The Islamic State has lost thousands of fighters to death or prison and suffered the end of its self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria. But the global reach of the group, also known as ISIS, is still vast, in part because of its sophisticated media output and the people around the world who consume it.
On New Year’s Day, a man carrying an Islamic State flag killed at least 14 people as he ran into a crowd in New Orleans. Authorities say there was no evidence that the man, Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, had active links to the terrorist group. But the FBI said it was “100% inspired by ISIS.”
It is not yet clear what specific online content Mr. Jabbar may have viewed or how else he may have been radicalized. Experts noted that the placement of the flag on the truck resembled that depicted by ISIS in a media campaign calling on followers to “run over them mercilessly.” And, authorities said, before the attack he had posted several videos on his Facebook account in which he pledged allegiance to ISIS.
From online videos to social media platforms – and even a weekly Islamic State newsletter – the group that wants to force all Muslims to strictly adhere to the faith’s early teachings has a very modern media strategy.
“Terrorism is essentially communication,” said Hans-Jakob Schindler, a former United Nations diplomat and senior director of the Counter Extremism Project, a think tank with offices in New York and Berlin. “It’s not a war, because obviously ISIS can’t defeat the West militarily, right? They tried and it didn’t go very well.”
A terrorist newsletter
How did the Islamic State keep its influence alive? In part, by turning his movement into a global franchise beyond the Middle East, with active chapters in Afghanistan, Somalia, Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Caucasus and Turkey, among other places.
But the glue that holds the disparate branches together – and also helps inspire “lone wolf” terrorists like Jabbar to carry out their own attacks – is the Islamic State’s sophisticated media operation. Experts say that while it is doubtful that the media operation has a physical headquarters, it is highly centralized and controlled by its media directorate. Much of its production appears to come from affiliates in Africa, which have recently been the most active in terms of attacks.
The group also publishes a weekly online newsletter called Al Naba, or The News, which contains details of the group’s latest exploits, implicitly encouraging followers to commit acts of violence.
“The Al Naba newsletter goes out promptly every Thursday, and it’s one of the most impressive things the group is able to do,” said Cole Bunzel, a scholar of militant Islam in the Middle East at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
“They have an editorial; they cover the several provinces, as they are called; they cover the attacks that week. They count the number of attacks and victims they report. And this is the main way they stay connected to their global support base,” he said.
The most recent edition of the newsletter, published Jan. 2, did not mention the New Orleans attack, and the Islamic State did not claim responsibility.
Al Naba was initially published through the messaging app Telegram and other platforms, constantly adapting as different channels were shut down, said Aaron Zelin, a fellow at the Washington Institute who has tracked the activities and propaganda of Islamist groups for more 15 years old.
According to the researchers, supporters of the group also spread messages on Twitter, Facebook pages and other social media platforms. When their user profiles are blocked, they often simply create new ones. The Islamic State has used decentralized internet tools that are harder to disable and has moved some of its messaging to the dark web, Zelin said.
Terrorism analysts say it has been easy for extremists to connect with potential supporters on social media because of a lack of effort by both some of the companies that run the platforms and governments to crack down.
Schindler said that in light of the New Orleans attack both political parties should ask themselves: “Why doesn’t this huge industry with these profits help our security services prevent such attacks? Why don’t we get a tip, as we do from banks and every financial institution in North America and around the world, that there is a terrorist here, or that there is a process of radicalization going on?”
Terrorism experts say the Islamic State’s mastery of media and messaging is key to its success. Al Qaeda, from which the Islamic State split in 2013, has laid the groundwork, publishing both online and print magazines and producing videos and social media.
“Kill them wherever you find them”
In January 2024, the extremist group relaunched a campaign aimed at its adherents around the world: “kill them wherever you find them,” in reference to a verse in the Koran.
The idea, which first emerged in 2015, was to encourage would-be followers to commit acts of jihad at home rather than travel to Iraq and Syria. This notion became even more important once the caliphate was defeated.
During the period in which the Islamic State maintained its position in Syria and then Iraq (2013-2017) and was eager to gain adherents in the West, it was known for publishing grisly depictions of violence, such as the beheading of photojournalist James Wright Foley.
Now, experts say an increasingly daunting challenge is that social media platforms are doing much of the work of spreading the Islamic State’s message, as algorithms that seek to boost engagement bring some users further into the worldview extremist.
“Terrorist groups no longer have to make great efforts to radicalize people; the algorithm does it for them,” Schindler said. “The purpose of the algorithm is to keep the user on the platform, give them what they want, and if it is Islamic extremism or if you are involved in a process of radicalization, your view of the world changes.”
In Syria, where the Islamic State took advantage of a long civil war to capture a large swath of territory, only to eventually lose it to U.S.-backed fighters, the group has begun to recover, accelerating its attacks. This trend may continue, because President Bashar al-Assad’s regime was suddenly overthrown in December by another extremist group, Hayat Tahrir al Sham, once associated with the Islamic State and Al Qaeda.
The situation is still fluid, but some analysts fear that the Islamic State could regain ground in the chaos. The group’s newsletter spoke disparagingly of Hayat Tahrir al Sham as “jihadists-turned-politicians” but did not call for attacks against them.
Meanwhile, Hayat Tahrir al Sham and other rebel groups say they should take on the role of guarding Islamic State prisoners in eastern Syria and running camps housing some 40,000 Islamic State fighters and family members – a job that has been done for almost five years since the Kurdish-led, US-backed Syrian Defense Force. Many terrorism experts wonder how Hayat Tahrir al Sham, who once had ties to the Islamic State but later bitterly split, could carry out the mission of suppressing it.
The Islamic State recently renewed its “Break the Walls” media campaign, which encourages imprisoned fighters to escape prisons in eastern Syria and free their families.
If that happened, Zelin said, it would be a “disaster.”