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This post is Part 2 of 2. Click here for Part 1 By Ahmet S. Yayla & Anne Speckhard Reaching out on to ISIS members via Telegram channels is a significant challenge for beginners. First of all, as the Telegram application is installed, the application copies all the contact numbers on one’s cell phone and connects the ...

By Ahmet S. Yayla & Anne Speckhard ISIS has been the most successful terrorist organization in history using social media and the Internet for distributing its propaganda, dissemination of its news and more importantly to communicate. There is no doubt that the frequency and quality of ISIS posts on the Internet, including their videos, memes ...

The mobilisation of women for the jihadist cause emerged in Spain within the framework of the current mobilisation in Western Europe linked to the conflict in Syria and Iraq and the appearance of the so called Islamic State (IS) as a new vanguard of global terrorism. The explicit call from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to women ...

By Jim Killock In a report published last month by the Home Affairs Select Committee brands social media companies as behaving irresponsibly in failing to remove extremist material. It takes the view that the job of removing illegal extremist videos and postings is entirely the responsibility of the companies, and does not envisage a role for courts ...

Those you fear may not be as dangerous as those who capitalise on your fear. This is what transpires from the on-going debate around mainstream media coverage of recent lone actor terrorist attacks. Regardless of the significance of social media propaganda in emerging forms of radicalisation, commentators are now reminding us of the role that ...

Are Twitter bots driving the success of far right candidates?  While many are still trying to make sense of the election of Donald Trump and the surge in popularity of Marine Le Pen, evidence suggests that public perceptions of these candidates are being manipulated by far right social media activists. Social media can be a ...

By Lorand Bodo, M.A. & Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. As ISIS is rapidly losing its territory in Syria and Iraq they continue to win on the digital battlefield, maintaining a strong recruiting presence in the digital space[1]. As ISIS cadres inspire and even direct terrorist attacks on different continents, the West must realize that it is ...

By Bharath Ganesh In early March, the Home Office published new counter-terrorism statistics that indicated a significant increase in the arrest of ‘white’ extremists. Tabloids in the UK, including The Daily Mail, ran triumphant headlines claiming a crackdown on far-right extremism. Unfortunately, the data released by the Home Office does not support any such assertion. The ...

By Joel Wing More than half of Mosul has fallen to Iraqi government forces and it is only a matter of time before the whole city is retaken. How is the Islamic State portraying this defeat? Has it changed its messaging since the start of the battle? Charlie Winter, a Senior Research Fellow at the ...

By Yannick Veilleux-Lepage The recent car-and-knife attack in London was just the latest in a string of high-profile incidents where assailants have used vehicles as deadly weapons. This type of attack has over the past few years become a feature of violent terrorism in the West and elsewhere – so where did it come from, and ...