Category: The Islamic State

Check out my new peer-reviewed academic journal article in Perspectives on Terrorism: "Picture Or It Didn’t Happen: A Snapshot of the Islamic State’s Official Media Output"

Posted on by Aaron Y. Zelin

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Abstract:

This article seeks to examine, quantitatively and qualitatively, one week of official media releases of the Islamic State (IS). Due to the breadth of IS official media releases, this provides a snapshot upon which to better understand the different styles and messaging streams IS releases on a weekly basis. The article shows that IS produces much more material, and on a broader range of topics, than what gets reported in the mainstream media. Execution videos make up just a fraction of the overall output and are dwarfed by the number of IS productions on military affairs, governance, preaching, moral policing, and other themes. The analysis also shows that IS relies very heavily on visual as opposed to text-based propaganda, and that most of its military activities take place in Iraq, not Syria.

You can find the full research article here: text and pdf.

Jihadology Podcast: 'Boko Haram' Transitions to The Islamic State in West Africa with Jacob Zenn

Posted on by Aaron Y. Zelin

In this episode Aaron talks to Jacob Zenn about the group commonly referred to as Boko Haram. They covered a variety of topics including:

  • Background on Wilayat Gharb Ifriqiyya
  • Misuse of the term Boko Haram to describe what is now called Wilayat Gharb Ifriqiyya, but previously was Jama’at Ahl al-Sunnah li-l-Da’wah wa-l-Jihad
  • Process that led Jama’at Ahl al-Sunnah li-l-Da’wah wa-l-Jihad to pledge bay’a to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and become Wilayat Gharb Ifriyya of The Islamic State?
  • Current status of Wilayat Gharb Ifriqiyya in Nigeria over the past few months
  • Key questions and observations Jacob is currently looking at to see how situation might develop in the future

This episode also features a discussion of primary source material released between July 18th to August 1st, and a #SocialMedia segment covering posts from July 28th to August 3rd.
Links:

The podcast is produced by Karl Morand. If you have feedback you can email [email protected], or find us on Twitter: @JihadPod.
You can subscribe to the show in iTunes or with our RSS feed.

Download mp3 (38MB)