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Analysis of President Obama’s Counter-terrorism strategy

This report, by the Urban Warfare Analysis Centre, is a fictitious account of how a young person in America could become a suicide bomber for an Islamic extremist group. It is the fifth in a series of reports on Web 2.0 technology and future urban warfare. All references to people, groups, and products are intended for illustrative purposes only. As such, the authors do not suggest that any of the products or organizations listed condone or support extremist activities.

Because it mostly exists online, the Alt Right does not have the infrastructure needed to launch a guerrilla war (as Nazi/Klan forces did in the 1980s) or build pseudo-state institutions (as Patriot groups did in the 1990s and are attempting again now), but it is in a strong position to pursue a “metapolitical” transformation of the political culture and thereby lay the groundwork for structural change, centered on its vision of a White ethnostate.

This study explores the politics of naming in the Islamic state (IS) media networks, looking into how sympathisers’ (munāsir-s) virtual identities are socially constructed online. Naming is a discursive practice which is purely ideological in that when sympathisers name themselves online, they re-imagine their roles and the boundaries of their national belonging alongside cultural representations of the organisation. By naming, they reify IS cultural heritage which is recontextualised from the historical legacy of the Prophet and Islamic Conquest. By naming, they also amplify IS hegemonic cultural frames and master narratives. In this sense, naming oneself in the IS virtual ecosystem is a significant rhetorical strategy that may fulfil at least one of the three main cultural functions. Names may (1) imitate historical role models, (2) reconstruct the sense of belonging to homophilic communities (brothers of the same faith) beyond ethno-racial geographies, and/or (3) convey a politically religionist bias in constructing the self vs. the other. The politics of naming is an online social learning process in which collective intelligence instructs sympathisers on how to create accounts with innovative iconic/connotative identifying aliases. In IS social ecology, naming may stand for a ritual call to adventure, the destination of which is already recognised. Sympathisers are interpellated as jihadi subjects to cross the threshold of their ordinary world and embark on a virtual journey to media jihad – hence, their recognition of their new subject positions in support groups and the potential manufacturing of their loyalty and disavowal (al-walā’ wa l-barā’).

This study explores the main building blocks of participatory activism utilised by sympathisers of the Islamic State within their online media networks. The organisation has named this militant practice “media jihad” or militancy (munasara), which is built on the cultural patterns of traditional ground-based jihad. The practice involves transferring cultural values and war manoeuvres into the virtual ecosystem. The virtual tactics used by sympathisers are linked to the cultural norms of jihad, resulting in a combination of battlefield jihad values and digital resistance practices. The term “Jihacktivism” is introduced to describe this complex combinative Jihadist contention model promoted by the Islamic State. It is a digital resistance paradigm that decentralises the production and dissemination of the Islamic State’s propaganda and empowers sympathisers to contribute to the organisation’s communication of jihad. By doing so, sympathisers may foster a sense of solidarity and become more identified with the group’s cultural schemas and ideological beliefs.

This article presents an ethnographic analysis of the online training practices IS sympathisers adopt to recruit, indoctrinate, train, and vet new affiliates. The study highlights the carefully crafted virtual ecosystem established by IS unofficial media operatives, which seeks to identify and select converts with specialised digital skills and unwavering commitment to the group’s vision of Islam. Prioritising quality over quantity, the selection process subjects new recruits to rigorous pre-and post-selection trials to ensure their authenticity, devotion, and obedience. Oaths of allegiance are central to membership within this virtual ecosystem, engendering a master-apprentice dynamic that may secure new recruits’ adherence to assigned duties within the network. The instructional scaffolding within this ecosystem comprises two main constituents: theological indoctrination and digital training. The former places emphasis on IS’s allegedly authentic religious sources in teaching Islamic jurisprudence, while the latter includes training on online security and media campaigns. As sympathisers progress through the ranks within the virtual ecosystem, they are empowered by their newly achieved “veteran” status to take on leadership roles within the digital sphere or engage in combat operations. The meticulously engineered architecture of social hierarchies within the network is designed to foster loyalty and obedience, perpetuate a hierarchical fraternity, thereby enhancing the organisation’s resilience and longevity.