fighters to escape from prisons in eastern Syria and free their families.

If that works, Zelin said, it would be a “disaster.”