Desperate Daesh wives lead social media war

Beirut: Smartphones in Syria are extremely popular among the youth for playing games, socialising with friends and for work. The phones are equally popular in Daesh-controlled areas of the country where the wives of Daesh terrorists play an active role in managing the group’s pages on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

Although Daesh has official media channels like the Hayat Centre and I’tissam Foundation, these outlets are generally run by an older generation of obsessively bureaucratic and rigid hardliners while social media is run via smartphones by younger Daesh militants.

The material that Daesh women post on social media is far from amateur. It is cutting-edge, trendy and well-planned. They reach out to both Muslim and Christian women in Europe.

These women are persuaded to abandon their former lives in the West, not by telling them of how sinful it was, but by portraying the image of a better life in Daesh-controlled areas.

Photographs are used to promote a sense of purpose behind marrying into the militant community and the ‘honour’ behind raising children to become new fighters for Islam.

Beheading, strict-dress codes and other not-so-nice practices of Daesh terrorists are not shown. Instead, they paint a rosy picture of family life in the ‘state’.

Some post selfies of themselves carrying automatic rifles while others post pictures attending wedding ceremonies, holding babies, sewing winter clothes, eating ice cream or making Nutella pancakes.

They also share pictures of their husbands playing pool or sunbathing by large swimming pools. During the 2014 World Cup, they always added game-related hashtags to make sure their posts get maximum exposure.

Interestingly enough, the Syrian government and international GSM operators have not fully banned Daesh accounts on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, ostensibly to keep a ‘watchful eye’ on the group.

One Daesh video released on March 17, 2014 by Al Furqan Media was viewed 56,998 times within 24-hours. Two months later, it had been tweeted 32,313 times over a 60-hour period which amounts to an average of 807.25 tweets per hour.

After Daesh seized Mosul in the summer of 2014, Daesh sent 40,000 tweets in 24 hours.

On Twitter, Daesh has excelled by organising massive hashtag campaigns. When in April 2015, Twitter deleted 10,000 Daesh-affiliated accounts in a mass purge, Daesh shifted their attention to alternative social media sites like Quitter, Friendica and Diaspora.

- Sami Moubayed is a Syrian historian and former Carnegie scholar. He is also author of “Under the Black Flag: At the frontier of the New Jihad”