The Jihadi Archive: A Database of Terrorist Tactics and Techniques
Abstract
The online media platforms of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) blend graphic audiovisual content with ideological religious writings to sanction and justify violent terrorist tactics throughout the world. ISIS has utilized Internet propaganda to its advantage, not only to bolster its expansion in Iraq and Syria, but for recruitment and dissemination of their ideology worldwide. In recent years, Jihadi groups like ISIS have relied on open Application Programming Interface (API) platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Tumblr to distribute such content. These social media platforms have been under considerable pressure to monitor and delete the accounts of a variety of bad actors from across the political spectrum; as a result, these companies have started to increasingly police their own platforms and delete accounts identified as disseminating propaganda. However Telegram, a semi-encrypted platform created by Pavel Durov remains the Jihadi~s favorite platform.Understanding why Telegram is used by ISIS and its supporters leads us to explore in more detail how it is used, and its impact. Encrypted platforms have become the primary means for ISIS radicalization, recruitment, and planning. For example, Telegram was used to recruit and coordinate the November 2015 Paris attacks and 2016 Brussels bombings.In addition to uncovering information related to plots, the daily monitoring of ISIS activities on Telegram has led our Minerva-funded research team to compare the addictive properties of terrorist online engagement to research on gambling addictions that foster emotional dependency. Social media platforms, like Telegram, are the ideal venues for generating out-group hatred. As time spent on social media reduces in-person social interactions, the potential for individual isolation and loneliness increases. As we see in various studies, the excessive use of social media increases feelings of hopelessness, anxiety, and loss of interest in life (all indicators of depression) among teenagers. Internet users can also develop an emotional attachment to online acquaintances they make in the virtual world. The sustained presence on Telegram channels and chat rooms suggests addiction as well as a psycho-social dependence to the virtual world similar to other media platforms. However these other platforms are more heavily policed and scrutinized in ways that Telegram is not. Our research observes the recruitment of loners, outsiders, or people who do not quite ~fit in~ and whose lack of binding social ties and commitment render them ~structurally available~ across a variety of terrorist movements, from Jihadi Salafis to the extreme right wing.Despite ISIS~ territorial loss, its online presence has increased and metastasized to new regions and languages and Telegram channels that had been shut down, have reemerged in recent weeks. Indeed, the prevalent use of peer-to-peer encrypted messaging by ISIS does not show signs of decline despite premature predictions that the group is in its final death throes. The continued relevance of semi-encrypted platforms is apparent; in February 2019, as the ISIS Caliphate was largely destroyed and its territorial control came under Kurdish, Iraqi, or Syria Defense Forces~ (SDF) rule, there was an upsurge in ISIS Telegram channels published simultaneously in twenty languages. This project seeks to continue to collect, code and tag Jihadi materials found in the semi encrypted platforms.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Sep 30, 2019
- Source ID
- N000141912701
Entities
People
- Mia Bloom
Organizations
- Georgia State University
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy