ISIL waging ‘professional’ campaign

This content was originally posted in 7DAYS UAE website at: ISIL waging ‘professional’ campaign Social media is one of the main channels being used by Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL) to recruit young Muslims from all over the world, an official from anti-terror research institute Hedayah has said. The three-day Countering Violent Extremism summit at NYU Abu Dhabi is focusing on ways to eradicate and oppose terror groups. A spokeswoman for Hedayah said: “While controlling substantial areas of land, ISIS (also known as ISIL) also is very much present in cyberspace, which it claims often goes unchallenged.” A Hedayah report about ISIL social media stated: “The media campaign of ISIS is very professional by any standards, with high-quality visual footage and well-crafted ideological statements attracting young Muslims and some recent converts to join their ranks.” The report also said that, per day, ISIL produces up to 90,000 tweets and other social media messages, a volume of activity unmatched by government counter-messaging. The FBI has reported that ISIL issues statements in almost two dozen languages. RELATED: Terror groups ‘recruiting from refugee camps’ The spokeswoman said: “Through our research, we learned that with their propaganda in social media, and with some of its video footage also in broadcast mainstream media, ISIS can catch the imagination of many young Muslims all over the world with its violent messages and catchy slogans. “Moreover, their success on social media has led to a modest number of conversions to Islam among mainly marginalised non-Muslim youths in Western countries, as well as attracted Muslims from Western and non-Western countries to travel to Iraq and Syria.” So far, more than 25,000 foreign fighters from more than 100 countries have gone to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS and other extremist organisations, some 5,000 of whom are said to originate from Western democracies. The spokeswoman added: “Opposing the narrative ISIS claim and crafting a counter narrative for the masses, in this medium, is necessary to slow down, if not stop the flow of misled foreign fighters to ISIS.” mahak@7days.ae Read the original story at: ISIL waging ‘professional’ campaign