Academic entrepreneurs have tapped and exploited funding opportunities to study Islamic radicalisation, but their failure at all but obtaining grants is rooted in a basic error of perception: youthful recruits to the black flag aren’t radicals, they’re revivalists
Islamic State and its media units release over 90,000 social media posts per day. That’s nearly 33 million posts a year. As the head of MI5 stated, social media is the command and control network of radical Islamism. The appeal of social media is evident. There are no gatekeepers. Messages posted from one remote or hidden location are immediately transmitted to the hip pocket of anyone with a SmartPhone.
After 9/11 a new wave of global Salafist jihadism turned to social media. Abu Musab al Suri developed the strategy of lone-wolf attacks and leaderless resistance online via his Global Call to Resistance. The Yemeni-born, but American-educated Anwar al Awlaki repackaged the message for Western youth and made jihad cooler than hip hop. Awlaki was killed in Yemen in 2011, but by then he had created the Jihadi John phenomenon in the West.
Awlaki and his successors, like the former West Sydney male stripper and boxer turned zealot, Feiz Mohammad, or failed Melbourne rapper, Neil Prakash aka Abu Khalid al Cambodi, use social media to brand the IS product. IS considers this aspect of their movement so important that in August they formed the Anwar al Awlaki Brigade, a special unit that includes at least ten Australians, to promulgate the message and recruit online. The brigade’s media awareness is attuned to Western sensibilities. Segueing off a L’Oreal ad, for instance, a recent recruitment message targeting young Western women runs, “Cover girl, no; covered girl, yes. Because you’re worth it.”