The precise composition of the ISIS media team was unknown (or more accurately, it was the subject of conflicting reports with uncertain sourcing), but some elements became clear over time. Many regional hubs where ISIS operated had their own media departments, including Raqqa and Deir Ez-zoor in Syria, and Diyala, Saladin, Mosul, and Kirkuk in Iraq. Their Twitter accounts routinely published photos, videos, and text updates about ISIS activities, creating a remarkably robust (if carefully manipulated) record of ISIS’s activities.16
A number of Westerners were involved in the media project. In May 2014, ISIS debuted an outlet dedicated to disseminating material in English and European languages. The Al Hayat (Arabic for “Life”) Media Center ramped up at a critical time for ISIS, just weeks before the dramatic military offensive and caliphate proclamation that would put it on the front pages. Al Hayat translated ISIS’s Arabic propaganda into English, including The Clanging of the Swords Part 4, but it also produced original content that revealed the complexity of the organization’s media strategy.17
In May and June, Al Hayat rolled out multiple English-language magazines, some of which recycled content from social media, and others that included original reporting from areas ISIS controlled. The stories included coverage of battles but also devoted many pages to ISIS’s efforts to govern, such as the execution of a “sorcerer” and religious training for imams. One issue spotlighted ISIS’s consumer protection bureau in Raqqa, which held merchants responsible for the quality of goods they sold.18, 19
More issues of the magazines came out in quick succession, seven issues by mid-June. After their initial release in English, most of the issues were also distributed in French and German editions.
The publications continued to present the society that ISIS was building, including reports on agriculture and the ISIS police force. One issue was devoted to the dramatic capture of Mosul in early June. Concurrently, another spotlighted the violent side of ISIS, with page after page of graphic images showing the execution of criminals and prisoners, some with their brains splattered on the ground, others cut to pieces.20
The strange dichotomy of ultraviolence and civil order was echoed throughout ISIS’s many streams of propaganda. Although the image was to some extent contrived, the overall package represented something new and different in the world of jihadism. ISIS was projecting its vision of a comprehensive society that went beyond the nihilistic destruction associated with the jihadist movement. This society, ISIS argued, existed in the here and now, and the organization approached the project with clear enthusiasm.21
The concept of governing had been circulating through al Qaeda for years, and its affiliates in Mali and Yemen had both made efforts to seize territory and build out social services. But neither had been able to hold its ground for long. Furthermore, they seemed uninterested in the work based on its own merits, acting instead out of a cynically manipulative impulse.
“Try to win them over through the conveniences of life and by taking care of their daily needs like food, electricity and water,” the emir of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (in Yemen) wrote to the emir of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (in North Africa). “Providing these necessities will have a great effect on people, and will make them sympathize with us and feel that their fate is tied to ours.”22
Unlike its counterparts in Yemen and North Africa, ISIS seemed to relish providing services, rather than simply seeing it as a PR strategy (although the sustainability of these efforts was an open question). When it took control of an area, ISIS wasted no time outfitting police cars, ambulances, and bureaucracies with its ubiquitous black flag emblem. ISIS put traffic cops at intersections; in addition to its law enforcement and consumer protection bureau, it opened a complaints desk and nursing homes. Its members radiated enthusiasm for these projects.23
AQAP had also advised AQIM to refrain from immediately instituting the jihadists’ harsh interpretation of Islamic law. “You can’t beat people for drinking alcohol when they don’t even know the basics of how to pray,” one letter stated.
ISIS had other ideas. Not only did it implement a draconian regime of crime and punishment, which its members believed to be divinely ordained, but it celebrated and painstakingly documented the process in its propaganda, publicizing everything from the destruction of cigarettes and drug stashes to the amputation of thieves’ hands “under the supervision of trained doctors” to the genocidal extermination and enslavement of Iraqi minorities.24
In many ways, the combination of elements was unprecedented. Nazi Germany, whose parallels in propaganda and brutality often invited comparisons to ISIS, had produced masterful propaganda while carrying out a painstakingly documented program of genocide, but these were separate efforts. Its propaganda did not celebrate the genocide; rather it served to justify an imperative to act in the name of national and racial purity without sharing the gruesome reality. The Nazis did not broadcast their atrocities to the world.
In stark contrast, ISIS presented its vision of a demented utopia in which children played with severed heads and ran laughing down streets lined with mangled bodies instead of trees. A seemingly endless procession of atrocities was captured in photographs and videos, and distributed through both official and unofficial channels on social media.25
To some extent, the shocking violence seen in these messages owed a debt to The Management of Savagery, the jihadist tract that heavily influenced ISIS’s strategy across multiple fronts.26 Al Naji wrote of the necessity of violence, in all its “crudeness and coarseness,” in order to awaken potential recruits to the reality of the jihadis’ war and to intimidate enemies by showing the price they would pay for their involvement. But, he wrote, “we find that every stage of our battle needs methods that are soft and the like in order to counterbalance that (violence) so that the situation will be in good order.”27
While much of the propaganda was intended for a Western audience, it also served audiences in Syria and Iraq, where for many sectarian hatred equaled or trumped dreams of caliphate building.
In its publications and in countless videos, ISIS extolled the virtues of killing the rafidah (a derogatory term for Shi’a Muslims) and the nusayri (a derogatory term for Alawites, members of a sect of Shi’a Islam practiced by members of the Syrian regime). ISIS videos documented the grisly killing of unarmed Shi’a prisoners by the hundreds, compared to the relative handful of Westerners who captured the attention of the media. Away from the cameras, the blood flowed even more freely, with reports of thousands of sectarian killings, often of unarmed prisoners.
The flood of propaganda in May and June was a deliberate prequel to the June 30 proclamation that ISIS had reestablished the “caliphate” and renamed itself simply “The Islamic State,” dropping the limiting geographic identifiers of Iraq and Syria. ISIS had been telegraphing the audacious move for months, and the flurry of new publications in the weeks before the announcement were branded simply with the “Islamic State” name. Although many users still referred to it by the acronym ISIS, the shortened name had been heard in numerous propaganda videos for months.28
The announcement came on June 29, the start of Ramadan, in the form of an audio message from ISIS spokesman al Adnani, titled “This Is the Promise of Allah.” In addition to the Arabic audio, translations of the statement were released in English, French, German, and Russian.29
In the speech, Adnani argued that ISIS was obliged to declare the return of the caliphate, and that Muslims everywhere were obliged to pledge loyalty to the new caliph, Ibrahim, formerly known as Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. In addition, he said, “all emirates, groups, states, and organizations” were now null and void.
This specifically included all other jihadist groups, Adnani explained. “We do not find any (Islamic legal) excuse for you justifying holding back from supporting this state,” he said, adding ominously, “And if you forsake the State or wage war against it, you will not harm it. You will only harm yourselves.”
Adnani urge
d Muslims from around the world to come to the Islamic State, again dispensing with the narrative of the weakness of the Muslim world and reinforcing months of messaging about the organization’s strength and purpose, using the word “victory” fifteen times in the course of thirty-four minutes.
“We fight for an ummah to which Allah has given honor, esteem, and leadership, promising it with empowerment and strength on the earth,” he said. “Come O Muslims to your honor, to your victory. By Allah, if you disbelieve in democracy, secularism, nationalism, as well as all the other garbage and ideas from the West, and rush to your religion and creed, then by Allah, you will own the earth, and the east and west will submit to you. This is the promise of Allah to you. This is the promise of Allah to you.”
The refrain of victory again reflected the advice of the jihadist tract The Management of Savagery. However ISIS took a page from the playbook of the enemy, at least as it was understood by Abu Bakr al Naji, the tract’s author. Al Naji opined that the world’s superpowers had created a “deceptive media halo which portrays these powers as non-coercive and world-encompassing,” projecting an “aura of invincibility.”30
As ISIS took full form, refining its media output carefully at each stage, it adopted its own halo. Victory was not only near, it was here. Regardless of how tenuous or risky its actions might appear to an objective observer, ISIS put a halo on its actions at every step, co-opting the very approach al Naji attributed to enemy powers.
Although ISIS was continually honing its messaging machine, the reaction to the announcement was mixed at best, exciting those who were already fully in ISIS’s camp but leaving other jihadists incredulous. ISIS adherents who expected a groundswell of support from ordinary Muslims everywhere were destined to be sorely disappointed.
ISIS’s online supporters rushed to celebrate the few pledges that trickled in during the early days, which came almost exclusively from small groups that had previously pledged allegiance to ISIS. Many supporters on social media seemed baffled and hurt that the announcement was being greeted with derision by Muslims of all persuasions around the world. Wild rumors erupted that everyone from the Taliban to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had pledged loyalty to ISIS, only to deflate days or hours later.31
But their slogan, repeated by Adnani in the announcement, was “The Islamic State will remain,” and the core supporters continued to work at selling the audacious idea of the caliphate, as the messaging machine ramped up. As recent months had shown, ISIS’s media machine was increasingly organized and sophisticated, but the quality was often wildly inconsistent.
Just days after the announcement, the new “caliph” showed his face for the first time. In a carefully staged ISIS propaganda video, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi was seen climbing to the pulpit of a mosque in Mosul, where he delivered a perfunctory speech to a subdued crowd.32 Will McCants, a scholar with the Brookings Institution and expert on Islamist politics, commented that the speech was “jihadi catnip.”33
While the words were powerful, the man was distant. The speech hit many classic jihadi tropes, but Baghdadi’s delivery was flat and unexciting. Nevertheless, it continued to build on the now-prevalent theme that ISIS was powerful and already victorious.
Unlike its predecessors, ISIS did not seek a far-off dream of the caliphate. The caliphate was here and now. Echoing a phrase used by Adnani in the announcement, Baghdadi referred to the caliphate as the “abandoned obligation” of this era. It was another subtle but effective inversion of al Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist groups, whose messaging often spoke of jihad as the “forgotten duty.”34
Strangely, ISIS’s message was less nihilistic than the “less extreme” al Qaeda, whose scholars were known to argue that fighting was the only thing that mattered and could not end until the Day of Judgment, regardless of whether the jihadists were winning or losing. This was the argument of someone who expected to lose.35
Baghdadi and his minions were having none of it.
“Here the flag of the Islamic State, the flag of (monotheism), rises and flutters,” he intoned. “Its shade covers land from Aleppo to Diyala. Beneath it, the walls of the (illegitimate rulers) have been demolished, their flags have fallen, and their borders have been destroyed. Their soldiers are either killed, imprisoned, or defeated. The Muslims are honored.”
Despite the tepid response, ISIS continued to flood the Internet with more propaganda. Concurrent with the release of Baghdadi’s speech, the Al Hayat Media Center published the first issue of Dabiq, a new English-language magazine (in an online format).36 It was subsequently released in several other languages.
Dabiq was a small town in Syria, near the border of Turkey, which figured heavily in an Islamic end times prophecy that predicted that Muslims would defeat “Rome,” which jihadis had long reimagined as a reference to the Western powers, in the area of Dabiq, before going on to conquer Constantinople, present-day Istanbul.37 The prophecy was quoted at length in the opening pages of the magazine.38
The lead story, unsurprisingly, was the declaration of the caliphate, proclaimed in colorful banner headlines—“A new era has arrived of might and dignity for the Muslims,” echoing Baghdadi’s speech, which was excerpted at length.
The magazine was remarkable in several respects. It called for hijra, religious emigration inspired by the travels of the Prophet Muhammad, and not just for fighters. In an article in Dabiq, ISIS asked for “doctors, engineers, scholars” and “people with military, administrative and service expertise.” Although jihadist groups were frequently bureaucratic, none had so publicly recruited middle managers before.
The fifty-page magazine also featured religious justifications for ISIS’s ascension to caliphate status and reports on its military victories, including the now routine pictures of mangled enemy corpses. It borrowed a page from al Qaeda propaganda and quoted Western terrorism analysts to boost its credibility. Over the course of 2014, Al Hayat issued three more issues of the magazine.
As the summer gave way to fall, ISIS continued to flood the Internet with propaganda, and Western media outlets increasingly took note. “Slick” was the word of the hour, endlessly repeated in news stories and broadcasts. (A search for “slick,” “video,” and “ISIS” on Google yielded more than 5 million hits in November 2014.)
The tipping point arrived in late summer.
THE BEHEADINGS
On August 19, ISIS released a video titled “A Message to America.” Clocking in at just under five minutes, it opened with a clip of President Obama announcing the administration’s plans to carry out air strikes against ISIS.39
The scene cut to an image of James Foley, an American reporter who had been kidnapped in Syria in 2012. He had been transferred among various rebel groups, and ultimately ended up in the hands of ISIS. The United States had attempted to rescue him just a month earlier, unsuccessfully.40
Foley was kneeling in the desert sun, arms bound behind him, dressed in an orange jumpsuit meant to invoke the garb worn by jihadist prisoners of the United States in Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq during the American occupation. As with the drone imagery in Clanging of the Swords Part 4, it was yet another inversion by ISIS, usurping another powerful image associated with American domination. A masked ISIS fighter in black stood next to him.
A small, black microphone, of the sort used in Western news broadcasts, was clipped to the collar of his shirt.
Foley began to speak in a clear, steady voice.
“I call on my friends, family, and loved ones to rise up against my real killers, the U.S. government,” he said. The video had been filmed using multiple cameras and it cut seamlessly from one angle to the next. “For what will happen to me is only a result of their complacency and criminality.”
Foley painfully reproached his family, including his brother, a member of the U.S. military, referencing U.S. strikes against ISIS.
“I died that day, John; when your colleagues dropped that bomb on those people, they signed my death certifica
te.”
Foley said he wished he had more time.
“I guess, all in all, I wish I wasn’t an American.”
The ISIS fighter then took over. He spoke in a British accent, accusing the United States of aggression against ISIS.
“You are no longer fighting an insurgency,” he said. “We are an Islamic army.”
The fighter bent to Foley and put a knife to his throat and began to saw. The video cut away before blood began to flow. When the picture resumed, the camera panned over Foley’s dead body, his head severed and placed on the small of his back.
In the final scene, the fighter reappeared, gripping another hostage, an American journalist named Steven Sotloff, by the collar of his orange jumpsuit.
“The life of this American citizen, Obama, depends on your next decision,” the fighter said as the video concluded, an excruciating cliffhanger that promised more agony to come. ISIS had learned from the Salil as-Sawarim series, the power of telling a spare, minimal story, framed by horrific violence.
The video exploded onto the Internet, as ISIS supporters took to social media to make sure their message was delivered not just to American policy makers, but to anyone whose attention they could reach (see Chapter 7).
In the weeks that followed, the short script would repeat itself over and over again, one hostage after another executed as the world watched in horror, again following the blueprint in The Management of Savagery, whose author specifically advised the taking of hostages to send a lesson about “paying the price” to anyone who would oppose the jihadis’ campaigns. “The hostages should be liquidated in a terrifying manner, which will send fear into the hearts of the enemy and his supporters,” the author wrote.41
By October, ISIS had beheaded three more Westerners, each installment concluding with a new hostage whose life was placed on the line. The target audience expanded past the United States with the execution of British aid workers Alan Henning and David Haines. Many ISIS Twitter users crashed hashtags for British television shows and directed harassing tweets and videos at British prime minister David Cameron’s official Twitter account.42
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