Management of Savagery: The Most Critical Stage Through Which the Islamic Nation Will Pass, also translated as Administration of Savagery, is a book by the Islamist strategist Abu Bakr Naji, published on the Internet in 2004. It aimed to provide a strategy for al-Qaeda and other extremists whereby they could create a new Islamic caliphate.
Martyrdom videos are video recordings, generally from Islamist jihadists who are about to take part in a suicide attack and expect to die during their intended actions. They typically include a statement by the person preparing to be a martyr for their cause. They can be of amateur or professional quality and often incorporate text, music, and sentimental clips. The people in these videos typically sit or stand in front of a black Islamic flag, in their explosive-rigged vehicles, or media or other symbol of their allegiance. Suicide bombers considered themselves religiously justified by sharia and consider themselves to be shahid.
Jihadism is a neologism which is used in reference to "militant Islamic movements that are perceived as existentially threatening to the West" and "rooted in political Islam." It has been applied to various insurgent Islamic extremist, militant Islamist, and terrorist individuals and organizations whose ideologies are based on the Islamic notion of jihad. It has also been applied to various Islamic empires in history, such as the Umayyad Caliphate and the Ottoman Empire, who extensively campaigned against non-Muslim nations in the name of jihad.
The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and by its Arabic acronym Da'ish or Daesh, is a militant Islamist group and former unrecognized quasi-state that follows the Salafi jihadist branch of Sunni Islam. It was founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 1999 and gained global prominence in 2014, when it drove Iraqi security forces out of key cities during the Anbar campaign, which was followed by its capture of Mosul and the Sinjar massacre. The organization significantly revamped the course of the Syrian civil war when it announced its expansion into Syria in mid-2013 and began conducting ground attacks against both Syrian government forces and Syrian opposition militias. By the end of 2015, it held an area that contained an estimated eight to twelve million people and stretched from western Iraq to eastern Syria, where it enforced its interpretation of Islamic law. ISIL was estimated at the time to have an annual budget of more than US$1 billion and more than 30,000 fighters.
Rita Katz is a terrorism analyst and the co-founder of the Search International Terrorist Entities (SITE) Intelligence Group, a private intelligence firm based in Washington, D.C.
Salafi jihadism or jihadist-Salafism is a transnational, hybrid religious-political ideology based on the Sunni sect of Islamism, seeking to establish a global caliphate, characterized by the advocacy for "physical" (military) jihadist and Salafist concepts of returning to what adherents believe to be the "true Islam". The ideological foundation of the movement was laid out by a series of prison-writings of the Egyptian Sunni Islamist theoretician Sayyid Qutb during the 1960s.
A "jihobbyist" is a term coined by Jarret Brachman that denotes a person who is not an active member of a violent jihadist organization such as Al-Qaeda or the Somali Al-Shabaab yet is receptive to jihad and radical Islam.
Inspire is an English-language online magazine published by the organization al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The magazine is one of the many ways AQAP uses the Internet to reach its audience. Numerous international and domestic extremists motivated by radical interpretations of Islam have been influenced by the magazine and, in some cases, used its bomb-making instructions in their attempts to carry out attacks. The magazine is an important brand-building tool, not just of AQAP, but of all al-Qaeda branches, franchises and affiliates.
Terrorism, in some of its definitions, serves to communicate a message from terrorists to a target audience (TA). By extension, symbols play an important role in such communication, through graphics that the organizations use to represent themselves, as well as the meaning and significance behind their choice of targets.
Islamic extremism in the United States comprises all forms of Islamic extremism occurring within the United States. Islamic extremism is an adherence to fundamentalist interpretations of Islam, potentially including the promotion of violence to achieve political goals. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, Islamic extremism became a prioritized national security concern of the U.S. government and a focus of many subsidiary security and law enforcement entities. Initially, the focus of concern was on foreign Islamic terrorist organizations, particularly al-Qaeda, but in the course of the years since the September 11 terror attacks, the focus has shifted more towards Islamic extremist and jihadist networks within the United States.
Al-Nusra Front or Jabhat al-Nusra, known as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham after July 2016, and also described as al-Qaeda in Syria or al-Qaeda in the Levant, was a Salafist jihadist terrorist organization fighting against Syrian government forces in the Syrian Civil War. Its aim was to establish an Islamic state in the country. The group has changed its name several times and merged with and separated from other groups.
Terrorism, fear, and media are interconnected. Terrorists uses the media to advertise their attacks and or messages, and the media uses terrorism events to further aid their ratings. Both promote unwarranted propaganda that instills mass amounts of public fear. Osama Bin Laden himself spoke of this weaponization of the media in a letter after 9/11. Within that letter, Bin Laden recalled fear as the deadliest weapon. He reflected upon the way western civilization has become obsessed with mass media in that they are quick to consume what will evidently bring them fear. He also states that, we are bringing this problem on our own people by giving the media such power. In relation to one’s need for media coverage, the Jihad can be classified as an offspring of mass media. The Jihad needs to conceptualize their martyrdom by leaving behind manifestos and live videos of their attacks. In fact, it is crucially important to them that it is being covered. For there is this overall fascination with crime itself, especially terrorism. The components the media looks for to deem the news “worthy” enough to publicize are categorized into ten qualities, terrorists usually exceed half in their attacks. The following are Immediacy, Conflict, Negativity, Human Interest, Photographability, Simple Story Lines, Topicality, Exclusivity, Reliability, and Local Interest. Morality and profitability often are two motivations when delivering news, however recently news has become more motivated in making money than shielding the public from bad news.
Steven Stalinsky is an expert on the Middle East, terrorism, terrorist use of the Internet, and encryption technologies. He has served as Executive Director of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) since 1999. Since 2006, his research has focused on detailing and developing strategies against cyber jihad, describing how terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and others use the Internet, social media, and encryption for propaganda, recruiting, and hacking. He was an early advocate of calling on the tech community to take stronger action on removing terrorist content from their platforms and for creating industry standards to combat it.
Jihad Cool is a term used by American security experts concerning the re-branding of militant jihadism into something fashionable, or "cool", to younger people through social media, magazines, rap videos, clothing, propaganda videos, and other means.
The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) is a non-profit non-governmental organization that combats extremist groups "by pressuring financial support networks, countering the narrative of extremists and their online recruitment, and advocating for strong laws, policies and regulations".
The ideology of the Islamic State, sometimes called Islamic Statism, has been described as being a hybrid of Salafism, Salafi jihadism, Sunni Islamist fundamentalism, Wahhabism, and Qutbism. Through its official statement of beliefs originally released by its first leader Abu Omar al-Baghdadi in 2007 and subsequently updated since June 2014, IS defined its creed as "a middle way between the extremist Kharijites and the lax Murji'ites".
Nusrat al-Islam, officially known as Jama'a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin' is a militant jihadist organisation in the Maghreb and West Africa formed by the merger of Ansar Dine, the Macina Liberation Front, Al-Mourabitoun and the Saharan branch of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. It is the official branch of Al-Qaeda in Mali, after its leaders swore allegiance to Ayman al-Zawahiri.
The Islamic State is a militant group and a former unrecognised proto-state. The group sophisticatedly utilizes social media as a tool for spreading its message and for international recruitment. The Islamic State is widely known for its posting of disturbing contents, such as beheading videos, on the internet. This propaganda is disseminated through websites and many social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, and YouTube. By utilizing social media, the organization has garnered a strong following and successfully recruited tens of thousands of followers from around the world. In response to its successful use of social media, many websites and social media platforms have banned accounts and removed content promoting the Islamic State from their platforms.
Online youth radicalization is the action in which a young individual or a group of people come to adopt increasingly extreme political, social, or religious ideals and aspirations that reject, or undermine the status quo or undermine contemporary ideas and expressions of a state, which they may or may not reside in. Online youth radicalization can be both violent or non-violent.
Al-Fajr Media or Dawn Media is an Al-Qaeda affiliated media organization that was started in 2006 and was used by multiple Al-Qaeda affiliated organizations on Jihadist forums.
