IsiL unleashes digital offensive

London: As armed extremist insurgents rolled into Mosul last week, seizing control of the city from cowed Iraqi security forces, their advance was matched by a digital offensive of equal prowess.

Like an artillery barrage ahead of an infantry advance, social media channels were bombarded with Twitter messages supporting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), the jihadi organisation leading the attack.

In the first day of the assault on Mosul, 40,000 pro-Isil tweets were unleashed, according to analysis by JM Berger, an author who researches extremism and social media, in a co-ordinated campaign of Twitter hashtags and digitally manipulated imagery.

Berger last week discovered that Isil has its own web app, catchily named the Dawn of Glad Tidings. Downloadable by its digital footsoldiers, it allows Isil’ social media command to beam coordinated messages into their Twitter feeds, allowing a diffuse, but coordinated, mass messaging programme.

“They have used social media to great effect,” says Nigel Inkster, former assistant chief of MI6, the UK intelligence service, and now director of transnational threats at the International Institute for Strategic Studies think-tank. “And its success was undeniably one of the factors in the collapse of the Iraqi army - they have been comprehensively psychologically bested.”

Within hours of seizing Mosul, images and videos surfaced - their release coordinated and deliberate - of Isil fighters executing Iraqi soldiers in cold blood. To anyone in Iraq, this is gruesomely familiar. Isil has been conducted a campaign of assassinations, bombings and kidnappings for months in Iraq, which have been actively promoted through digital media.

There are also signs the group is already preparing the ground for its next thrust: last week dozens of Twitter accounts began tweeting images of the Iraqi capital, accompanied by the hashtag “#IsilWeAreComingBaghdad”.

“It is beyond propaganda,” says Peter Neumann, director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at King’s College London. “It is a part of their military strategy.”

The approach is about more than just fear and intimidation.

Aaron Zelin, a fellow at the Washington Institute, points to the group’s use of hashtag campaigns such as “#SykesPicotOver” - a reference to Isil’ symbolic destruction of the borders between Syria and Iraq established last century by colonial writ - and “#RemainingandExpanding as an illustration of its concerns with the messaging of its mission and activities.

For well over a year in Syria, Isil has disseminated images of its community work - whether it is distributing alms to the poor, crucifying bandits or establishing consumer protection offices - to build a cohesive narrative of its activities well beyond warfare.

Isil’ social media activities also serve to rally support and project an image of power beyond the group’s physical abilities and reach.

Isil’ dominance of social media has indelibly associated them in the international media with the current insurgency and its successes in Iraq, for example, all but ignoring the complex range of supporting actors in the form of former Ba’athists and disgruntled Sunni tribal groups that make up the bulk of those fighting the Iraqi government.

Indeed, another popular hashtag used by the group in recent weeks has been “#bayah” - a pledge of allegiance - accompanied by images of Isil commanders meeting with local tribes, holding council, clasping hands and standing in front of the black banners of jihad.

Such images have cemented Isil’ position as the organising and controlling power in Iraq. Their effect is also cumulative and self-reinforcing.Dozens of jihadi groups in Syria and Iraq have a presence on Twitter, for example, but it is Isil which dominates because it has the best material to use.

“Whenever they raise a flag above a newly captured government building, whenever they set up a new sharia court, they tweet about it,” says Prof Neumann. “Social media is about leveraging their influence and their achievements.”

“Isil has a very powerful message,” he adds. “They are creating a caliphate.”

- Financil Times