This book examines ISIS’ media propaganda machine. The book focuses on case studies that have been largely understudied in relation to ISIS’ media production. Empirically, it offers new insights into how ISIS uses its media production to disseminate its extremist ideology by focusing on video games, educational apps, Dark Web sites, and offline billboards. The book argues that despite all the discussion about how ISIS has disappeared or even died, the terrorist group’s daily activities on the Dark Web show that they are still thriving and disseminating their propaganda in more than 20 different languages, and effectively functioning as an international news organization. Using a mixed-method research approach, the book offers a multilayered understanding of media content and fills a major gap in the literature, especially in relation to the use of educational apps and the Dark Web. This book will be of much interest to students of media and communication studies, terrorism and counterterrorism, Middle Eastern politics, and international relations.

This book examines ISIS’ media propaganda machine. The book focuses on case studies that have been largely understudied in relation to ISIS’ media production. Empirically, it offers new insights into how ISIS uses its media production to disseminate its extremist ideology by focusing on video games, educational apps, Dark Web sites, and offline billboards. The book argues that despite all the discussion about how ISIS has disappeared or even died, the terrorist group’s daily activities on the Dark Web show that they are still thriving and disseminating their propaganda in more than 20 different languages, and effectively functioning as an international news organization. Using a mixed-method research approach, the book offers a multilayered understanding of media content and fills a major gap in the literature, especially in relation to the use of educational apps and the Dark Web. This book will be of much interest to students of media and communication studies, terrorism and counterterrorism, Middle Eastern politics, and international relations.

This book offers a comprehensive overview and analysis of the Islamic State's use of propaganda. Combining a range of different theoretical perspectives from across the social sciences, and using rigorous methods, the authors trace the origins of the Islamic State's message, laying bare the strategic logic guiding its evolution, examining each of its multi-media components, and showing how these elements work together to radicalize audiences' worldviews. This volume highlights the challenges that this sort of "full-spectrum propaganda" raises for counter terrorism forces. It is not only a one-stop resource for any analyst of IS and Salafi-jihadism, but also a rich contribution to the study of text and visual propaganda, radicalization and political violence, and international security.

Social media has been weaponized, as state hackers and rogue terrorists have seized upon Twitter and Facebook to create chaos and destruction. This urgent report is required reading, from defense experts P.W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking.

This book is written by two of the leading terrorist experts in the world - Malcolm Nance, NBC News/MSNBC terrorism analyst and Christopher Sampson, cyber-terrorist expert. Malcolm Nance is a 35 year practitioner in Middle East Special Operations and terrorism intelligence activities. Chris Sampson is the terrorism media and cyber warfare expert for the Terror Asymmetric Project and has spent 15 years collecting and exploiting terrorism media. For two years, their Terror Asymmetrics Project has been attacking and exploiting intelligence found on ISIS Dark Web operations. Hacking ISIS will explain and illustrate in graphic detail how ISIS produces religious cultism, recruits vulnerable young people of all religions and nationalities and disseminates their brutal social media to the world. More, the book will map out the cyberspace level tactics on how ISIS spreads its terrifying content, how it distributes tens of thousands of pieces of propaganda daily and is winning the battle in Cyberspace and how to stop it in its tracks. Hacking ISIS is uniquely positioned to give an insider’s view into how this group spreads its ideology and brainwashes tens of thousands of followers to join the cult that is the Islamic State and how average computer users can engage in the removal of ISIS from the internet.

Tunisia became one of the largest sources of foreign fighters for the Islamic State—even though the country stands out as a democratic bright spot of the Arab uprisings and despite the fact that it had very little history of terrorist violence within its borders prior to 2011. In Your Sons Are at Your Service, Aaron Y. Zelin uncovers the longer history of Tunisian involvement in the jihadi movement and offers an in-depth examination of the reasons why so many Tunisians became drawn to jihadism following the 2011 revolution. Zelin highlights the longer-term causes that affected jihadi recruitment in Tunisia, including the prior history of Tunisians joining jihadi organizations and playing key roles in far-flung parts of the world over the past four decades. He contends that the jihadi group Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia was able to take advantage of the universal prisoner amnesty, increased openness, and the lack of governmental policy toward it after the revolution. In turn, this provided space for greater recruitment and subsequent mobilization to fight abroad once the Tunisian government cracked down on the group in 2013. Zelin marshals cutting-edge empirical findings, extensive primary source research, and on-the-ground fieldwork, including a variety of documents in Arabic going as far back as the 1980s and interviews with Ansar al-Sharia members and Tunisian fighters returning from Syria. The first book on the history of the Tunisian jihadi movement, Your Sons Are at Your Service is a meticulously researched account that challenges simplified views of jihadism’s appeal and success.

“I was told to come alone. I was not to carry any identification, and would have to leave my cell phone, audio recorder, watch, and purse at my hotel. . . .” For her whole life, Souad Mekhennet, a reporter for The Washington Post who was born and educated in Germany, has had to balance the two sides of her upbringing – Muslim and Western. She has also sought to provide a mediating voice between these cultures, which too often misunderstand each other. In this compelling and evocative memoir, we accompany Mekhennet as she journeys behind the lines of jihad, starting in the German neighborhoods where the 9/11 plotters were radicalized and the Iraqi neighborhoods where Sunnis and Shia turned against one another, and culminating on the Turkish/Syrian border region where ISIS is a daily presence. In her travels across the Middle East and North Africa, she documents her chilling run-ins with various intelligence services and shows why the Arab Spring never lived up to its promise. She then returns to Europe, first in London, where she uncovers the identity of the notorious ISIS executioner “Jihadi John,” and then in France, Belgium, and her native Germany, where terror has come to the heart of Western civilization. Mekhennet’s background has given her unique access to some of the world’s most wanted men, who generally refuse to speak to Western journalists. She is not afraid to face personal danger to reach out to individuals in the inner circles of Al Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIS, and their affiliates; when she is told to come alone to an interview, she never knows what awaits at her destination. Souad Mekhennet is an ideal guide to introduce us to the human beings behind the ominous headlines, as she shares her transformative journey with us. Hers is a story you will not soon forget.