Lessons From ISIS: Using the Internet for Counter-Terrorism

The initial use of the internet as a major propaganda tool to openly, and defiantly, showcase jihadist violence was executed by Al Shabaab, an Al-Qaeda aligned terror group in East Africa, when it live tweeted its attack on Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya in 2013. While the internet was used for propaganda earlier as well, terror groups, like common citizens, now had access to open social media platforms like everyone else, and potential jihadists now had unfiltered access to jihadist groups themselves. Bloom and Daymon in their research paper titled ‘Assessing the Future Threat: ISIS’s Virtual Caliphate’ join a chorus of other researchers such as Charlie Winter and Haroro J Ingram from the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism at The Hague in highlighting how ISIS has, by design and impeccable execution, changed the way the internet can be used for radicalisation. While Bloom and Daymon use the example of Russia-based encrypted chat app Telegram that dubiously gained global popularity for being the first choice of pro-ISIS activities, the narratives emboldened by such research now demands the digital domain be given the same precedence in counter-terrorism strategies as conventional hard power in all kinds of theatres of conflict.