The rise and rise of Islamic State has partly been a phenomenon of how it communicate. Its global networked use of new and traditional media has raised its profile from being unheard of to being a byword for terror in a matter of months. Whilst focus understandably remains on the success of the US-led military strategy, the battle for hearts and minds is a crucially important arena in which to confront it and one in which not only states should be leading the way on.
For a group that claims priority on returning to a caliphate of the past and bases much of its legitimacy of an interpretation of history, Islamic State uses the tools of globalisation as a core component of its movement. As the recent John Cantlie ‘report’ from Kobane showed the group uses social media as a weapon of war. The executions of hostages in iconic orange Guantanamo Bay-style clothes have made the front pages of papers worldwide while slick Hollywood-style recruitment films have been complemented by Twitter campaigns looking to hijack trending topics. It has television channels, magazines, newspapers and even video games to help promote the brand.
The Cantlie report was interesting (not to mention disturbing) in its attacks on the traditional media for their reporting of Kobane and the use of language (Islamic State fighters are described as ‘mujahideen’) and description of the groups tactics moving from conventional armoured assault to light infantry urban attacks. As Cantlie put it, ‘urban warfare is about as nasty and as tough as it gets, and it is something of a specialty of the mujahideen’.
Islamic State propaganda success is judged not only in the numbers of new recruits, with the United Nations estimating that 6,000 fighters a month have been signing up ‘to the cause’ in Syria, but also how these tools can be used for effective internal communications. Different Islamic State ‘branches’ around the world can connect and learn from each other via YouTube and social media as alternatives to expensive and cumbersome traditional pamphlets. This has become so embedded in its thinking that new GCHQ head, Robert Hannigan, has described the open source sites such as Facebook and Twitter as having become ‘command and control’ tools for Islamic State.
So how to effectively counter this new form of terrorism? US Professor Phillip Bobbit sees the fight against Islamic State as a test of a new world order: ‘a new international order whose stability is being tested in its youth’. Currently there is a coalition of more than 60 countries supporting the government of Iraq against Islamic State with a smaller number engaged on the Syrian side of the border. States involved in the campaign against Islamic State can take advantage of the reams of open source social media as a means of building a profile of the organisation, its structure, key individuals and tactics. Islamic State sent out 40,000 tweets an hour during its operation to capture the Iraqi city of Mosul. There is even the possibility of using IP addresses to direct military action such as airstrikes.
The beleaguered ‘moderate Syrian opposition’ has been promised support as part of the Obama strategy and this support should learn to use some of the tools that have been successful for Islamic State. The US director of national intelligence recently testified that the Syrian opposition is composed of at least 1,500 separate militias. Again, the use of new technology to provide a sense of universal mission as well as tactical nous should be something that is explored and moves the conversation on from the endless debate about the supply of high-tech weapons and surface to air missiles to how to effective connect a network.
Civil society arguably has an equally important role to play in winning hearts and minds and stopping the flow of fighters to Islamic State. Both the ‘not in my name’ and the ‘WithSyria’ campaign have shown how Islamic State’s mandate can be challenged and that online creativity can be used as an effective tactic in this confrontation. WithSyria is a movement of over 130 organisations and people around the world not taking sides but standing in solidarity with those caught in conflict. Indeed it should be remembered how Islamic State is still a small number of individuals compared to the 10 million or so Syrians who have been forced from their homes but are seldom heard.
Although the physical fight against Islamic State can feel very far away the battle of legitimacy and ideas is one that we all have to be part of.
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James Denselow is a foreign policy specialist at the Foreign Policy Centre. He tweets @JamesDenselow
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