Radicalized by Meme: the complex reality of Daesh terrorist attacks
Combatting Daesh attacks in Western countries requires a more thorough examination of their recruitment techniques and the underlying alienation fueling their success
By Nico Brancolini, J.D.
On May 22, a British-born man of Libyan decent detonated a improvised explosive device at the Manchester Arena in England. The device exploded just after American pop singer Ariana Grande’s sold out concert ended, when thousands of fans were leaving the venue. In all 23 people were killed and an additional 116-plus injured, most of them young fans of the singer.
Not even two weeks later, on June 3, a second round of attacks took place when three assailants intentionally ran their van into pedestrians on the London Bridge and proceeded to attack more pedestrians at the nearby Borough Market area.
The attacks reopened the question of how to combat terrorism and reinvigorated calls by some for bans or limits on refugees from the Syrian Civil War and the entire region. However, as with attackers in similar attacks in Paris and San Bernadino California, the attackers in these incidents were homegrown; most were British or EU citizens who were radicalized over the internet.
Much of Daesh’s success in recruiting would-be attackers is due to its sophisticated Internet presence, which deliberately recruits disaffected people already living in the countries they seek to target. Thus a more robust understanding of Daesh’s media presence is needed to prevent future attacks.
Types of Daesh attacks
As Rukmini Callimachi of the New York Times explained, it is worth distinguishing the types of attacks Daesh pursues. Some are directed attacks, where former Daesh operatives are trained in Syria or other Daesh war zones, then sent to the west and directed to carry out attacks. However, the more common techniques are for Daesh to inspire or enable attacks far away from the combat zones.
Inspired attacks occur when people are simply inspired to act based on Daesh’s online propaganda machine. This can be as simple as pledging supporter to Daesh following an attack without any other real contact or connection to the group, which occurred in the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando in 2016. Similarly, enabled attacks are primarily coordinated through Daesh’s robust social media presence. In these situations, advice, techniques, manuals and even ground support are given to would-be attackers who have never been directly trained or even instructed by Daesh.
Thus, Daesh’s strength as a terror network comes largely from its far reach as a social media entity.
Social media powerhouse
Daesh’s reach is largely attributable to its savvy use of social media platforms. Notably, the Quilliam Foundation’s 2015 “Documenting the Virtual Caliphate” explained Daesh is a media behemoth, producing an average of 38 individual forms of propaganda each day. The pieces are wide-ranging in content and medium; everything from photo essays to videos and brochures. And these materials are produced in languages as varied as French and Bosnian.
Just producing this content and disseminating it across sympathetic social media accounts would be damaging enough, but Daesh has also adopted an almost open source media tactic. As Wired Magazine explained, Daesh allows individuals to create and share content supportive of Daesh without official direction, oversight, or even concrete ties to the organization.
This creates a greater variety of content and thus a greater range of recruitment materials, which is crucial because Daesh also makes a point of catering in different ways to different niche audiences.
Identity over ideology
One striking aspect of Daesh recruits is that their ideology is often inexact or confused; their primary motivations are thus often neither religious or ideological, but instead formed from “personal narratives of persecution or rage,” as Wired put it.
Daesh will identify people, primarily but not exclusively Muslims, who feel isolated and disaffected. Then, as Brookings Scholar Alberto Fernandez explained, they will focus their messaging on the trio of emergency, agency, and authenticity.
The emergency is often the slaughter of innocents. For example, Mercy Corps found that when recruiting young Jordanian men to fight in Syria, Daesh emphasized the need to protect Sunni women and children from rape and murder.
However, agency is also crucial to the message. Daesh emphasizes that crimes against Muslim innocents are taking place and you can play a role in stopping it. This then helps explain their success in recruiting young women who are presented with a chance to escape the West, which supposedly mocks and disrespects them, and prove fight honorably for a noble cause. The emphasis is thus placed on both dignity and autonomy.
Finally, Fernandez explained that authenticity is the final lynchpin of Daesh’s messaging. Daesh presents its violent, radical acts as being clear-eyed and necessary given the extreme threat.
A better way to respond to terrorism
The response in the West to terrorist attacks, through misunderstanding the source of rage, has been largely counter productive. As Mercy Corps discovered, fighters are not motivated by Jihadist teachings, but instead by emotional responses to perceived injustices. Only after the decision is made do they apply a patina of religious legitimacy. Thus Westerners who demonize Muslims and refugees are merely increasing the sense of injustice, which in turn is used to create more terrorists.
It is precisely for this reason that many experts criticized U.S. Pres. Donald Trump’s response to the June attack in London. In a series of tweets following the attacks, the American president attacked London Mayor Sadiq Khan for “political correctness” and misrepresented the Mayor’s statements. However Khan, as a popular and prominent Muslim politician in a Western nation, actually serves as a powerful symbolic rebuttal to Daesh. Daesh claims the west is inherently hostile to all Muslims, and that Muslims will never be accepted in those nations. Khan’s success disproves this thesis. Thus Trump’s attacks on the Mayor — particularly false or unfounded lies about his statements — only served Daesh’s purposes, and did nothing to further the security and prosperity of all citizens.
A better way to prevent the creation of would-be terrorists is to adjust the rhetoric of the conflict itself.
For example, as Wired pointed out, Daesh promotes a myth that the region it controls is a paradise. When refugees fleeing for Europe and other parts of the West are able to share their stories of horror — in their own words with their own community — at the hands of Daesh fighters, it deeply undermines the propaganda apparatus.
Thus Daesh is forced to adjust and respond to those narratives, which are outside their preference of focusing on Western nations’ fear and distrust of refugees and Islam.
Only by countering the violence and discrimination of Daesh with tolerance and open-mindedness in the West — by embracing people of all colors and religion — can we lessen the impact Daesh’s propaganda and recruitment.
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