By Remy Mahzam
Introduction
Recognising that wars are no longer confined to the physical battlefields, the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group has since 2014 embarked on an aggressive propaganda campaign in cyberspace through the release of various online publications like Dabiq (discontinued since August 2016), Amaq News, Al-Naba and Rumiyah. Since its debut in September 2016, Rumiyah (‘Rome’ in Arabic), which draws its title from a Prophetic tradition foretelling the fall of the West, is a strategic distraction from the realities on the ground characterised by the considerable loss of territory and revenue, heavy casualties and low morale among fighters. The launch of Rumiyah came precisely at a time when the rhetoric to justify the final battle in Syria seemed counter-intuitive and signalled a strategic shift in IS’ modus operandi, with the battle against its enemies going not only beyond the Middle East but also into the realm of the digital.
The New Face of Terrorism Propaganda
In terms of substance, Rumiyah is not dissimilar to its predecessor Dabiq or other jihadist publications such as Al-Qaeda’s Inspire or Jabhat Al-Nusra’s Al-Risalah. It is however likely to be more influential in the realm of jihadist propaganda given its wider reach. Translated into 10 languages (English, Bahasa, Bosnian, French, German, Kurdish, Pashto, Russian, Turkish and Uyghur), IS’ narratives could easily be localised and tailored to fit the readership and dynamics of particular communities in the respective regions, from the Middle East to Xinjiang and Southeast Asia. Its availability in multi-lingual forms is designed to appeal to a broad spectrum of adherents across the world compared to previous IS foreign language publications, like the Russian language Исtок (Istok), Turkish language Konstantiniyye, French language Dar Al Islam and Bahasa language Al-Fatihin which only catered to a specific demographic or locality.
Each monthly issue of Rumiyah averages around 40 pages – an abridged and streamlined version of Dabiq (which was nearly twice in length). Each issue is sub-divided thematically, and includes a segment on latest news updates from the battlefields. Rumiyah complements two of IS’ publications released in Arabic, Al-Naba (released weekly) and Amaq News Agency (released daily). The release of Amaq News Agency, Al-Naba and Rumiyah in conjunction with each other is a telling indication of IS’ current media strategy: to dominate and thrive in cyberspace through frames of misinformation, and compete with mainstream news.
To avert attention on its military decline, IS uses Rumiyah to purvey carefully-crafted narratives to amplify its strengths and reframe its setbacks, while assuring its supporters of eventual victory. Undeterred by the recent death of the group’s chief propagandist Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, IS’ media apparatus continues to operate under the group’s lesser known spokesman, Abul Hasan Al-Muhajir.
Rumiyah epitomises the next phase of IS’ propaganda warfare. As IS progresses into a techno-savvy terrorist organisation, it has deployed hybrid warfare in the form of military operations and media engagement through networks in Europe, West Africa, Somalia, Sinai (Egypt), Khorasan (Afghanistan and Pakistan), Qawqaz (Caucasus) and Southeast Asia (Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia). The group continues the fight to maintain its self-proclaimed caliphate, making it an obligatory objective for all its supporters to struggle for.
Justifying Terrorism
To intensify its campaign of terror, IS used Rumiyah to feature successful terrorist attacks and instigate its supporters to emulate these attacks and improvise where necessary, under what it calls ‘Just Terror Tactics’ as outlined in an article in Issue 2. It details explicit instructions on how to carry out self-directed attacks using knives, with the exhortation to take “simple and readily accessible materials” to conduct a campaign of “just terror operations”. The main targets are those in Dar al-Kufr – territories which are not governed by the laws of Islam.
Rumiyah Issue 3 released in November 2016 focuses on the use of vehicles to kill. This method of attack was adopted by Lahouaiej-Bouhlel who had deliberately driven a 19-tonne cargo truck into the crowd during Bastille Day celebrations in Nice, France in July 2016. Similarly in Berlin, a truck driven by Anis Amri also known as Abul-Bara at-Tunisi hit a crowd at a Christmas market beside Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. Both assailants of the truck attacks in Nice and Berlin, were lauded in Rumiyah as “Soldiers of the Khilafah” and were described to have carried out their so called “just terror operations” in response to calls to target the citizens of states that are fighting against IS.
The Knife Attack strategy is revisited in Rumiyah Issue 4 (December 2016), with an info-graphic offering advice on the usage of knives and choosing targets. This issue was released about the same time as a video posted by Wilayat Raqqah media arm titled, “You Must Fight Them, O Muwahhid” featuring a French-speaking militant detailing instructions on how to engage in knife attacks and a tutorial on making improvised explosive devices (IED) using household items.
Issue 5 of Rumiyah (January 2017) shifts the focus to arson attacks using readily accessible flammables. It also singles out the First Baptist Dallas church in the US state of Texas which it refers to as “a popular Crusader gathering place waiting to be burned down.” The article provides steps on how to make Molotov cocktail and Napalm explosives using home-made items and went on further to explain how to claim responsibility after the attacks.
Throughout, readers are exposed to various terminologies which reinforce the narrative of a so-called war between Islam and the West and others, with references to the Kuffār (infidels), Murtāddin (apostates), Tawāghīt (tyrannical rulers), Rafida (Shiites), Sahwāt (Syrians or Iraqis who have collaborated with the US-led coalition) and the ‘Crusaders’ (the West or Christians). These groups of people have been unconditionally identified by IS as enemies of God. As such, attacks on them have been described as “just terror” – acts that are portrayed as not only religiously acceptable, but obligatory and worthy.
Verses from the Qur’an and Hadith (Prophetic traditions) and words of famous scholars including theologian Abul-‘Abbas Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn al-Jawzi, are excessively cited in Rumiyah’s articles. The publication exploits selected chapters of Islamic history, often taking out of context Prophetic episodes in the medieval era to justify the case for migration (hijrah), as evident in “Hijrah Does Not Cease as Long as the Kuffar Are Fought”. It also takes out of context the meaning of martyrdom (istishhadi) in “Examples of Sahabah’s Eagerness to Attain Shahadah”, and condones the merciless killing of enemies in “The Kafir’s Blood is Halal For You, So Shed It”. Rumiyah is also replete with inspirational stories of ordinary militants shared in “Among the Believers are Men: Abu Mansur al-Muhajir” and “Paths to Victory by Abu Hamzah Al-Muhajir”.
IS’ Calls for Attacks
With the addition of Rumiyah to the ever-growing IS-centric media apparatus, IS has repeated its calls for terrorist attacks to be executed outside the self-proclaimed caliphate. These attacks serve three purposes: First, to inflict substantial collateral damage on enemy infrastructure in various locations across the world. Second, to display IS’ enduring influence by boosting its branding through the acknowledgement of attacks. Third, to inspire a new generation of young, internet-savvy militants through the documentation of their terror experiences. Perpetrators inspired by IS are advised to leave "some kind of evidence or insignia identifying the motive and allegiance to the Khalifah” after performing an attack. The mode of IS-inspired attacks which occurred from June to December 2016 bear striking similarities to those advocated in Rumiyah’s foreword:
22-year-old Dahir Ahmed Adan had used steak knives during the mass stabbing attack at a shopping mall in the US state of Minnesota in September 2016 and was known to have had no previous connection to violence and extremism.
Two 16-year-old Australian teenagers were arrested in October 2016 on suspi- cion of planning a knife attack. They had in their possession bayonet-style knives and notes pledging allegiance to IS.
Amaq News Agency took credit for a murder in Hamburg, Germany in October 2016 in which a 16-year-old boy was stabbed in Kennedybrücke. The real motive of the attack is still not known but it is suspected to be in retaliation for Ger many’s participation in anti-IS bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria.
In Tangerang, three Indonesian traffic police officers were stabbed by a 22-year- old IS supporter in October 2016. The attacker was armed with two unexploded improvised explosive device (IED) described as pipe bombs and an IS sticker.
In November 2016, a furniture factory which was set ablaze in Losino-Petrovsky, Moscow, has been cited in Rumiyah issue 5 as an act of arson performed by a soldier of the Khilafah.
The assailant of the Ohio State University attack in November 2016, 18-year-old Abdul Razak Ali Artan, used both knife and vehicle methods as endorsed in Rumiyah when he rammed his car into a crowd on the Columbus campus before charging out with a knife.
Abu Suleman, leader of the Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) linked-IS Bengal Caliphate operatives, gave a directive to use knives as a weapon for attacks. Investigations revealed that IS- JMB members were instructed to focus on carrying out knife attacks and not to source for guns or bombs so as to avoid detection from intelligence agencies.
Rumiyah’s Targets
Rumiyah’s narratives (and for that matter Dabiq’s also, before its cessation) are targeted at three broad groups of readers – IS fighters, supporters and sympathisers, IS enemies (that includes the ‘Crusaders’ and Shiites), and potential recruits from the large middle ground of Muslims across the world, particularly Muslim minorities in the West and in conflict zones.
For its fighters and supporters in and outside Iraq and Syria, IS hopes to boost their morale, strengthen their resolve and empower them to mount terrorist acts by highlighting IS’ operational strength and potency, the caliphate’s viability, and successes in battlefronts and terrorist attacks. Rumiyah articles boast of inflicting considerable damage on its enemies. Info-graphics laden with battle statistics of fatalities, the number of tanks and military paraphernalia seized or destroyed and the number of istishhadi and inghimasi operations executed are included to counter mainstream media reporting. Military setbacks are portrayed as temporary or a test by God on their faith and religious commitment to struggle for the establishment of God’s Word on earth. The bottom-line is that IS will eventually triumph because this has been prophesised. An article in Rumiyah issue 2, “Glad Tidings of Imminent Victory to the Patient”, reminded readers that the conquest of Constantinople comes after “very many martyrs and wounds” and after “much blood and sweat” before the “triumphant survivors” advanced to siege the city. “Examples of the Sahabah’s Eagerness to Attain Shahadah” in issue 6 recollected stories of the companions of the Prophet who attained martyrdom in momentous conflicts in Islamic history such as the Battle of Badr, Uhud and Mu’tah.
For its enemies, Rumiyah regularly employs literary leitmotifs, recurring themes and vivid imagery of blood, explosions, destruction, casualties and gruesome executions (by burning, shooting or beheading) of captured enemies, dissidents and offenders. The intent is not only to demonstrate IS power, supremacy and ruthlessness, but also to terrify and deter attacking forces as well as to intimidate the opposition and spies within its territories. The savagery and brutalities depicted are not random or arbitrary but the outcome of a cold and calculated decision with a strategic aim in mind – regime survival. A vivid illustration of this is demonstrated in an info-graphic, “Effects of Attacks by Mujahidin on the Economy of the Mushrikin” which details not only the direct losses suffered by IS enemies in the form of physical damages but also medium-term and long-term losses seen through the destabilisation of the economy, increasing security costs and unemployment rate, as well as weakening the tourism and insurance industry.
For potential recruits and perceived ‘fence-sitters’ within Muslim communities, IS attempts to project how Islamic it is and how closely it adheres to injunctions in the Qur’an and Sunnah and how others like the Shiites, Sufis, hypocrites, waverers and others have deviated from the right path. In this connection, it appeals to them to migrate (hijrah) to the greater Levant to live and experience the Islamic way of life in the caliphate. Given its recent territorial losses in Iraq and Syria, IS has now urged its supporters to migrate to its various wilayats from Africa to Southeast Asia if they are unable to move to the greater Levant.
To counterblast mainstream media depiction of chaos, insecurity and deprivations in IS-controlled territories, Rumiyah projects an alt-reality, showing happy and well-groomed children playing or in school, shoppers in well-stocked retail outlets and markets, business going on as usual in offices and factories, roads being repaired, telephone lines being installed, and zakat (religious tithes) being collected and distributed to the poor.
The exploitation of media and the powerful emotional and spiritual messaging in Rumiyah (and its predecessor Dabiq) draws its lessons from Ayman Al-Zawahiri’s comments on the importance of media to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (IS ‘founder’) in 2005. In a letter, Al-Zawahiri wrote that it is important that the mujahiddin’s operations have a media orientation towards issues of concern to the people as “more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media.”
What Needs to be Done
The war IS is waging goes beyond ballistics and armed operations. It is very information-driven, strategically fought in both physical and cyber realms and is likely to persist until the so-called caliphate is routed and the Salafi-jihadist ideology exposed and overwhelmingly discredited. Unlike Al-Qaeda’s Inspire or Jabhat Al-Nusra’s Al-Risalah, Rumiyah (and its predecessor Dabiq) has demonstrated that the global jihadist struggle involves more than just military capacity but also a proficiency in crafting narratives through digital media. As quoted in Jabhah Al-Nusrah’s Al-Risalah magazine, “A gun can stop a heartbeat but a camera (media) can give life to a thousand hearts.”
Rumiyah’s readership is not limited to just its supporters and sympathisers. It is gradually finding adherents among IS’ enemies and converting fence-sitters among vulnerable segments of society. There are serious repercussions arising from this new wave of information warfare. Digital peripherals, videos and info-graphics have become sine qua non medium to influence or transform thinking and behaviour, in a manner that is unlike coercive warfare in the physical space.
Four essential steps need to be taken to counter IS digital warfare. First, neutralise the producers of Rumiyah and other IS and IS-affiliated online publications. The takeover of all of Mosul, Raqqa and other remaining towns in the greater Levant – expected in coming months – would be the first step. But more should be done to locate the propagandists operating underground in and outside Iraq and Syria. The painstaking and elaborate methodology employed to identify and track down cyber-attackers of US defence and other sensitive institutions and assets should be replicated and deployed on the terrorist digital front.
Second, the so-called IS political structures have to be destroyed, starting with the so-called caliphate and followed up with the wilayats. This is because the effectiveness of IS propaganda relies on the concrete manifestation of IS perceived strength, capability and viability; the destruction of these tangible edifice would severely undercut its propaganda and undermine faith and confidence in IS. Third, no effort should be spared in preventing and disrupting the dissemination of IS online narratives which seek to sow discord between religious communities and rupture the existing social fabric and national cohesion. Since mid-2015, social media networks such as Twitter has suspended over 360,000 suspected terrorist accounts to disrupt the dissemination of propaganda aim at radicalising and recruiting supporters. But many thousands still operate unhindered because they are not as easily identified. International online news and social networking services as well as Internet national service providers and security agencies will do well to collaborate and intensify cyber police patrols, and continue the harassment of advocates of religious extremism and violence.
Lastly, it is imperative that effective religious and political counter-narratives be crafted by established clerics and propagated worldwide through all channels, from mosques and madrassas to schools and both mainstream and online media. This requires close collaboration between governments and religious establishments and organisations. The objective must be to criminalise and marginalise the jihadists and their supporters who dream of building ‘religious’ and political institutions through terrorism, inter-religious conflict, public disorder and chaos.
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