Communication in Global Jihad

Jonathan Matusitz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000224351
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Imperialism
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book conceptually examines the role of communication in global jihad from multiple perspectives. The main premise is that communication is so vital to the global jihadist movement today that jihadists will use any communicative tool, tactic, or approach to impact or transform people and the public at large. The author explores how and why the benefits of communication are a huge boon to jihadist operations, with jihadists communicating their ideological programs to develop a strong base for undertaking terrorist violence. The use of various information and communication systems and platforms by jihadists exemplifies the most recent progress in the relationship between terrorism, media, and the new information environment.

For jihadist organizations like ISIS and Al-Qaeda, recruiting new volunteers for the Caliphate who are willing to sacrifice their lives for the cause is a top priority. Based on various conceptual analyses, case studies, and theoretical applications, this book explores the communicative tools, tactics, and approaches used for this recruitment, including narratives, propaganda, mainstream media, social media, new information and communication technologies, the jihadisphere, visual imagery, media framing, globalization, financing networks, crime–jihad nexuses, group communication, radicalization, social movements, fatwas, martyrdom videos, pop-jihad, and jihadist nasheeds.

This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of communication studies, political science, terrorism and international security, Islamic studies, and cultural studies.

1
INTRODUCTION

This book examines the role of communication in global jihad across 12 chapters and from many perspectives. The main premise is that communication is so vital to the global jihadist movement (GJM)¹ today that jihadists will use any communicative tool, tactic, or approach to impact or transform people and the public at large. For most jihadists, their dream is to fulfill the supposed will of Allah of conquering the world through violence by establishing the Caliphate. Examples of communicative tools, tactics, or approaches described in this book include, but are not limited to, narratives, propaganda, mainstream media, social media, new information and communication technologies, the jihadisphere, visual imagery, media framing, globalization, financing networks, crime–jihad nexuses, group communication, radicalization, social movements, fatwas, martyrdom videos, pop-jihad, and jihadist nasheeds.

In its comprehensive examination of terrorism published in 2019, the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP)² estimates that the number of terrorist attacks has grown by 500% since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “Terrorism” defines today’s international relations and regional politics in many areas of the world. It even influences social and cultural interactions in an increasingly globalizing realm.³ Jihad, in particular, is arguably the most recognizable Muslim concept to most people across seven continents. The exact meaning of the word has been subject to heated debate for the past few decades. From a contemporary perspective, jihad translates as struggle, which can be personal, spiritual, or metaphoric striving, or it can be religiously inspired war.⁴ Jihadism is not a new threat. However, the rapid global influence of jihadist groups is. Before the age of globalization, most jihadist activities were limited to their regional areas. Today, the progress of communication technologies has vastly improved jihadist organizations’ global reach. The jihadist threat pervades all sovereign borders. This was evident from attacks in Paris (November 2015), Brussels (March 2016), Orlando (June 2016), Nice (July 2016), Barcelona (August 2017), and Sri Lanka (April 2019), which were all perpetrated by people raised in the countries where they took place.

The purpose of jihadists to exploit communication to the fullest extent is to strengthen currently held attitudes about the importance of jihad or change minds in order to sway public opinion.⁵ In this era of globalization, the opportunities for building interconnections are plentiful, but so are the risks of extreme conflicts.⁶ Through globalization, particularly the new information environment, jihadist organizations are increasingly able to leverage media technologies to operate in their best interests. New approaches to communication have expanded the horizons of a great many mujahedin; now, they can easily organize and mobilize like-minded people throughout the world to join or contribute to transnational jihadist networks like Al-Qaeda and ISIS. Such jihadist organizations work hard at developing mobilization efforts centered on the communication of messages to audiences. Communication is not merely a process of message transmission; it also constitutes a dialogue with an audience. The interactive opportunities that the internet offers represent an ideal platform for the creation of new global audiences.

We live in a globally mediated world that connects an innumerable number of individuals across global, economic, religious, cultural, and political barriers. Unfortunately, this is a huge boon to jihadist operations. At the simplest level, jihadists can communicate their ideological programs and develop a strong base for undertaking terrorist violence. An example of this is provided in Chapter 7, which explains how, in the age of the coronavirus, Al-Qaeda and ISIS exploited the global pandemic crisis to blame the Muslim world for their neglected duty of jihad and, in the same process, recruit more followers. The use of various information and communication systems and platforms by jihadists exemplifies the most recent progress in the relationship between terrorism, media, and the new information environment.⁷ The future of global jihadism looks as dangerous as ever in the wake of globalization. Technological evolution and the escalation of global non-state actions have transformed the theaters of war and conflict across the world. Rather than seeing nation-states opposing each other (or local guerillas clashing with each other), present-day conflict increasingly involves global non-state actors that pursue asymmetrical warfare against states or even against each other. As explained in Chapters 5 and 10, with the rise of new media technologies, jihadist networks are an ever-stronger method of war, allowing rogue players to both diffuse fear and strike in distant locales.⁸

Fighting for the caliphate

Many jihadist groups share the belief that violent jihad should be waged to establish the Caliphate. The Caliphate is a global system of Islamic governance to which all nations on earth (both Muslim and non-Muslim) will be subjected. The ultimate objective of the Caliphate is to follow the Word of Allah, as enshrined in the Quran and hadith, to the letter and establish an Islamic authority over all nations through sharia (a body of Islamic law). The term “Caliph,” in its most fundamental sense, means successor and in its historical context signified “the vicegerent of the Prophet” or “Deputy of God.” This latter point implied a relinquished power such as that held by Abu Bakr, the first successor to the Prophet Muhammad and, by the same token, the first Caliph.⁹

Enter ISIS’s vision of the Caliphate. The terrorist group’s global ambition—obvious in the universal, geographically unmarked title of “Islamic State”—was boosted by the online publication of “ISIS takeover maps,” fictitious maps displaying re-mapped European, African, Asian, and even American nations as ISIS provinces.¹⁰ The quest for the Caliphate is also predicated upon the idea that the “American–Crusader–Zionist conspiracy” will finally be vanquished. As Thomas Friedman (2009)¹¹ wrote in The New York Times, “propagated by jihadist Web sites, mosque preachers, Arab intellectuals, satellite news stations, and books—and tacitly endorsed by some Arab régimes.” As Friedman continues, “this narrative posits that America has declared war on Islam, as part of a grand ‘American–Crusader–Zionist conspiracy’ to keep Muslims down.”¹²

Most jihadists have global objectives that are not confined to a single régime, a single nation, or a single region. For the Caliphate to function according to the jihadist doctrine, international boundaries must be eradicated and a worldwide government established. Major jihadist organizations like Al-Qaeda and ISIS pursue these aims by joining forces with “global affiliates”—groups that can be equally impactful and that pledge allegiance and assistance for Al-Qaeda and ISIS. The latter has found motivated affiliates in Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, the Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.¹³ The transnational nature of the Caliphate implies that the GJM will do the utmost to recruit followers so they can sacrifice their lives for the ultimate cause.

Objectives of this book

The first objective of this book is to demonstrate how jihadist organizations exploit the myriad benefits of communication to achieve their objectives of establishing the Caliphate and recruiting new jihadists to sacrifice their lives for it. Through a complex, but skillful strategy of global communication tools—like global terrorist networks, online social media, online magazines, martyrdom videos, and even pop music—they communicate their fighting prowess, mass murders, religious zeal, and political goals to the ummah (the global community of Muslim brothers and sisters). Like governments, jihadist groups employ various tools to diffuse their messages to the public. Communicating ideology over the internet is fitting because the information published online is much less likely to be filtered by journalists and editors. Jihadists can disseminate their messages as they see fit. Conflicts involving jihadists are wars of ideas, not just physical violence or military battles.¹⁴ Accessible, low-cost, and interactive global communication networks can make one’s voice heard.¹⁵

Global communication enables Islamist global hegemony to recruit more adherents. A propos jihadist recruitment itself, the internet can effortlessly be used to apply marketing-like techniques that target vulnerable demographics. Many marketing models exist on the internet that can help recruiters get in contact with their target demographics of youth, female, and foreign supporters. Without the internet, jihad promoters would have more difficulties roping people in. The internet’s ease of accessibility and capacity for users to maintain anonymity are a significant windfall in the GJM because anyone behind a computer screen is susceptible to jihadist recruitment.¹⁶

To understand the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Defining terrorism
• 3 Defining jihad
• 4 The globalization of jihad
• 5 Global jihadist networks
• 6 The mass media
• 7 The narrative
• 8 The fatwa
• 9 Islamic revival
• 10 The jihadisphere
• 11 Jihad through popular culture
• 12 Conclusions and solutions
• Index