The Video of Anis Amri, the Berlin Christmas market attacker

Nico Prucha December 23, 2016

Via Telegram channels operated by IS, the Amaq Agency released a brief video featuring Anis Amri (his name is in Arabic Anis ‘Amari) pledging allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and vowing for more revenge operations. The video is entitled “testimony of the soldier of the Islamic State who undertook the attacks in Berlin and Milano”, dated to December 23, 2016.
He appears to be standing on pedestrian bridge in Berlin where he filmed himself using is cell phone and headphones. The somewhat three minute long video is a brief but firm statement that he has submitted himself under the authority of IS and the application of sharia rule by the “state”, presented often by sympathizers and propagandists as “proof” of the IS’ theological coherence and sincerity.
Amri cites several theological references justifying revenge for the suffering imposed on Muslims, pledging that we shall drink from the same cup of pain, a popular reference within jihadist writings, statements and videos, while calling on Muslims worldwide to respond to actions, to strike everywhere especially in Europe. “Jihad against the enemies of God” is a divine obligation. He ends the video in a sermon styled supplication.

The “Islamic State’s” Networks of Influence

Nico Prucha October 26, 2015

The media strategy of the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (IS) is effective and successful. The professional use of social media to project a coherent worldview has enabled IS to be both resilient to account takedowns on social media platform and attempts to deploy “counter-narratives” (or: “alternative narratives”) against the group. IS publishes videos on an almost daily basis: from gruesome execution videos the group is notorious for to movies showing the “statehood” and reconstruction of infrastructure, IS deploys a rich blend of narratives that are conveyed in pictures and related to a corpus of writings of thirty years of jihadism. By establishing a “state” (Arabic: dawla) and by rendering the borders between Syria and Iraq as irrelevant, IS has realized what AQ has pledged for decades: to erode the borders of Sykes-Picot and establish a “state” on the very theological grounds of extremist interpretation.

IS embodies the “new AQ”, applying AQ ideology within territories in the Sunni-Arabic heartlands of Syria, Iraq, and to a varying decree in Libya, Sinai Peninsula, Yemen etc. Hence, the majority of foreign fighters among the rows of IS are Arabs and the overwhelming majority of IS videos are in Arabic, addressing and targeting a likewise rich and disperse Arab(ic) target audience.

By projecting a physical “Islamic State”, IS embodies a positive worldview, provides a clear cut videotaped “Sunni Muslim identity” and uses Arab and non-Arab foreign fighters for their media productions to boost the image of this “state”.

Fighting for Hegemony: Claiming Sunni-Muslim identity and “Prophetic Methodology”

This is a fight for hegemony and identity: what does it mean, being a Sunni Muslim in times of war and sectarianism? To answer these questions, the “Islamic State” has taken the lead in producing mainly Arabic language videos to incite a global Arab audience by popularizing their fighters, ideologues and preachers as ultimate role models, modern day Islamic warriors, or simply as defenders of Sunni communities in time of suffering. IS is a Arab movement fighting for independence, yet welcoming non-Arab Muslim foreign fighters into their ranks who are used strategically and on a tactical level for jihadist media, the battlefield or the hinterland where they can be of value to the state-building efforts. Non-Arab foreign fighters tend to address their target audience in their respective language, and oftentimes are featured in special videos with Arabic and non-Arabic titles. This accounts for Brits, Germans, Austrians, French, Russians, and so on, while the overwhelming majority of IS and AQ videos are in Arabic featuring native Arabs.

With the influx of foreign fighters among the ranks of The Islamic State from the European Union and the United States, the use of social media has reached an unprecedented dimension – with an immense input from both Arab and non-Arab foreign fighters in various languages on respective social media sites. These foreign fighters have the potential to have particular resonance for Islamic communities in their respective countries of origin, as the grievances and framing of “injustice” can vary depending on the local context, while the ideology is tied into the Arabic religious reasoning as expressed by writings and most important as conveyed by audio-visual means. With Arabic as the most important language for Islam, as the Qur’an is the speech of God (kalimat allah), revealed in Arabic, the lingua jihadica is likewise Arabic. Arabic key words of the jihadist segment, as a consequence, have become a mainstream substrate in many non-Arabic languages where Islam has found a home, providing non-Arabic speaking sympathizers of jihad an everyday slang to identify with and to use for their religious rituals and codes of identification. This is of importance when studying Arabic jihadist materials, perhaps even more so important in regards of the social media jihad, as the questions and answers provided within this framework for operational or plainly ideological purposes produce new key words for the jihadist lingual substrate worldwide.

Sympathizers and media operatives use key words strategically alike with the aim to widen the appeal of the jihadist ideology, while assuming a monopoly over the mainly Qur’anic terminology in by extremist definitions. Deriving from the original Arabic, the key words are transcribed in Latin letters and are the most integral part of any non-Arabic language production. The use of these key words is significant to grade and understand what impact the Arabic dominated ideology has on non-Arab majority societies, expressed both on- and offline, whereas non-Arab foreign fighters project influence and the extremist hegemony of what it means being a ‘true’ Sunni Muslim by injecting such keywords into their target audiences. The interaction of social media platforms calls on the sympathizers to engage with such videos and role models, hence popularizing specific key words and having a potential impact on the local non-Arab milieus within non-majority Islamic societies such as in Europe and beyond.

Videos are the most important medium through which to demonstrate the manifestation and realization of jihadist creed (‘aqida) and methodology (manhaj), for which IS claims to fight, as described in an earlier post. Re-enacting the extremist understanding of the conduct of Prophet Muhammad and hence claiming being “upon the Prophetic Methodology” as one of the most important video by the same title clarifies.

The Media Works of IS

IS occupied swathes of territory in the Sunni-Arab heartlands of Syria and Iraq in June 2014. In a blitzkrieg style, the “Islamic State” was able to take over major cities and declared a “caliphate”.

The valorization of achievements is expressed in a young and highly visualized language. When the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, prior to the declaration of the “Caliphate” in a surprise move was able to gain a momentum and take control of vast parts of Iraq, including the urban hubs of Mosul, Tikrit and Samara’, the jihadist self-esteem was boosted in their conviction of being the chosen few to act on behalf of God and the prophetic conduct. This found its expression in a most modern format on Twitter by sympathizers. By taking Hollywood movies, sympathizers frame and reframe their perception of what is happening on the ground. Pro-IS Twitter users part of a cluster network of English language supporters were quick to remodel movie posters of the film “300” to visualize the victorious “800” mujahidin of the “Islamic State”, citing the Guardian as a source.

The fans and sympathizers, not only create their own fan-content, or user-generated content, but understand and know the movies and codes popular within the specific circles – crafting a connection between hard-core mujahidin and popular global culture, dominated by Western elements and movies in particular. This mechanism of relaying the on- and offline worlds is perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the modern usage of the Internet by jihadist activists to develop a deep-rooted movement in the Middle East and North Africa region. Simultaneously, within the “state”, within consolidated “provinces” of IS the Internet is the main hook to connect to the outside world to call on Muslims everywhere to – at least – support and – at best – join this project. The logical consequence, perhaps, with IS making gains in Iraq and declaring an Islamic caliphate, media activists embedded along the front lines and their global support networks, the media mujahedin, valorize their achievements in HD video and Hollywood film style posters which are distributed via social media. The public diplomacy and cultural relations organizations mandated to counter violent extremism require strategies based on network concepts to counter it.

Jihadi subculture online is characterized by a culture of individual participation whereas user-generated-content enriches the propaganda by IS. This user-created-content should not be underestimated or underrated. While some favor gory videos or movies from the frontlines, others are more attracted to the “civil side” of “the state”, whereas IS presents itself as a functioning state providing the population with energy, water, the reopening of grocery stores, or by showing a fire department brigade in Raqqa. This is a niche hardly covered by other players in Iraq or Syria allowing IS to claim sole responsibility for the (Sunni) civilian population and fosters the image of the soft side of the terror group as a savior handing out aid for their brothers and sisters in need.

Perimeter control: Resilience of IS networks and a coherent ideology as a mental safeguard

IS is a revolutionary group that deploys a highly professionally and ideologically coherent media strategy. It systematically makes use of the Internet like no other terror or interest group to market their messages and narratives to a global audience in multiple languages. Time and again, IS has proven to be skillful to adapt, respond and to reconfigure. The first year anniversary of the coalition airstrikes against the group, that had been launched to retaliate the filmed execution of U.S. citizen James Foley and others was mocked by the group in videos showing members of al-Hisba, the “Islamic State’s” police, patrol the market of Aleppo and address the audience of the futility of the war against IS. Responding to the refugee crises, IS not only claimed the drowning of three-year-old Syrian Alan Kurdi as God’s punishment for wanting to leave the “Islamic abode” in the English language magazine Dabiq. In several Arabic language videos, IS dignitaries decreed any Sunni Muslim turning away to Europe and elsewhere as a legitimate target for the group. These statements were enriched by accounts of local Syrians and Iraqis expressing their gratitude to be finally able to live out the true Islamic identity and have protection. These films are usually in Arabic featuring local Arabs – reaching out directly to a target Arab audience in neighboring countries, within refugee camps worldwide and within societies outside of MENA region. Such messages are part of the rich blend of videos released on an almost daily basis. These videos, to share the links to watch or download, are talked about on social media where users across a wide range of languages respond and engage personally to foster the “Islamic State” as the only legitimate source and physical representation of “Islam”.

In this regard, Twitter is the most important platform for IS. Despite the tireless takedowns of IS accounts by Twitter, the extremists are disseminating their material more decentralized, relying on mainly Arabic language hash tags and have given up to re-establish “official” IS media Twitter accounts.

This adaption of their marketing strategy is successful. Accounts are replaceable, the consistent use of specific hashtags (#) on Twitter ensures an undisrupted flow of content and information that seek to indoctrinate and initiate the consumers into jihadist ideology. The Arabic hashtags used are not limited to the “Islamic State” or “IS will remain and expand”, an early slogan crafted in the critical phase of the first half of 2014, as crafty supporters also use current trends, such as world sport events or global news items (even Apple key notes) in an attempt to reach a most diverse audience.

Like ants, IS has proven to act like a swarm and reconfigure their networks to maintain their ability to project influence on social media platforms. Even when several accounts are deleted, enough hard-core followers and plenty of supporters remain active to immediately promote both the current content as well as new IS accounts. Dissemination strategies in combination with the consistent and coherent (and mainly Arabic) IS content gives a grim outlook that IS is winning the Online Jihad against the West, as also noted by the New York Times.

No disconnect between online and offline

Because of the immense quantity of videos as well as the frequent “photo reports” from within the respective “provinces” of the “caliphate”, IS propaganda is overly present within social media channels.

(Non-Arab) foreign fighters are not only featured in the videos but can communicate directly with their friends and relatives in their country of origin by mobile phone. This non-Arabic input from inside the “caliphate” further enriches the overall output and allows the media tacticians to target milieus that had never been breached before inside western societies.

The visual culture and massive quantity of qualitative videos allow for the constant repetition and showcasing of doctrines that disparage non-believers and sanction the collective punishment of “apostates” (murtaddin) and Muslim “hypocrites” (munafiqin). This theological led discourse can be defined as “discursive guidance”; through the constant repetition of extremist-laden theological interpretation and its practical implementation, jihadi media consumers and participants are provided with a framework to become active and engaged in the jihadist ideology.

The al-Qaeda (AQ) ideology has provided the theoretical framework that IS employs and exercises. While AQ has been pledging for decades to erode the borders of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, IS was able to do so within few months – with proper tabloid styled reporting of the event for their electronic English language magazine “Dabiq” as well as several videos in Arabic, English, Spanish and other languages. One may thus argue, the AQ ideology cannot be separated from IS, rather, IS is the recent evolution thereof. With the consolidation of territory by IS within Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, local Arab traditions are subjected or forced to adapt to the application of its “state” ideology – based mainly on AQ ideologues and their rich theological corpus (mainly writings).

AQ propagates multi-layered theological and Islamic jurisprudential narratives advocated in writings and advertised in videos as “discursive guidance”. However, IS has the ability to re-enact and implement this “discursive guidance” within the Sunni landscape inside Arab countries and thus produce new audio-visual content to booster their messages and their self-proclaimed “state-” and “manhood”, based on the extremist understanding of acting “upon the Prophetic Methodology.”

*This research is funded by VOX-Pol, an FP-7 funded Project of the European Union.

Turning the Volume Up to 11 is not Enough (part 2): Networks of Influence and Ideological Coherence

Nico Prucha March 23, 2015

On February 3, 2014, the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (ISIS or ISIL) published a video depicting captured Jordanian pilot Mu’adh al-Kasasiba wearing the notorious orange jump suit. For the background information on the secret negotiation attempt for his release, please check out the detailed contribution by Joas. For this Jihadica posting, let us concentrate on the propaganda side – and works – of ISIS, as announced in our first part.
This post looks at three aspects;

• How this video fits into the greater puzzle of jihadist ideology including the intersection between text based ideology and the demonstration (via video) of this ideology in practice.
• How the elements of the Swarmcast ensured the video would reach a wide audience and maintain a persistent presence.
• The limited impact of the response, named #opISIS, by hackers linked to Anonymous seeking to disrupt ISIS media networks.

Content matters, as does the means of delivery of jihadist propaganda data and material. Both elements highlight coherence: ideologically as well as technically. The ideological coherence, the persistence of its narratives and pseudo-theological fundament that is translated so well by jihadist media activists into audio-/ visual works shows parts of the resilience and the media strategy, the incorporation of the ‘jihadist tradition’. The video seeks to attract Arabic-speaking and non-Arab audiences, published in Arabic with encoded subtitles in English, French and Russian. ISIS exercises technical coherence and resilience in terms of disseminating the video and its propaganda in general – which, by the way is neither special nor outstanding or genius but simple use of a range of platforms (social media, forums, YouTube) by highly dedicated individuals, which we term as media mujahiddin.
The video is entitled Shifa’ al-sudur, a reference to Qur’an (9:14), and used by ISIS to justify and project the message that they are acting on behalf of God to “heal the believers’ feelings” as al-Furqan translates the title. The reference shifa’ al-sudur is part of the jihadist propaganda ambition to appease their target audience with audio-visual content that showcases, among many elements, “revenge” or at least “retribution” for the civilian suffering inside Islamic territories – reserved for the Sunni population only within this notion and mindset of course. The successful media strategy employed by ISIS focuses on audio/-visual output claiming practical application and translation of ideology into action. This is juxtaposed with assumed seniority of al-Qa’ida, who are crafting jihadist dogma but have little to no space (or territory) for implementation.
ISIS understands the importance of making use of the territory they control and deploys media units in every “province” (walaya). As a result, they publish up to 4-6 videos a day showing; the “life in the caliphate”, executions, sentences of physical punishment (hudud) framed as an evident legal system, religious policing of communities, the destruction of shrines of saints as well as a romantic view on fighting, sacrificing and being passionate for the local Sunni population of the “caliphate.” In general, Jihadists seek to deceive and coerce by trying to conceal their human fallibility while portraying themselves as God’s spokespeople. Therefore, every piece of their oftentimes highly professional and sometimes sophisticated propaganda is part of a greater puzzle.
In this greater puzzle everything is sanctioned, scripted, subjected to ideology, and is an integral part of the Sunni ‘jihadist tradition’ dominated by Arab ideologues and primary Arabic language publications (textual and audio/ -visual). Ideology in theory and practice serves as the motivation and guidance, it is built on the fundamentals of theology and pieces of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), used and interpreted to serve the extremist cause. The citation of historical scholars such as Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), as well as quoting selected parts of Qur’an and Sunna out of context, are powerful tools for extremist ideologues and media workers. It provides leverage for a distinct identity established on the premises of being ‘true Muslims’ offering the ‘true Islam’ and openly challenging and discrediting the “palace scholars” (‘ulama’ al-salatin) worldwide.
The ‘state-owned ‘ulama’’ are defined as corrupt scholars who neglect the true nature of Islam and thus have become followers of the “program of falsehood (batil)” whereas the jihadi as the only true, steadfast servant of God portrays himself as the follower of the “program of truth (al-haqq). This is one of the fundaments of Sunni jihadist perception of community that has now led to the creation of an “Islamic State” where the “true” and “proper” principles and methodology of Islam can be realized.

Visual Culture

Videos are the most important mouthpiece to show the manifestation and realization of jihadist creed (‘aqida) and methodology (manhaj) for which they claim to live and die. The video discourse allows a constantly repetition and showcasing of doctrines that disparage non-believers and sanction the collective punishment of “apostates” (murtadd) and Muslim “hypocrites” (munafiq).
This theological led discourse can be defined as “discursive guidance.” By the constant repetition of extremist laden theological interpretation (texts) and its practical implementation (videos), jihadi media consumers and participants are guided into a specific notion that serves as the fundament to become active and potentially commit attacks.
The first posting regarding this video provides an overview of the video distribution via Twitter and the attempts at counter messaging. It shows that it is not enough to merely increase the volume of counter messaging, or even to be retweeted frequently; (counter) messaging must be able to penetrate the Jihadist clusters, especially across the range of languages, hence targeting the targeted audiences. If counter-messaging remains isolated, the result is less a counter message and more a separate conversation.
Shouldn’t “counter-messaging” or a “counter-narrative” rather seek to penetrate and at best infiltrate jihadist media clusters online in hopes of persuading consumers to turn away? On different levels?
In a future posting the specific messages that are encoded into this video will be detailed, for now let us assess some aspects of the Swarmcast phenomena through which the video was distributed; specifically, speed and resilience. The final section looks at the response from hackers who launched another wave of attacks on accounts they believed to be sympathetic to ISIS, or jihadist groups more broadly.

Swarmcast:

This section assesses some aspects of the Swarmcast through which the video was distributed; specifically, speed and resilience. Although some commentators and policy makers are tempted by the idea that suspending a few most active accounts could limit jihadist activity by reducing the number of users following selected accounts (discussed further here), data analysis of content distribution highlights that the Swarmcast can withstand such an approach.
Speed:

click to enlarge

In the first six hours there were over 32,000 retweets containing the tag: #شفاء_الصدور . This is a combination of those actively disseminating the video and those engaged in counter-messaging. The volume of retweets and the speed with which that occurs renders the removal of accounts largely ineffective in disrupting the dissemination of content. By the time accounts are identified and suspended the content has been widely distributed.
Equally, the focus on retweets allows the analysis to focuses on a behavioral response – showing who Twitter users responded to – rather than those who are most active. Analysis of accounts that other users think are important is often more effective than examining the most active accounts – as these may have a lot to say, but that doesn’t mean anyone is listening.
Engagement Profiles:
The Engagement profile of frequently retweeted accounts shows the same pattern of rapid information dissemination, with most activity occurring in the first six to eight hours. The intensity of engagement with accounts attempting counter-messaging is broadly speaking at the same time. This is a significantly faster response than that during the release of “the Clanging of Swords, part 4” (48 hours on that occasion). This speed of response may be because of the video having been published on a weekday, rather than a Saturday.

click to enlarge (interactive)

The data shows that trying to remove individual videos or user accounts one-by-one, leads to a global game of whack-a-mole, a strategy ISIS seems to be employing on the battlefield as well.
This absorbs resources, while the media mujahedeen move fast enough to maintain a persistent online presence.

Resilience:
As discussed in previous pieces, degree of interconnection between accounts gives the cluster of users disseminating Jihadist content a level of resilience which, in addition to speed discussed above, enables the network to maintain a persistent presence. This highlights the importance of challenging the networks that distribute content rather than chasing after lists of individual accounts.
As discussed in the earlier post the network image visually attests that there are different clusters of users sharing content and that users sharing counter-messaging were almost entirely isolated from core media mujahedeen accounts.

click to enlarge

Focusing on the core cluster identified on the image, this cluster is large enough and has a level of interconnection to achieve resilience and persistence. The core cluster contains 9,719 accounts. If the outlying groups are removed, this number goes down to 6,826 accounts connected by 17,713 author / retweeted relationships. In this group, 575 accounts were retweeted at least once by five or more other users. Of accounts who are retweeted at least once, the average number of users that retweeted them was 12.7 (with a median of 3). This indicates that while there are some particularly influential accounts, much of the distribution occurs through a broad network of interconnected accounts.

This observation is further borne out by the metrics produced by social network analysis, which also show in greater depth the roles key actors play in the network.

Important findings from this approach include that the counter messaging is much more centralised around a couple of accounts. In contrast, the decentralised dissemination of Jihadist content – the swarmcast – means a range of accounts are reaching different communities, with sufficient levels of redundancy to allow information to continue flowing despite the suspension of some accounts.

This combination allows the swarmcast to maintain a persistent presence and reach communities which the Counter effort does not. This analysis using the network metrics, confirms the visual analysis from the network image and is also supported by the Key Actor graph. The Key Actor graph and specifically the horizontal spread of accounts shows that a relatively large number of accounts were important in the distribution of information to specific communities.

click to enlarge (interactive)

The combination of analyses and metrics produced by social network analysis, confirms findings from earlier studies, that the media mujahedeen distributes content rapidly, through a resilient network capable of reconfiguring when some accounts are suspended.

#opISIS:

There have been repeated stories over the last year of jihadist accounts being suspended, including in the aftermath of the beheading of James Foley, or the attempts by hackers linked to Anonymous to disrupt accounts as part of Operation No2ISIS.

On 6^th February an article posted on Counter Current News claimed Anonymous had just “destroyed months of recruiting work for the terrorist network known as ISIS” and listed the accounts which they now claimed to control. The article also contained a video which describes the actions and rationale of the Anonymous RedCult team as part of #OpISIS.

click on the image for the video on YouTube

It is unclear how accounts are being selected as part of #OpISIS. However, when comparing the list of accounts that had been hacked, posted on the 6^th February and comparing it to the users tweeting about #شفاء_الصدور – none (zero) of the users in the original list were involved in the release of the Cleansing of Believers’ Chests.

An updated list posted on the 9^th February, listed over 700 accounts. Only 3.1% of those identified as priority targets with over 10 thousand followers appeared in the network of users disseminating the #شفاء_الصدور video. However, of all the accounts posted in the Feb 9^th update, around 9.3% of these users were part of the dissemination of the Cleansing of Believers’ Chests.

Given the dispersed nature of the network and the relatively small proportion of users who were affected by #OpISIS and had been disseminating #شفاء_الصدور, the Jihadist swarmcast continues to exhibit speed and resilience. This allows the ‘media mujahedeen’ and those sympathetic to ISIS to maintain a persistence presence for their content online.

Turning the volume up to 11 is not enough: Why counter-strategies have to target extremist clusters

Nico Prucha February 9, 2015

On Tuesday, February 3rd, the al-Furqan Media Institute, the official media outlet of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) released a new video by the title Shifa’ al-sudur. Ali Fisher, Resident Data Scientist at the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media (CASM) at Demos and Nico Prucha, Research Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) at King’s College, analyse the extremist data flow and briefly some elements of the video to initiate a new series on Jihadica.

Following a common and yet new modus operandi, the video was announced first as a forthcoming release on Tuesday morning via Twitter and released hours later. New jihad videos are oftentimes announced hours or days before actually being released. The first tweet, as described below, was published by a high profile account that is, however, not an official IS Twitter handle. The ‘official’ IS Twitter handles have been removed mostly and IS seems to have given up to open new accounts and instead further decentralises it’s spreading of information by simply resorting to specific hash tags and relying on trusted accounts and individuals within respective networks. Unlike the release of Salil al-sawarim, part four that was published via Twitter using the – at the time – official wa-I’tasimu Twitter handle as shown in this graph made by Ali Fisher and then got picked up about 32k times by direct and indirect followers of this account, Shifa’ al-sudur endures simply by relying on its respective hash tags and fandom environments.

The broadcast of the “Healing of the Believers’ Chests” (#شفاء_الصدور) as used in the English translation by al-Furqan media has provided another demonstration of the efficiency and effectiveness of the propaganda production and the distribution system via the Media Mujahedeen as recently detailed by Ali Fisher and Jamie Bartlett at Demos. The distribution of the video shows that Twitter remains the beacon for the Jihadist social media zeitgeist. For those seeking to deliver counter-messaging, it is not enough to increase the volume, or even to be retweeted frequently; messaging must be able to penetrate the Jihadist clusters. If counter-messaging remains isolated, the result is less a counter message and more a separate conversation.

The Video:

As indicated by the banner, the video was released with embedded subtitles in English, French and Russian. The title of the film shifa’ al-sudur is a reference to the Qur’an and appears in an audio recitation By titling the video Shifa’ al-sudur, in reference to ninth sura, verse fourteen of the Qur’an, the jihadists seek to justify and empower the message as acting on behalf of God to “heal the believers’ feelings” according to the Qur’an translation by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem. This strategy is certainly not new and part of a coherent ideological framework of justifying various acts. Jihadist media productions, in particular videos, are part of this notion to “heal the believers” as a statement from the first generation AQAP in 2006 highlights (Arabic version with German translation and commentary is available here).

The main part of the video consists of the captured pilot wearing the notorious orange jump suit explaining to the audience the details of his combat sortie on the IS capital of al-Raqqa and the general mission set up and armament. Jordan appears time and again within the jihadist media spectrum is a key ally in the outlined “war on Islam.” To underline this sentiment, the video opens with several sequences showing King Abdullah II pledging his full support to the international coalition against IS. Furthermore, sequences show Jordanian troops embedded with NATO forces in Afghanistan, a narrative that undermines the conviction of Jordan merely being a willing helper of western forces and hence part of the “crusaders”. Jordan’s involvement in Afghanistan was also the key element of AQ suicide bomber Humam al-Balawi (Abu Dujana al-Khurasani) who struck the forward operating base Chapman in December 2009, killing several American and Jordanian intelligence officers (details are available here). The captured Jordanian pilot Mu’adh al-Kasasba is framed likewise as an apostate (murtadd) who has forfeited his loyalty to God as a Muslim for serving King Abdullah II and is thus part of this crusader alliance, justifying his death within the brutal reasoning of an “eye for an eye”.

Distribution

Tweets carrying the name of the video in Arabic (#شفاء_الصدور) spread rapidly on the 3^rd February carrying a banner announcing the imminent release of the video. The account of “Abu ‘Ali al-Junubi” has close to 7k followers and issued 1.4k tweets, mostly broadcasting IS-videos and news.

The next 66,000 Tweets containing included 43,698 retweets, spreading news of the release or by those attempting to counter the message. The other common tags in tweets containing #شفاء_الصدور hint at the other dominant messages which accompanied the release of the video.

The most often used tag refers to Shifa’_al-sudur, followed by al-Furqan Media. Not surprisingly, the third hash tag references IS. The fourth and fifth hash tags reference “daesh” or “da’ish”, the Arabic acronym for ISIS that is widely used by non-IS activists and the mainstream media online. As a campaign emerged on Twitter in support of the captured pilot using the hash tag “we are all Mu’adh”, IS activists deliberately injected the video of his killing by using the same hash tag as well. The other three hash tags refer to self-proclaimed provinces or prefectures (wilaya) of the IS. The beheading of captured Egyptian soldiers on the Sinai by the local IS branch, operating in the “province of Sinai” uses the same hash tag following the same reasoning (here).

The most retweeted accounts were:

The ‘success’ achieved by HewarMaftuh and DaeshCrimes of gaining large numbers of retweets can be misleading. As the network image visually attests, those retweets were by an almost entirely isolated group of users who were not engaged by with the group of accounts actively disseminating the video.

As observed with previous video releases, the content is part of a multiplatform zeitgeist. Other frequently shared platforms include YouTube, and JustPaste.it with the less common services such as vid.me, dump.to and sendvid providing additional resilience for the network.

Is this the most successful release of a jihadist video ever? Part 2 The release of صليل الصوارم الرابع‬‏

Nico Prucha May 21, 2014

As we outlined in a brief analysis in our first post, Ali Fisher and I will head into a more deeper analysis of our findings regarding the release of “The Clanging of the Swords, part 4”. In the next posting we will discuss and analyse the most important accounts that we will introduce in this part.

We do stress, however, that the reader should keep in mind that one of the key phenoma of jihadi Twitter activism in Syria is that most users engaged online are using mainly mobile platforms. This accounts for people inside Syria as much as outside – the preferred device to interact and Tweets are devices running Android followed by iPhone, as we had detailed in this graph in the last post. This shows that word of the video on YouTube, and archive.org was spread using a range of different digital technologies, but mainly mobile devices.

The video was also reflected upon on by sympathizers on tumblr, with users in one case posting a picture of the title of the video on a big flat screen while holding a Dutch labelled pop corn bag in front of the camera. This affirms the users claim to be “just one of your beloved brothers from The Netherlands.” Tumblr has become another social media outlet used by Jihadists in the past years. A pioneer short study on this phenomena – “Tumbling along the straight path” – was published by Rüdiger Lohlker, available here.

The effect of jihadi videos in the past years, due to their outreach and the popularity showcasing real men who act and stand up against frames of injustice is thus further highlighted – with the audience trying to actively particpate by the very least of expressing sympathy and spreading the word of the video by all of their means possible – and thus they consider themselves as a media-Mujahid. This is a role model not only sanctioned by senior jihadist ideologues, but also highly approved since the death of bin Laden.

Most Important Users

The information sharing about the video created a network of 6,428 Twitter users and 19,601 edges, some users were mentioned frequently. The graph below shows the frequency prominent users were mentioned.

To extend the analysis of prominent members of the network we created a representation of the network sharing the video via Twitter. It contains 6,428 Twitter users and 19,601 edges. The network had an average path length of 5.7 and a diameter of 15.

From the visual representation it is evident that there are a number of different users that were prominent in different sections of the network. Rather than the majority of the network orbiting one of a few influential accounts, in a series of hub and spoke structures, this network has multiple interconnected hubs through which information flows in multiple directions. This creates a level or redundancy providing the network with a degree of resilience that allows information to continue to flow in the event that some Twitter accounts may be suspended. This is because the interconnected hubs provide a level of redundancy so there are a number of other pathways through which information can flow. As Paul Baran’s calculations showed, distributed communications systems need a relatively low level of redundancy for the majority of the network to maintain communication in the event of major network disruption.

Viewing the network map in greater detail can show which users communicated with each other, which reached the same communities, and which were a bridge to specific communities. For example, in the network representation nodes of the same colour are within the same interconnected community. This means they are more likely to interact with other members of that community than the rest of the network. These can be assessed in greater detail in the online version where connections between specific nodes can be examined.

Through a refinement of the network image, to show only those users who have at least one mutual connection – meaning they have mentioned someone who has also mentioned them, a core group of users becomes visible.

This network of mutual connections contains 165 Twitter accounts (2.5% of the total network) including all of the top twenty five most mentioned users and on average a node in this core group has slightly more than five connections to other accounts in this group. This means the network has a density of 0.031 – meaning 3% of all possible connections exist. This is sufficient to provide the network with a level of resilience.

Resilience in this context is shown by impact on the network of losing important nodes, in the form of account suspensions.

With the loss of the five most connected nodes (ranked by times mentioned by others) every remaining node would still be connected to this network, with only a slight reduction in graph density to 0.027. Similarly, the removal of the five most important nodes (ranked by Pagerank) leaves the graph density unchanged at 0.031 and again, every remaining node would still be connected to the network. This means that the current occasional account suspensions are unlikely to have any practical impact on the ability of users to share information.

The identification of key actors in the network can provide greater insight into the way information travelled. For example, this can differentiate between those users that are important for reaching specific communities, from those users that are part of the core of the network. This analysis is important as not all users are influential in the same way. For example some will be influential within the core of the network while others are important as they form a bridge to wider communities.

Position on the scatter plot below is based on two network metrics pagerank and betweenness. Size is the number of times the account was retweeted or mentioned. Nodes with the same colour are in the same statistical community. If you are viewing the online version of this graph, mouse over dots to show each label, controls in the bottom left corner allow the user to zoom in on specific area of the chart.

When viewing the chart:

• Users in the bottom left of the graph tend to have no particular role and can be thought of as general users, although they may have high value to an often small and very specific group.

• Those in the top left of the graph tend to be in the core (or one of the cores) of the network. This indicates they are often those most invested in the network and have access to privileged information.

• Those in the bottom right of the graph fulfil the role of bridging between the core content producers and a specific community. The value of this role often comes from tailoring information to a specific ‘audience’ and as such these users are more valuable to that group but less important to everyone else.

• Users in the top right are rare. They have a dual function, as they have the same trusted status as those in the top left of the graph. They also fulfil the same ‘bridge’ role as users in the bottom right of the graph, reaching areas of the network which others do not.

In the case of the network disseminating information about the release Sas 4 the pagerank scores are particularly low which backs the earlier visual observation that the network is dispersed and has multiple interconnected hubs. The graph shows that @Minbar_s, @Aahat9, and @kwatem0 were important conduits for the spread of information to communities that other accounts could not reach. Conversely, @furkan_om and @MoTweetry were hubs which were a core part of the information sharing about this video. Most importantly, @ISIS_1111 was the single node that was able to fulfil both core and bridging functions simultaneously, with other accounts such as @AberatAlkarat_5 fulfilling a similar role to a lesser degree.

In addition to the roles users played in the network, the time at which they were influential is also an important aspect of the analysis. This is known as their engagement profile, the extent to which other twitter users engaged with them over a given time period.

Taking the top five most mentioned users in the network the engagement profiles shows that there were two periods of particularly intense activity. It also shows that different accounts were prominent at different times. For example, @wa3tasimu and @turky_albinali were prominent in the first peak but not the second, while @AL3gneg and @Minbar_S were prominent during the second peak.

This analysis demonstrates the need for counter-strategies to be agile as accounts become important at different times during the dissemination of content. In addition, it provides additional context to the key actor graph as @Minbar_s was an important conduit for information to a particular community, and the engagement profile shows that this role was likely to have been fulfilled later in period in which the video was being actively shared.

Interim Conclusions

· Jihadist groups have become increasingly sophisticated in their use of social media and mobile technologies.

· The release of 4 صليل الصوارم was announced through a resilient and dispersed network. This network has sufficient interconnection and redundancy to continue to operate indefinitely in spite of the current level of account suspensions.

o On each platform there are clusters of mutually reinforcing accounts which create a level of resilience that allows jihadists to have a persistent presence on the platform.

· The release of the 4 صليل الصوارم video highlights the multiplatform zeitgeist which has become a feature of the Jihadist social media phenomenon.

o Accounts on one social media platform are used to reinforce the content on other social media platforms, creating mutually reinforcing connections across platforms. This means users could turn to Facebook or Google+ if a specific Twitter account is suspended to locate the replacement Twitter account. In reality most jihadists that take the propagation element of their activity seriously have back-up accounts already set up with users following their primary account directed to also follow the back-up in case of an account suspension.

· The release of the video on a Saturday may have been a deliberate strategy to pick the day when those employed to challenge or disrupt the propagation of information about the video were least likely to be available.

This is a network based challenge – identifying groups rather than individual accounts.

Is this the most successful release of a jihadist video ever?

Nico Prucha May 19, 2014

The release of the video Salil al-sawarim (SaS) by ISIS’s media department al-Furqan over the weekend demonstrated the sophistication of the jihadist use of social media to disseminate their video content. Al-Furqan’s sister department, al-I’tasimu had announced the release of the fourth instalment of Sas on Twitter on Saturday noon, March 17, 2014. A few hours later, it was published via al-I’tasimu’s high-profile Twitter account and the tier-one jihadist forums. The first three Salil al-sawarim videos had been very popular, high quality edited and showed a mix of extreme obscene violence and ideology at play.

This is the first part of the brief glimpse into the data collected on Twitter revolving around the #صليل_الصوارم_الرابع Ali Fisher and Nico Prucha explore the data networks and outline in brief terms the ideological bearings at play. For a second post we will provide the readers with a more in depth analysis, outlining the context of this video in the jihadist virtual as well as the greater ideological cluster at play.

In the first twenty four hours after Sas (“The Clanging of the Swords”) was posted on YouTube the was viewed 56,998 times with an average user watching a little over 17 minutes of the hour long film. This means that collectively YouTube users spent the equivalent of 686 days watching this one video. It has subsequently been reposted a number of times on YouTube, and was published on other file sharing sites such as archive.org and links for download were broadcast via justpaste.it. It was published in different sizes and formats. A high-definition format, about one gigabyte in size, carries death and mayhem to the home and portable cinemas worldwide.

As of writing this post, the YouTube video has been viewed 124,704 times with 4,204 likes and 491 dislikes.

Delivering high levels of views in the first day after publication takes coordination across a range of social media channels. This briefing analyses that spread of information, and shows:

The volume of tweets about the video release.
An estimate of the size of the network which shared word of the video release.
The users most frequently mentioned in connection with the video.
The key actors in the Twitter network that allowed word of the video release to spread rapidly.
The platforms that users utilised to tweet.
The prominent languages used to spread word of the video release.

This shows:

Jihadist groups have become increasingly sophisticated in their use of social media and mobile technologies.
The release of the video on a Saturday may have been a deliberate strategy to pick the day when those employed to challenge or disrupt the propagation of information about the video were least likely to be available.
Information is shared through a resilient and dispersed network. This network has sufficient interconnection and redundancy to continue to operate despite the current level of account suspensions.

The video

In short the approximate one-hour long video is a mix of implementing ideological principles and executing framed enemies. The film starts with several ISIS Mujahideen who tear up their Kosovar passports and burn these. A ring leader outlines the principles of the true Islamic state citizenry in fluent Arabic – an element that was just recently broadcast in two al-Furqan videos where several international fighters tore up their passports to declare their identity and belonging to the Islamic State and not to some vassal or Crusader state entity. The opening of the video enforces the connection of Syria and Iraq: ISIS armed car convoys parading in cities such as Homs, Raqqa, switching to Fallujah where a drone, possibly an Parrot AR.Drone iPad controlled remote aircraft, is flown above the convoy, proving the audience with a 360 angle view of the city and the jihadi boots on the ground.

All operations in the video are allegedly in Iraq, in the notorious al-Anbar province, including the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah where the most severe attacks against the U.S. forces at the time occurred. Iraqi governmental officials are sought out at fake checkpoints and executed, off-duty soldiers are hunted down on the streets and killed for reasons varying from being an apostate of Sunni Islam to being a Shiite or of collaborating with the U.S. funded Sunni Sahwa councils at the time. ISIS, by these specific search-and-destroy missions claims to have insider information and conveys to the audience that all assassination operations are meticulously planned and carried out. Part of these cleansing operations include ISIS units searching the private houses of Iraqi governmental soldiers and officers, who often are visibly confused as ISIS dresses up just like legitimate governmental units. The surprised individuals are then tied up and shot, or beheaded, guilty based on TV-reports and uniforms etc. found in their house – a typical modus operandi often seen in this type of video.

Other parts of the video show how the element of repentance (tawba) is enforced on the local Sunni population of al-Anbar. This is a lesson learned that is already at play in Syria: why alienate the local Sunni people when they can be coerced into inclusion, forcing them to repent their former affiliation or sympathies with the local governments. ISIS gathered what appears to be several hundred men to mosques where preachers declare the Mujahideen are fighting for the Sunni people, demanding that those present dissociate themselves from worldly or Shiite rule etc. ISIS seeks to recruit and integrate by killing off individuals framed as responsible for grievances while empowering the ‘former victims’ by granting them forgiveness and a place among them.

Distribution

Word of the video release spread via Twitter with two distinct peaks in Tweeting. One peak occurred on the day of release (17^th May) and a second during the following day (18^th May).

Between the 17^th May and 8am on the 19^th May we observed a total of 32,313 tweets carrying the name of the video. There was an average of 807.825 tweets per hour, the median being 736.5.

Tweets contained a range of #tags in addition to the title of the video, the most common of which are shown below.

The first hash tag on the left is the Arabic reference to Salil_al-sawarim_four, followed by The_Islamic_State_in_Iraq_and al-Sham, and the al-Furqan Media department.

However, while all the prominent tags are in Arabic, not all the tweets were in Arabic. This demonstrates the reach of the video and shows that some multilingual users were proactively translating content allowing users to access the information in a range of languages.

Users were also using a range of different technologies through which to tweet but mobile technologies and particularly phones are dominant. The most common ways users tweeted about the video was an app on an Android mobile phone, (Twitter for Android) followed by an iPhone app, (Twitter for iPhone). The web and tablets are also important but to a lesser extent.

As the graph shows, word of the video on YouTube, and archive.org was spread using a range of different digital technologies, including mobile phones, desktop (web), and via other social media including Facebook. This last case emphasises the importance of understanding the jihadist social media phenomenon as a cross platform zeitgeist, as users were using Facebook to tweet about a video posted on YouTube.

Death from Above: Jihadist Virtual Networks Respond to Drone Strikes in Yemen

Nico Prucha May 15, 2014

Following the recent airstrikes carried out against a convoy targeting al-Qaeda fighters in remote training camps in southern Yemen, Ali Fisher and Nico Prucha examine how the tales of drone strikes and civilian suffering claimed to be the result have become a frequent narrative for jihadi statements, videos and on forums. Analyzing the way word of the strikes and announcements of the martyrs spread via Twitter we find that jihadist groups are using the impact of drone strikes to strengthen the cohesion of remaining fighters, celebrate the martyrs, and attempt to derive sympathy from a wider audience.

While the conversation, denoted by the Arabic hash tag for “martyrs of the American strike in Yemen” #شهداء_القصف_الأمريكي_باليمن)) was short-lived and quickly reached its peak when the majority of the martyrs had been announced. However, we also find that while a division between pro-ISIS and pro-AQ users can be identified, there is a shared positive opinion on AQAP and drone strikes in general, independent of the leaning of individual accounts towards ISIS or AQ Central.

Independent of the hash tag, AQAP’s media department issued two responses to the drone strikes end of April. The first response is a direct reply to the statements made by the Yemeni President Hadi, the other one is a commentary of AQAP commander Hamza al-Zinjibari; both documents were quickly translated into English and dispatched via Twitter and the ‘old media’ jihadi forums (here, here).

The Impact of Drone Strikes on Physical Networks – Limiting Online Jihadism?

The deaths of high ranking ideologues and leaders by missiles fired from unmanned aerial vehicles, that have in the past years become the operational backbone of the “war on terror”, have risen and seem to be the operational weapon of choice by military planners. With ideologues and media-valued activists such as U.S. citizens Anwar al-Awlaqi and his media operator Samir Khan killed in Yemen in 2011, or the targeted killing of the Libyans ‘Attiyatullah and Abu Yahya in 2012 in Pakistan only highlight prominent drone operations recently. Nevertheless, the extrajudicial killing of al-Awlaqi and Khan did not kill off the English jihadi magazine Inspire that had published a new edition in May 2012 under the title “winning on the ground.” This ninth edition (Winter 1433 / 2012) addressed its readers on the cover page, asking

“does the assassination of senior jihadi figures have any significance in validating Obama’s claims? After a decade of ferocious war, who is more entitled to security?”

It may be asserted that the U.S. operated drone program has similar affects on local populations as in Pakistan, although the degree differs from country to country. According to The Long War Journal, 354 drone strikes had taken place inside Pakistan and 95 bombing runs in Yemen. The impact of frequent or more regularly occurring drone strikes on the people on the ground is devastating and generates new grievances with innocents being either mistaken for legitimate targets or are nevertheless considered as acceptable collateral damage. A study on the impact of drone strikes in Pakistan is available here. The long-term side affects of drone warfare are open for debate, however, the tales of drone strikes and civilian suffering as a result of missile strikes have become a frequent narrative for jihadi videos and forums and are also addressed by scholars and journalists alike.

Killed civilians, mainly children, are pictured in jihadist propaganda material with the vow for revenge. The Shumukh al-Islam Forum in early May 2014 responded to the continuing drone activity inside Yemen that had recently killed a number of AQAP operatives. The administration of the forum via its media “workshop” (warsha) issued a forum thread showing several propaganda pictures and a video showing scores of killed people allegedly the result of drone strikes in Yemen. The “official account of warsha shumukh al-Islam for incitement” of the Shumukh al-Islam forum on Twitter is @warshshomokh1, which promoted both pictures and the video. The pictures in the forum thread relate the death of children to calls for revenge on a wider scale; other pictures visualized the close relationship of the U.S. and Yemeni government, in extremist reasoning defined as ‘one’ enemy, committed to the “war on Islam” likewise.

Drone Strikes in Yemen and the Response on Twitter

The posting of SSI in early May was the direct response to a drone strike that had killed about 40 AQAP members on April 21, 2014, as the New York Times reports. Shortly afterwards, on April 24, 2014, jihadi-linked accounts on Twitter started posting pictures and names of the alleged slain AQAP fighters. By using the hash tag #شهداء_القصف_الأمريكي_باليمن

All in all about 200 Tweets were issued from April 24 to April 27; all Tweets are in Arabic. The hash tag translated to “the martyrs of the American strike on Yemen.”

The distinctive feature of this Twitter network analysis is set on two key findings:

a division between pro-ISIS and pro-AQ can be identified. The main underlining finding, however, is the common relation to the U.S. drone strikes in Yemen against AQAP, whereas most pro-ISIS media activists and followers nevertheless have high, if not higher, sympathies for AQAP. There is a shared opinion on AQAP and drone strikes, independent of the leaning of individual accounts towards ISIS or AQ Central.
The hash tag referring to the drone strike was short-lived and quickly reached its peak when the majority of the martyrs had been announced on Twitter.

Four major hubs can be identified within this network on Twitter, with the respective accounts @_Glibeb, @AbuUsamh, @Adnan_Alawlaqi, and @al_khansaa2 as the most influential. These four major nodes are connected to each other by shared followers, who (re-) tweeted using the hash tag and by addressing accounts directly. Some of the interlinking accounts are further analyzed below.

Networking about 200 Tweets relating to the U.S. drone strike in Yemen the fatter the arrow the more often the source mentions the addressed account (click to enlarge and zoom in)

The biggest node in this network analysis is @Adnan_Alawlaqi, some of his followers are connected to the other three major nodes. By choosing “Alawlaqi”, the account claims a direct relationship to the Yemeni tribe and to the U.S.-Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaqi who had been killed in a drone strike in 2011. For the avatar of this account Osma bin Laden has been chosen, the background picture shows “the martyr: Abu ‘l-Ghayth al-Shabwani”, a Yemeni AQAP fighter killed in a drone strike. For his web interface Twitter account, he has chosen the cover of the book “Why I Chose al-Qa’ida” which has been written by Abu Mus’ab, an AQAP affiliate who claimed being a member of al-Awlaq tribe. According to the book, Abu Mus’ab al-Awlaqi “was martyred in an American strike on Wadi Rafd in the Shabwa Province” in 2009. His full name is given as Muhammad ‘Umayr al-Kalawi al-‘Awlaqi. The foreword of the book has been written by AQAP chief Abu Basir (Nasir al-Wuhayshi), which evidently was finished shortly before the death of Abu Mus’ab. The about 80-page long book outlines in simple words and reasoning the motivation to have joined al-Qa’ida and serves as a guide to inspire and indoctrinate a non-Arabic audience. The English-language magazine Inspire has a regular section entitled “Why did I Choose Al Qaeda” where selected parts of the book are made available in English.

The most mentioned users in this data-set highlights the impact and importance of the major nodes, with @Adnan_Alawlaqi ranging at the top. @Qaadayaalumaa1 has been omitted in this analysis, although rank 4, it is not connected to the above network analysis. Instead, it is an independent sub-network that uses the same hash tag and shares similar content.

A not connected network sharing same content on Twitter

@Adnan_Alawlaqi has a little over 4,000 followers and issued more than 2,000 Tweets as of May 12, 2014. The account is primarily affiliated with “the organization of al-Qa’ida on the Arab Peninsula” and pictures from within Yemen and of drones are frequently published. It seems to be following the strict AQ conduct and has little to none connection to any ISIS related material.

Another major node in the network is @abuUsamh, as seen on the bottom right. According to his online profile, this is the account of Abu Usama al-Abini. His profile further states his clear favor of ISIS, hoping that

“the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham will remain and expand, by the will of God, #the lion cubs of jihad (#شبل_الجهاد) // my backup account is @abuusamh1.”

He refers to the “soldiers of Yemen” (jund al-Yemen) and lists his YouTube channel “greebe1.” His focus is also set on Yemen, but he approves and idealizes ISIS and their war in Syria as the future and considers them as an avant-garde that will soon arrive in Yemen as well. He has about 2,300 followers and issued 1,300 Tweets as of May 12, 2014.

@abuUsamh posted pictures of alleged victims of the April drone strike and provides further information. The name of the deceased seen here is given as “the Mujahid: Abu Tamim al-Qayfi (…) killed in the despicable American [missile] strike. Look at his smile!”

@abuUsamh is connected to @Adnan_Alawlaqi by three accounts, two of which also interlink to @_Glibeb. @Jeefsharp and @911Fahd interlink these two major nodes.

@_Glibeb refers to Jilbib al-Sharruri and has about 2,500 followers and issued close to 9,000 Tweets as of May 12, 2014. He too has a greater leaning towards ISIS and re-tweets and disseminates videos published by ISIS’s media channel al-Furqan:

“Special report on the civil service work by the Islamic State in Aleppo before ISIS was betrayed; preparing: Flour and bread – health care – electricity – overall services.” Two links are set in the Tweet, the first leads to YouTube where a sequence of the video Services provided for by the State of the ISIS series Rasa’il min ard al-malahem, part 14, is shown. The second link extends the civil aspect of ISIS by directing to a Facebook group.

Like most other Twitter accounts linked to this hash tag, @_Glibeb posts pictures of male victims of the airstrike with the impression that they indeed had been AQAP members. He may be of Yemini origin and possibly related to some of the deceased by tribal relations. The name “al-Sharruri” pops up frequently in Yemen and has also come to use among ISIS members in Syria. Abu Jandal al-Sharruri appeared in a video a while ago and the picture used to commemorate him on Twitter is a screen grab thereof.

The fourth most important node in this mini-network of approximately 200 Tweets is an account the reader of our work may already be acquainted with: @al_khansaa2. This account in this network is only linked via the account @aboyahay88 to the main node of @Adnan_Alawlaqi. The main objective, as for the others, is to document the martyrs of the drone strike and provide affirmative comments on pictures of killed AQAP members. All pictures issued within this particular hash tag are male, some are flashing weapons, and others are a screen grab from a jihadi video. One of the pictures shared by @al_khansaa2 is a typical Yemeni dressed man flashing his janbiyya a specific type of dagger with a short curved blade that is worn on a belt. This is a sign of male hood and pride and very common on the streets in Yemen.

@aboyahay88, the account linking @al_khansaa2 to @Adnan_Alawlaqi also connects to two other nodes, @alabjani_21 and @Mooneer55. @aboyahay88, whose screen name is the sincere (الصديق) referring to Abu Bakr further states on his profile “We belong to God and to Him we shall return”, taken out of the Qur’an (2:156). This part of the Qur’an is often cited at funerals and generally expressed to sympathize with the deceased, emphasizing the conviction in the existence of the afterlife. Apart from this @aboyahay88 is a low-key and low profile node with only 438 followers and over 4,000 Tweets as of May 12, 2014. The majority of his shared pictures are Yemen related with some pictures apparently taken by a cell-phone, perhaps implying he has taken these himself. Other pictures are from ISIS accounts on Twitter. His Twitter account is linked to the open Facebook group al-Ta’ifa al-Mansura that has eleven members but no actions or shared material whatsoever. All eleven members are part of the jihadist cluster network and show related iconography.

@alabjani_21 is one of the more prolific Twitter accounts in this network, although not the biggest node in this particular network analysis. He has over 9,000 followers and Tweeted close to 17,000 times as of May 12, 2014. The chosen avatar is Ayman al-Zawahiri with both of hands held up towards the viewer – in a praying fashion, although it is clearly a screenshot of one of al-Zawahiri’s sermons televised by as-Sahab. @Mooneer55 in turn only has 787 followers but Tweet an impressive 11,700 times as of May 12, 2014. This account clearly aligns itself to ISIS with an avatar showing Abu ‘Umar al-Baghdadi and referencing “the book leading the right way” (kitab yahdi) and the “sword that assists” (sayyf yansur), as detailed in the chapter The ‘Arab Spring’ as a Renaissance for AQ Affiliates in a Historical Perspective.

Of greater interest are the two accounts linking the three nodes of @Adnan_Alawlaqi, @_Glibeb, @abuUsamh, which are:

@JeefSharp: This account is also in clear association to ISIS, stating in his profile,

“I pledge allegiance to the amir al-mu’mineen Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.”

He has a meager 185 followers and around 3,500 Tweets. The majority of these are retweets of ISIS related accounts and material, that is in parts also anti-Muslim Brotherhood who demand action instead of passive protests.

And @911Fahd: This account showcases the killed leader of the TTP, Hakim Allah Mehsud with an ISIS related avatar. He has a little over 1,000 followers and Tweeted an incredible 66,454 times as of May 12, 2014. The majority of his shared pictures are related to Iraq and ISIS but also include a picture of the Gaza-based Jund Allah and their leader Abu al-Nur al-Maqdisis – all of whom had been wiped out by their rival HAMAS in 2008. Like the above account, @911Fahd mainly retweets and is interlinked to high profile users such as @al_khansaa2 or @Adnan_Alawlaqi.

Conclusion

The analysis of this mini-dataset has shown that jihadist groups are framing the impact of drone strikes to strengthen the remaining fighters, celebrate the martyrs, and attempt to derive sympathy from a wider audience. Drone strikes are a unifying issue, while a division between pro-ISIS and pro-AQ users is visible in terms of who they interact with, we did not find the same division in the content of 200 tweets which used this specific hash tag. On this specific issue, jihadist opinion appears to have been independent from individual allegiance to or sympathy for AQ or ISIS. While some pro-ISIS users openly wish for the emergence the Islamic State as a part of ISIS in Yemen, the pro-AQ accounts stuck to what al-Zawahiri had called for, unity among the Mujahideen. Other users simply admired the martyrs and sought to document and share as widely as possible reports of this ‘crusader’ attack. This mini-dataset from Twitter has focused on two specific drone strikes in April 2014 in Yemen, but it is just one part of a wider cluster of jihadist content that has been exploding in terms of quantity and quality, particularly in relation to the war in Syria. In this wider context, drone strikes have impacted jihadist activity and ideology. For example, with the reality of drone warfare hitting jihadist groups hard in recent years, jihadist videos and ideological writings have adopted the theme of spies among the Mujahideen. A number of videos have emerged showcasing the confessions and subsequent execution of alleged spies. In addition, Abu Yahya al-Libi commemorated his friend and comrade Abu ‘l-Layth al-Libi after he was killed in a drone strike in 2008 and subsequently published a detailed book on shari’a law policy for jihadist groups a year later. Ironically, Abu Yahya was killed himself in Pakistan in a drone strike in June 2012 but his work has become an integral handbook for jihadist implementation of shari’a law in dealing with indicted Muslim spies among the ranks of the Mujahideen. It is often referenced in videos showing the execution of alleged spies in Yemen and Somalia. Through the combined analysis of the written and audio-visual layers, the way alleged Muslim spies are framed for jihadist propaganda can be assessed and tied into events such as this case study – the topic of a future post on Jihadica.

Conference Announcement on Religious Extremism in Syria

Nico Prucha April 11, 2014

The University of Vienna, Near Eastern Department, initiated last February with the Terrorism Research Initiative (TRI) the Syrian Engagement Project. The first conference was held in early February in Vienna where we sought to empower local Syrian political activists on the first day with a broader perspective on the second day, bringing together senior members of the Syrian opposition. For the first conference, we sought to provide a framework and a open floor for civil-society activists and the opposition to talk about their perspective and past experiences from a multitude of perspectives. TRI has recently published a conference report, available here.

As part of this series, a second conference will be held in Vienna on May 2, 2014. The theme of the second conference is, however, strictly related to security matters with the focus set on religious extremist groups in Syria, from both a Sunni and Shiite perspective. The conference Religious Extremism in Syria: A New Launching Pad for Global Terrorism? seeks to enable participants and speakers to engage in an open environment on how to deal with the implications of the turmoil in Syria.

The rise of confessional warfare and the effective recruitment of foreign fighters from the greater Middle East, Europe and beyond to join militant factions in Syria have implications far beyond the current conflict zones. The professional use of Social Media to attract young males for the cause and to raise funds has reached an unprecedented dimension that could perhaps transform Syria into a similar, if not worse, launching pad for global terrorism than Afghanistan. This one-day conference seeks to provide insight into a set of overlapping issues surrounding the Syrian conflict and its implications for Europe and the international community. The conference will bring together an interdisciplinary set of speakers to provide insight into extremist and other militant actors in the conflict and the implications for regional and international security.

The conference agenda with the speaker abstracts and bios is available as a pdf here.

Agenda:

09:00 Registration

09:30 Opening remarks, introductions, programme review, and administrative announcements by Nico Prucha

09:45 Tom Keatinge, Independent Analyst, “The Syrian Conflict and the Importance of Financing.”

10:15 Maura Conway, Dublin City University, “Assessing the Role of Social Media in the Syria Conflict.”

10:45 Tea and coffee break with oriental snacks

11:15 Joas Wagemakers, Radboud University Nijmegen, “Jordanian Salafis and the Syrian Conflict.”

11:45 Rüdiger Lohlker, University of Vienna, “True Romance: A New Paradigm for Jihadis in Syria and Beyond?”

12:15 Morning panel discussion

13:00 Lunch break

14:00 Nico Prucha, University of Vienna, “The Sectarian Divide in Syria as the Rationale of The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria to Indoctrinate, Radicalize and Recruit Foreign Fighters”

14:30 Mahan Abedin, Dysart Consulting, “The Role of IRGC Qods Cops as Force Multiplier in the Syrian War.”

15:00 Tea and Coffee break with light snacks

15:30 Iranian Embassy Representative (Invited, TBC)

16:00 Syrian Embassy Representative (Invited, TBC)

16:30 Robert Wesley, Terrorism Research Initiative, “Why Egypt Matters in the Context of the Current Syrian Civil War.”

17:00 Afternoon panel discussion

18:00 Concluding Remarks and Farewell

Due to limited seating at the venue, registration for this event is mandatory. The Registration Fee for the Conference is 40 EUR/ per prospective attendee, which includes a light lunch of Middle Eastern food. To register, please purchase your ticket here:

http://bit.ly/1lUPDKN

Payment in cash at the venue is also possible.

For any issues regarding registration, please contact Nico Prucha (nico.prucha (at) univie.ac.at)

66 Important Jihadist Twitter Accounts (part 2)

Nico Prucha September 4, 2013

In our earlier post, together with Ali Fisher we detailed and assessed 66 accounts listed by Shumukh al-Islam jihadi Forum member Ahmad ‘Abdallah as ‘important jihadist’ members on twitter. We looked primarily at the users individually, using the data of these 66 accounts to create this infographic to give our readers an overview of these users.

In this post we focus on what we are able to find out about them as a group and provide an interactive network map to show the links between these advocated ‘important jihadist’ twitter accounts.

Relational dynamics

Analysing the relational dynamics between these accounts as a group and those who choose to follow them is a key part of understanding the online strategies of “The most important jihadi and support sites for jihad and the mujahideen on Twitter”.

As we identified previously, the accounts had been categorized in different types by Ahmad ‘Abdallah. This underlines the diverse range of information, which was recommended to further the jihadist endeavour in general. In addition to understanding the specific accounts, the data can be used to analyse the network of individuals who follow the 66 ‘important jihadist’ accounts. The relationships are important as they influence the way individuals search for information, what they find and the behaviours they adopt.

We began by identifying the followers of the 66 ‘important jihadist’ accounts. If each of these accounts were followed by a different group of Twitter users, then this would mean that collectively they were reaching 1.8 million users. However, @mujtahidd alone is followed by over 1.1 million followers, and the real number following the remaining important jihadi accounts is much lower than 700,000. This is because some users follow more than one of the ‘important jihadist’ accounts. Using network analysis, we found that the network following one or more of these accounts (excluding @mujtahidd) was 377235 users and 852948 follower/following relationships. The image below represents the network of important accounts and their respective followers. Each Twitter account is represented by a dot, and those with a follower / following relationship are connected by a line.

The graph (above) shows the network of users identified to be following at least one of the ‘important jihadist’ accounts (excluding @mujtahidd). The colours have been used to highlight the groups of users who follow the same users (or same combination of the 66 ‘important jihadist’ accounts). A quick view of the network image reinforces the previous observation that most of the users are following only one or two of these high-profile accounts in the jihadist online media mind-set. The importance of this combined approach is the ability to analyse the combinations of accounts which users have chosen to follow.

For example, this view of the network shows the concentration of user names near the bottom of the image, (highlighted in red) indicating that there are a number of accounts with fewer followers where the overlaps in follower groups are more pronounced. The Jabhat al-Nusra twitter account (discussed in greater detail here) also has a number of followers in common with the cluster of users highlighted.

Focusing on the Network of the 66 ‘important jihadist’ Accounts

In addition to the potential to look at the followers of the 66 accounts claimed to be ‘most important’ by the Shumukh al-Islam posting, their profiles and time zones, the relationships between these specific 66 accounts can also provide analysts with insights. For example, JbhatALnusra, WaleedGaj2002, AsadAljehad2 are most frequently followed by the 66 ‘important jihadist’ accounts. Conversely, SaveArakan4, Mhaajrr, housse_100, and alassra2012 appear on the list of the 66, but few other ‘important jihadist’ accounts follow them. The ranking (shown below) is based on frequency of being followed by the 66 ‘important’ accounts are also reflected in the eigenvector calculations for the network. The relationships between the 66 accounts are shown in the image below, and be explored in greater detail by clicking on the image, which will open the interactive version. When using the interactive image, clicking on a node will focus on the connections of that user, double click to open the twitter account of that user.

Please note that the interactive image works best in the Chrome Browser.

The network as a whole represents 958 relationships between the 66 ‘important jihadist’ users with a network diameter of 5 (the distance between the furthest two nodes calculated on the directed graph). The network density is 0.2 on the directed graph (1 would represent a complete graph, where all connections would exist).

Key nodes in the network

In our previous post, we emphasized “we are analyzing these accounts that are defined in this [Shumukh al-Islam] posting as most important for jihadi sympathizers, but it does not necessarily mean that the individual Twitter accounts are an integral part of this worldview.” In this follow-up work, however, we, perhaps not surprisingly, found that the majority of the connected accounts are hard core jihadi media activists. From the above listed, we shall have a look at some of the high-profile hard core jihadist Twitter accounts.

As we analysed JbhatALnusra previously (here, here), let’s have a look at

@WaleedGaj2002

The account has over 45,000 followers while only following 387. Apparently this is the account of “former Guantanamo detainee and eyewitness of the Qila-e-Jangji massacre in Afghanistan” Walid [Muhammad] al-Hajj, from Sudan. According to his latest tweets, he still seems to be on the same page as the mainstream al-Qa’ida jihadis are, appraising Bin Laden and being cherished by other Twitter members for having known the shaykh personally. For further details, here is an interview with al-Jazeera. He was released in 2008. His leaked file is available via The New York Times.

@Strategyaffairs

This is a prolific and quite industrious jihadi media activists with over 100,000 followers and just over a little of 4,000 tweets. He is also active in most classical jihadist forums as ‘Abdallah bin Muhammad. Occasionally he has tweeted statements by the Yemeni AQAP prior to the ‘official’ broadcast within the forums and contextualized as well as posted the statements both within the forums and Twitter. Other Shumukh al-Islam members, for instance, used his Twitter-input to further the AQAP statements within the forum raising @Strategyaffairs status in general (example).

@EYADQUNAIBI

Doctor Iyad Qunaybi is somewhat of a rising star within the radical on- and offline scene. He is active on all social media outlets and his videotaped speeches are also transcribed and published within the jihadist forums. He rose to fame within this subculture in the past year and a half during the troubled times in Egypt and also responded to the jihadi affairs of life in general. By being included on Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi’s database tawhed.ws, his standing was boosted. Few of his writings and audiobits are available on his author page on tawhed.ws under Iyad al-Qunaybi. His input is valued, re-tweeted and re-disseminated within the forums, on Facebook, and further published on sites such as justpaste.it, see here for example.

@as_ansar

This is the official Twitter account of the bi-lingual Shabakat al-Ansar al-Mujahideen. The main forum is in Arabic and down and out for some time now. The English forum works. With the main forum gone for the while being, this is a good example on how Twitter has become a tangible alternative to the media driven jihadists, for the Twitter accounts remain alive and very active with their over 26,000 followers, untouched by any disruptions of the forums. The YouTube link above is an “invitation to Muslims to visit the forum” and recommends and instructs the use of Tor to conceal one’s identity online.

@Al_nukhba

This account could be described as a jihadi media hub. The members, active on the forums for years, are highly committed and regularly produce transcriptions of jihadist media productions. This is naturally very helpful for any analyst but is also quite a service for the jihadi audience. Usually speeches of main leaders and ideologues as well as major video productions of as-Sahab, al-Malahem etc. are transcribed and can be conveniently downloaded as a PDF or Word document. For a first hand impression on the quantity and quality of this media department’s work, check out their contributions on the Shumukh al-Islam forum here.

On their main website data collections and videos can be downloaded and also searched for. It is a well built and maintained datawarehouse for extremist content that is first and foremost uploaded and disseminated via the classical forums. The Twitter account has about 6,000 followers, over 500 tweets, and is following no one.

This had been one of the pioneer jihadi Twitter accounts and advertised their social media passion as early as 2009. Perhaps the name nukhbat al-I’lami al-jihadi, “the Jihadi Media Elite”, stems from Abu Mus’ab al-Suri’s “Message to the British and European Peoples and Governments regarding the Explosions in London”, July 2005, where he outlined the Internet as the most important medium to propagate and spread the jihadists demands and frame of reference in general. He referred to “the jihadi elite” residing in Europe to partake in this venture.

The ‘betweenness’ calculation highlights those users through which the shortest paths across the network most frequently pass. These users are often found near the centre of the network image. From the perspective of ‘betweenness’, in addition to some of the users mentioned above, also appear to have an important role bridging between different elements of the network.

To provide some additional insight in this, here is some basic information on

@Caucasusaffairs

The name of this account is program, everything related to the Caucasus, the Caucasus Emirate (analysis) with the focus on Chechnya is published here in mainly Arabic but also Russian. With over 44,000 followers while following over 400 and about 8,000 tweets this account is a valuable asset besides the main forums and their pertaining subsections. It mainly retweets the Arabic language media outlet “Echo of Caucasus” which is one of the main media hubs in Arabic for many years. You may note the four fingered black hand on the yellow background, a symbol to the Rabaa al-Adawiya protest camp whereby many pro-Mursi citizens were killed in Egypt recently. For more on this topic, check out the fantastic Closer blog here. The use of this icon in the Chechen context is yet another attempt by the media savvy jihadists to globalize their agenda and serves as proof for the repeated claim of the “war against Islam”. In the meantime this icon has been further ‘jihadised’ by adding the typical black banner, see here for example.

What does this tell us?

The density of the network has two results. First it creates mutually reinforcing clusters of information which can crowd out other perspectives and contribute to the development of a zeitgeist, or a new electronic propaganda frontier, as discussed in relation to activity of Jabhat al-Nusra.

Second, the density of the network tends to protect it against basic disruption strategies, for example the removal or suspension of individual accounts. As Paul Baran’s work On Distributed Communications has demonstrated only a small level of redundancy is required to build a communications systems to withstand heavy enemy attacks. Although this work was done in the context of the 1960s and was particularly focused on challenges faced in the 1970s, the insight provided by the study also relates to online activity and the need for more complex strategies to disrupt dense communication networks.

Who let the Dog out? A note on the German side of “jihadism”

Nico Prucha August 27, 2013

Recently two videos emerged on Twitter of Denis Cuspert aka Dego Dogg aka Abu Maleeq aka Abu Talha al-Almani who is allegedly shown in Syria as part of a group called Junud al-Sham. Both videos are “trailers” with the promise of full versions to be released soon.

The first video, published on August 14^th, is entitled “Abu Talha al-Almani Dokumentation Teaser”. The short clip was published by ShamCenter on YouTube and also disseminated via Twitter. It has been viewed about 180,000 times by August 25. As of August 28 it has over 190,000 views. It was also published with the Turkish title “Deso Dogg Suriye’de muhaliflerin safında Esed’e karşı savaşıyor” (“Deso Dogg fighting on the side of the opposition against al-Assad in Syria”). This had an additional 50,000 views as of August 25th and is up to over 90,000 views as of August 28.

The second video only has about 4,000 views as of 25 August and was also published by ShamCenter via YouTube and Twitter on August 20. This video is entitled “Abu Talha al-Almani Vortrag Trailer”, a preview of a forthcoming sermon for his fellow Mujahideen of the Junud al-Sham. In the description, the audience is reminded that this will be a “brief admonishment by your brother Abu Talha al-Almani.”

Twitter member @almnther posted a picture of Denis Cuspert, showing him before his reversion to Islam and transition as a “Salafist” now turned “jihadist”. The picture on the right shows the former rapper with limited fame after his migration to Syria.

The caption reads:

“He was one of the most famous rap singer in Germany, known as Deso Dogg. He embraced Islam and his name became Abu Malik with his nickname “Abu Talha al-Almani”. He left Germany for today he is [among] the rows of the Mujahideen in Syria.”

The picture on the left is taken from his album “all eyes on me” (sound bite here).

“Malik” was transliterated as “Maleeq”. When searching for “Abu Maleeq” on YouTube within the related SalafiMedia channels, the vast number of his appearances provides interesting insight into the progress of Cuspert’s reversion to Islam and his embrace of radicalism (see here, for example). It should be noted that the jihad music videos are sometimes enriched by pop-cultural aspects, or electronic game elements, such as the latest Call of Duty main theme which had been popular in jihadist circles (see here, other examples: Assassins Creed, Counter Strike, Facebook/CoD). His most recent Jihadi hit, al-Jannah al-Jannah, was published as usual by the Global Islamic Media Front and received some coverage in the German media. According to the article, German authorities warn that Cuspert has previously been involved in burglary, blackmail, armed robbery, assault, and manslaughter. “And today he doesn’t seem to be taking the rigid Islamic lifestyle too serious: investigators grade him as a “consumer of narcotics”, according to an internal LKA document.” As mostly the case, the “al-Jannah al-Jannah” nashid was advertised for on the Arabic and non-Arabic jihadist forums.

In the tweet, @almnther further states:

“to whoever looking at my tweets ((now)); repent to God; go forth to the land of jihad; await the extraordinary; embrace Islam, then go forth [to jihad], then fight. What will you do?”

Sham Center maintains a multilingual website of most likely German dominance where videos and news in general are posted, both from jihadi as well as mainstream media sources. Naturally, Twitter (note the German car sticker in the picture), Facebook, Google+, Skype (shamcenterinfo), email and other contact information is available.

The Twitter account has a mere 90 followers, with the majority consisting of mainly academics, journalists and CT analysts. The tweets replicate a typical jihadi style of content and rhetoric.

The Twitter activity consists of mostly provocative messages directed to German authorities (here) and some basic information on the conquest of parts of the area of the Jabal Akrad and Jabal Durin, as promoted in one of their videos in German, Russian, and Arabic. The claim to be soon advancing on the city of Latakia is repeated (visiting the German Mujahideen, Chechen fighters). The Chechen commander Abu al-Walid Muslim is prominently advertised by ShamCenter and is seen in a video explaining the territorial gains made in Russian (Arabic dubbed version here). Al-Walid has previously been one of the key leaders of the “Liwa’ al-Mujahideen bi ard al-Sham” (Latikia) and received some social media fame for his eulogy of a fellow Chechen explosives expert.

A German and Arabic language video of the attack and conquest of the Jabal Akrad and Durin was published by the Center and most tweets are related to the film (here, here, here).

The two videos

Let’s have a look at the first video, the “documentary about Abu Talha al-Almani”. The clip starts by visualizing his reversion to Islam, smiling into the camera with his “Thug Life” shirt and his movie styled crew before committing – what seems like – some kind of robbery. The title “A Documentary about Abu Talha al-Almani” flashes into the screen, summarized by the statement, “from the darkness, into the light.” This scene is concluded by Cuspert in his make-shift combat fatigue, sitting at a natural water spring splashing with water.

The teaser starts with an Arabic nashid which is then carried on in German by Cuspert smiling and claiming to now reside in the “land of honor” (Boden der Ehre), calling to Jihad in Syria. This is a reference to two German jihad videos of the same title by the Chouka brothers from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

The second video with far lesser views is of a more serious nature with Abu Talha being presented as both a real-deal mujahid and an ideologue who will give a lengthier sermon in the forthcoming film. Cuspert allegedly joined up with an unkown group called Junud al-Sham (“The Soldiers of al-Sham”, in short a reference to greater Syria). The video starts with a masked man hushing the audience to be silent, switching to perhaps the same water spring in the first video. It states “in cooperation with Junud ash-Sham, a talk by Abu Talha al-Almani: Holiday Greetings (Urlaubsgrüße)”. The following scene shows Cuspert in a military outfit, armed with a commando version of the AK47 marching in a forest area with an armed troop detail following in line. Most of the men are masked with last guy carrying a small AQ / ISI (or ISIS) flag. The “trailer” concludes with Cuspert sitting and apparently lecturing these Mujahideen who he has just, according to the video, led to this meeting point.

A very brief note on Denis Cuspert, aka Abu Talha al-Almani

Denis Cuspert, born 1975, (Deso Dogg) renounced his former rap-star career in an emotional video some time ago before he then started to rise as a new German-language nashid singer. He chose the name Abu Maleeq and is now known as Abu Talha al-Almani. At least in his hometown Berlin he was a known rapper and has become “somewhat as the first Jihad-Pop Star of Germany” (Schmidt, 2012).

He seemed to have been ideologically guided by his companion and leader, the Austro-Egyptian Mohammed Mahmoud (Steinberg, 2012), who took advantage of Deso Dogg’s musical skills to convey specific ideological notions and sentiments by nashid. A nashid is an a cappella styled Jihad-rhyme that in the meantime is an essential genre on- and offline to convey the content of jihadist ideology (for example here). Such battle-songs became popular during the 1980s but have since gained broader popularity thanks to online dissemination. German nashid, freely available on YouTube, are easy to comprehend, rhythmical, and contain religious Arabic code words. The effect of the ideological content is strengthened and emphasized by pictures or short video sequences. The ambition of Deso Dogg certainly is and had been to be one of the most important German nashid singers. The perhaps most impressive German hymn is “mother remain steadfast” (Mutter bleibe standhaft), recorded by Mounir Chouka, originally from Bonn, who is one of the key German media activists for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. He and his brother Yassin produce lots of videos and nashid from their base in the Pakistani Tribal areas (Prucha, 2012).

Deso Doggs appearance in two trailers, claiming to have travelled to Syria and joined the Junud al-Sham is intended to portray him as a mujahid who acts on his words and who now finally has the chance to engage in combat. The question remains for now to what extent he will fight, or even if he will fight at all, and go beyond acting merely as a media-mujahid / singer and preacher for the cameras, splashing around in waterfalls.

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