By Moustafa Ayad, Nadeem Khan and Aymenn al-Tamimi

his report highlights the networks, supporters, and the platforms of Islamic State disinformation disseminators, focusing on popular social media platforms as well as encrypted messaging applications. These disinformation networks are creating self-branded media outlets with followers in the tens of thousands, and often with innocuous names like “Global Happenings,” “DRIL” and “Media Center,” to evade moderation and takedowns. These same networks use coded language and a codebook of emojis to spread Islamic State “news” to other networks of supporters, who similarly evade moderation. These ‘alternative news outlets’ are trying to outcompete narratives publicized by government officials as well as independent mainstream media and individual journalists – groups that were also heavily targeted by Islamic State.

London: IDS - Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2022. 22p.

By Yannick Veilleux-Lepage, Chelsea Daymon and Emil Archambault

  While the existence of terrorist alliances is well documented in terrorism studies,1 how terrorist groups learn from and mimic their adversaries’ tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) remains largely unexplored. Building on existing terrorist innovation literature, this report introduces a framework to understand what factors can propel or hinder a terrorist group’s adoption of new TTPs. Focusing on three emerging technologies – namely, cloud‑based messaging applications, weaponised unmanned aerial vehicles and social media bots – this report traces how racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists (REMVE) adopted or failed to adopt practices originating with Islamic State. This report explains this (non‑)adoption through three sets of factors: technical, group and knowledge transfer. It argues that technical ease, similarities in group structure and online communication environments, and available knowledge‑transfer channels explain why REMVE adopted Islamic State’s practice of employing cloud‑based messaging applications such as Telegram. Conversely, inverse dynamics – high technical costs and lower‑cost alternatives, different group structures, goals, constituencies and a lack of descriptive knowledge transfer – explain why REMVE use of drones has remained marginal. Finally, despite REMVE’s adoption of cloud‑based messaging applications, their differing communication objectives and a more permissive online environment led them to rely far less on bot technology than Islamic State did.  

London:  The Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET) 2022. 35p.

By The Soufan Center

The self-styled Islamic State is an accident of history, emerging from multiple social, political, and economic tensions in the Middle East and beyond. It has challenged the territorial divisions imposed on the region following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire by carving out for itself a large area of territory.

Washington, DC: The Soufan Center, 2014. 80p

By Russell D. Howard, Marc D. Elliott, and Jonathan R. Prohov

In this monograph, the authors offer compelling research that reminds government and military officials of the moral, legal, and ethical dimensions of protecting cultural antiquities from looting and illegal trafficking. Internationally, states generally agree on the importance of protecting antiquities, art, and cultural property not only for their historical and artistic importance, but also because such property holds economic, political, and social value for nations and their peoples. Protection is in the common interest because items or sites are linked to the common heritage of mankind. The authors make the point that a principle of international law asserts that cultural or natural elements of humanity’s common heritage should be protected from exploitation and held in trust for future generations. The conflicts in Afghanistan, and especially in Iraq and Syria, coupled with the rise of the Islamic State (IS), have brought renewed attention to the plight of cultural heritage in the Middle East and throughout the world.

MacDill Air Force Base, Florida: Joint Special Operations University Press, 2016. 112p.

By Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has been the subject of intense scrutiny in the West. Considered by many to be the most dangerous terrorist organisation in the world, it has become shrouded in numerous myths and narratives, many emanating from the US, which often fail to grasp its true nature. Against these narratives, Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou presents a bold new theory of ISIS. By tracing its genealogy and documenting its evolution in Iraq and Syria, he argues that ISIS has transcended Osama Bin Laden’s original project of Al Qaeda, mutating into an unprecedented hybrid form that distils postcolonial violence, postmodernity and the emerging post-globalisation international order. This book analyses ISIS from a social sciences perspective and unpacks its dynamics by looking beyond superficial questions such as its terrorist nature and religious rhetoric. It transforms our understanding of ISIS and its profound impact on the very nature of contemporary political violence.

London: Pluto Press, 2017. 279p.