Using Social Media to Track the Activities of Western Jihadi Fighters in Syria

April 25, 2014

Author’s Note: This study proves that you can learn a lot about the activities of foreign militant groups operating in Syria and elsewhere around the world by closely monitoring social media. Facebook and Twitter feeds have now become critically important sources of intelligence information in the war on terrorism.

Greenbirds: Measuring Importance and Influence in Syrian Foreign Fighter Networks

Joseph A. Carter, Shiraz Maher and Peter R. Neumann

International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (London)

April 2014

Executive Summary

Context

• Over the last 12 months a team of researchers at ICSR have created a database which contains the social media profiles of 190 Western and European foreign fighters. More than two thirds of these fighters are affiliated with Jabhat al-Nusrah or the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) – two groups that have, at one point or another, maintained formal relationships with al-Qaeda. The social media activity of these users provides a unique and unfiltered window into the minds of Western and European foreign fighters in Syria. This paper series is named after their eulogising of fallen comrades as ‘Greenbirds,’ a scriptural reference to the virtues of their perceived martyrdom.

Aims

• This is the first in a series of papers that draws on information from this database. It examines the question of how foreign fighters in Syria receive information about the conflict and who inspires them.

Findings

• The paper shows that Syria may be the first conflict in which a large number of Western fighters have been documenting their involvement in conflict in real-time, and where – in turn – social media represents an essential source of information and inspiration to them. In the minds of the foreign fighters, social media is no longer virtual: it has become an essential facet of what happens on the ground.

• Based on our database, the report finds that a large number of foreign fighters receive their information about the conflict not from the official channels provided by their fighting groups, but through so-called disseminators – unaffiliated but broadly sympathetic individuals who can sometimes appear to offer moral and intellectual support to jihadist opposition groups. The ability of jihadist groups to exert control over information has been significantly eroded, while private individuals, who are (mostly) based in the West and who may have never set foot inside Syria, possess significant influence over how the conflict is perceived by those who are actively involved in it.

• The paper also reveals the existence of new spiritual authorities who foreign fighters in Syria look to for inspiration and guidance. Although there is no evidence to suggest these individuals are physically involved in facilitating the flow of foreign fighters to Syria, or that they are coordinating their activity with jihadist organisations, they are playing the role of cheerleaders.

Their statements and interactions can be seen as providing encouragement, justification, and religious legitimacy for fighting in the Syrian conflict, and – whether consciously or not – play an important role in radicalising some individuals.

• Based on quantitative analysis of their popularity within foreign fighter networks, the paper identifies the two most prominent of these new spiritual authorities as Ahmad Musa Jibril and Musa Cerantonio. Jibril, a U.S. based preacher with Arab roots who is in his early 40s, does not explicitly call to violent jihad, but supports individual foreign fighters and justifies the Syrian conflict in highly emotive terms. He is eloquent, charismatic, and – most importantly – fluent in English. So is Musa Cerantonio, a 29 year old Australian convert to Islam who frequently appears on satellite television and has become an outspoken cheerleader for ISIS. Both men are very different and consequently have different appeals. Ahmad Musa Jibril is a subtle, careful, and nuanced preacher, while Musa Cerantonio is much more explicit in his support for the jihadist opposition in Syria.

A complete copy of this report can be viewed here.