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Totalitarian Insurgency: Evaluating the Islamic

State’s In-Theater Propaganda Operations

Charlie Winter

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Winter, Charlie, "Totalitarian Insurgency: Evaluating the Islamic State’s In-Theater Propaganda Operations" (2017). CIWAG Case

Studies. 15.

http://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/ciwag-case-studies/15
UNITED STATES NAVAL WAR COLLEGE

CENTER on IRREGULAR WARFARE andARMED GROUPS

United States Naval War College

Newport, Rhode Island

Draft as of 121916

Totalitarian Insurgency: Evaluating the Islamic 

State’s In-Theatre Propaganda Operations

Charlie Winter
Totalitarian Insurgency: Evaluating 

the Islamic State’s In-Theater Propaganda 

Operations

Charlie Winter
Center on Irregular Warfare & Armed Groups (CIWAG)

US Naval War College, Newport, RI

CIWAG@usnwc.edu

This work is cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited.

This case study is available on CIWAG’s public website located at 

http://www.usnwc.edu/ciwag
WINTER: EVALUATING THE ISLAMIC STATE’S IN-THEATER PROPAGANDA 

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Message from the Editors

In 2008, the Naval War College established the Center on Irregular 

Warfare & Armed Groups (CIWAG). CIWAG’s primary mission is 

twofold: first, to bring cutting-edge research on Irregular Warfare into the 

Joint Professional Military Educational (JPME) curricula; and second, to

bring operators, practitioners, and scholars together to share their 

knowledge and experiences about a vast array of violent and non-violent 

irregular challenges. This case study is part of an ongoing effort at CIWAG 

that includes symposia, lectures by world-renowned academics, case 

studies, research papers, articles, and books. Our aim is to make these case

studies part of an evolving and adaptive curriculum that fulfills the needs of 

students preparing to meet the challenges of the post-9/11 world.

This case study by Charlie Winter makes use of primary source 

documents to present the in-theater propaganda strategies of the Islamic 

State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Although much attention has rightly been 

paid to their online recruiting and social media campaigns, their in-theater

strategies are equally compelling and strategically targeted. The author uses 

a three-part framework—message, messenger, and media—developed by 

Naval War College professors Marc Genest, Andrea Dew, and Sally Paine 

in another study on strategic communications, to assess the intent and 

effectiveness of ISIS’s in-theater propaganda. Winter makes a compelling 

case, through evidence and teaching questions, that this strategy is both 

deliberate and effective, especially when ISIS controlled and limited access 

to the internet and outside media. 

This has far-reaching implications for areas in Syria and Iraq that 

were under ISIS control. What deeply embedded ideas did children and 

teenagers internalize from this indoctrination media? What long-term 

repercussions does this hold for stability and security in these areas? The 

study also raises the questions of which other armed groups might adopt 

these effective methodologies and under what circumstances in-theater

propaganda campaigns might be disrupted. As ISIS and al-Qaeda continue 
WINTER: EVALUATING THE ISLAMIC STATE’S IN-THEATER PROPAGANDA 

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3

to inspire and sponsor new franchises around the globe, the issue of how to 

control access to counter-narratives becomes more urgent; this first look at 

in-theater strategies provides the basis for further research and investigation 

into the in-theater and online competition for ideas and influence around the 

world.

It is important to note two critical caveats to this case study. First, 

the opinions found in this case study are solely those of the author and do 

not represent the views of the Department of Defense, the Naval War 

College, or CIWAG. Second, while every effort has been made to correct 

any factual errors in this work, the author is ultimately responsible for the 

content of this case study. 

We hope you find this case study useful, and look forward to hearing 

your feedback and suggestions for how you can contribute to the Center on 

Irregular Warfare & Armed Group’s mission here at the Naval War College.
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Author Biography

Charlie Winter is a Senior Research Fellow at the International Centre for 

the Study of Radicalisation, where his research specialises in insurgency, 

Arabic-language propaganda, and innovation, with a focus on on- and 

offline strategic communication. He is pursuing a PhD in War Studies at 

King’s College London, exploring the weaponisation of images in 

warfare. He also is an Associate Fellow at the International Centre for 

Counter-Terrorism – the Hague and regularly advises governments and 

appears in international broadcast and print media.
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Table of Contents

Message from the Editors .......................................................................................2

Author Biography.......................................................................................................4

I. Introduction..............................................................................................................6

II. The Islamic State as a Totalitarian Proto-State ...................................... 10

III. The Infrastructure............................................................................................ 13

IV. The Medium ........................................................................................................ 20

V. The Messenger..................................................................................................... 28

VI. The Message........................................................................................................ 35

VII. Conclusion.......................................................................................................... 43

Discussion Questions ............................................................................................. 46
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I. Introduction

“Hello, I’m John Cantlie, and today we’re in Mosul in Iraq. 

As the war between the Islamic State and the U.S.-led 

coalition continues, the Americans have launched a 

surprising new tactic against the mujahidin. Using their $30 

million F-18s and $100,000 missile systems, they have 

begun targeting—not tanks, not trucks, not even the 

mujahidin—but Islamic State media kiosks. 

“This used to be one such media kiosk, targeted and 

destroyed the other day on this busy high street. The kiosks 

are used to distribute pamphlets and information regarding 

the Islamic State, and serve to expose some of the lies and 

propaganda that the Western media continues to peddle in 

their never-ending mission to tarnish the image of the 

Islamic State. It’s not much to look at because it cost about 

$50 to build, and now it’s been flattened by the collective 

might of the American war machine. 

“And one has to ask oneself, why bother? Is it a ruse 

by the CIA to somehow undermine the Islamic State’s 

message to the Muslims of Mosul, and therefore somehow 

diminish their control of the city? Is it, perhaps, to strike fear 

into the hearts of the mujahidin, thereby abandoning any 

ideas to build another dozen kiosks to replace this one?”

1

***

“My media operative brother, let it be known that your 

verbal jihad is not limited to speech alone, but also 

 

1

Islamic State, “John Cantlie talks about the American airstrikes on media kiosks in Mosul city,”

A’maq News Agency, 19 March 2016, accessed 5 May 2017 at 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqIDeN_e_YE.
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comprises speech, composition, printing, audio recording 

and preparing scenarios for video recording and so on. All 

of this requires a significant amount of effort. Let it also be 

known that, for you, verbal jihad is more important than 

jihad of the sword.”

2

In the wake of its capture of Mosul in 2014, the so-called Islamic 

State came to present a unique security threat to its adversaries around the 

world: in the space of a few years, it had managed to attract tens of 

thousands of new supporters from as many as 86 nations,3inspire selfstarter terrorism with far greater frequency than al-Qa’ida,4

and become a 

household brand that enjoyed a regular slot in the mainstream media.5In all 

this, its propaganda machine played an integral role.6 Consequently, 

subverting it became a central objective of the international coalition that 

was formed to degrade and destroy the group in 2014.

7 However, coalition 

member states tended to be overly fixated on the online presence of 

 

2

Islamic State [Author’s translation], “Media operative, you are a mujahid, too,” Himma Library, 

April 2016, accessed 5 May 2017 at https://archive.org/details/mojahed_ilamee_is.

3 Richard Barrett et al., “An updated assessment of the flow of foreign fighters into Syria and Iraq,”

The Soufan Group, December 2015, accessed 5 May 2017 at http://soufangroup.com/wpcontent/uploads/2015/12/TSG_ForeignFightersUpdate3.pdf.

4

Islamic State was tied to dozens of terrorist plots or attacks against the West between 2014 and 

2017. “#Terror gone viral: Overview of the 75 ISIS-linked plots against the West, 2014-2016,”

Homeland Security Committee, March 2016, accessed 5 May 2017 at 

https://homeland.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Report-Terror-Gone-Viral-1.pdf; also, see 

Ray Sanchez et al., “ISIS goes global: Over 60 attacks in 20 countries,” CNN, 21 January 2016, 

accessed 5 May 2017 at http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/17/world/mapping-isis-attacks-around-theworld/.

5 Barrett et al., “An updated assessment.”

6 Abu ‘Abdullah al-Masri, “Chapter X: Administration of media,” Principles in the Administration 

of the Islamic State, trans. by Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, published by The Guardian, 7 December 

2015, accessed 5 May 2017 at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/07/islamic-statedocument-masterplan-for-power. 

7 For example, the topic of propaganda was a key feature in President Barack Obama’s remarks at 

the Leaders’ Summit on Countering ISIL and Violent Extremism in September 2015. “Remarks by 

President Obama at the Leaders’ Summit on Countering ISIL and Violent Extremism,” The White 

House Briefing Room, 29 September 2015, accessed 5 May 2017 at 

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/09/29/remarks-president-obamaleaders-summit-countering-isil-and-violent.
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propaganda, an issue that persistently distracted them from what was

arguably developing into a more intractable communications conundrum—

the group’s offline propaganda operations in Syria and Iraq.

This case study shows that during its formative years as selfproclaimed caliphate, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s group used propaganda to 

perpetuate its existence, consolidate political control, and expand its 

strategic depth in a manner that was highly reminiscent of past totalitarian 

regimes. To analyze this, we have to consider that the tens of thousands of 

official photo reports, videos, audio messages, magazines, and chants 

produced by the Islamic State between 2014 and 2017 were not intended 

merely for Internet consumption; rather, they were also aimed at a domestic 

audience, the people over whom the Islamic State ruled.8 Hence, while most 

of our attention has been focused on the threat posed by returnee foreign 

fighters or self-starter terrorists, we must now also contemplate the longterm implications of the Islamic State’s systematic indoctrination operations 

in Iraq and Syria, and consider how they stand to affect local, regional, and 

international security for years to come.

The analysis that follows is based predominantly on Arabiclanguage primary source materials—propaganda, interviews with activists 

in Iraq and Syria, and official documents. Considered together, these allow 

for a detailed exploration of the Islamic State’s offline communication 

strategy. The study proceeds as follows: after a brief theoretical discussion 

in which I frame the organization as a totalitarian proto-state, I investigate 

its media strategy from four angles: infrastructure, medium, messenger, and

message. First, I examine how the Islamic State disseminated propaganda 

in its heartlands between 2014 and early 2017, focusing in particular on the 

role of nuqat i’lamiyya (literally “media points”) and al-Bayan Radio. Next, 

 

8 Steven Stalinsky and R. Sosnow were among the first to note and discuss this internal propaganda 

in “The Islamic State (ISIS) establishes ‘Media Points’ in Syria, Iraq, Libya to indoctrinate 

caliphate citizens and enhance its activities on the ground: A one-year review,” MEMRI Inquiry & 

Analysis Series 1190, October 2015, accessed 5 May 2017 at http://cjlab.memri.org/analysis-andspecial-reports/the-islamic-state-isis-establishes-media-points-in-syria-iraq-libya-to-indoctrinatecaliphate-citizens-and-enhance-its-cyber-activities-on-the-ground-a-one-year-review-2/. 
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I discuss its full spectrum approach toward propaganda, one that 

incorporated a wide range of media. Then, I explore the group’s policy of 

censorship and information monopoly, paying special attention to its 

gradualist war on satellite television and free access to the Internet. Lastly, 

I analyze the “reality” constructed by its propagandists, and discuss the 

consequences of its most comprehensive approach towards shaping the 

narrative space. 

It is clear that the Islamic State long had a highly nuanced approach 

towards domestic public diplomacy, one that was set to have lasting 

reverberations on an international scale, even though it remained under the 

radar for years. With this in mind, in the conclusion I consider what might 

happen in the aftermath of the Islamic State’s military defeat, and discuss 

the importance of undermining this most subtle yet stubborn facet of its 

insurgent governance.
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II. The Islamic State as a Totalitarian Proto-State

In 1965, at the height of the Cold War, Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew 

Brzezinski published an analysis of totalitarian dictatorship. Although it 

was originally intended to present a framework for evaluating the structure 

of Cold War states, it provides an uncanny blueprint for understanding the 

Islamic State’s propaganda strategies and successes.9 According to their 

theory, in order to qualify as totalitarian, a ruling elite must possess the 

following characteristics: an elaborate ideology; a single mass party led by 

one man; a policing system based on terror; a near-complete monopoly of 

arms; a centrally controlled economy; and, crucially, control of the mass 

media.10

In the wake of its caliphal upgrade in June 2014, the Islamic State 

met all of these criteria, albeit to varying degrees of sophistication: an 

austere interpretation of salafi-jihadism underwrote its politics;11 a cultic 

“caliph” led it;12 its intelligence apparatus was diffuse, potent, and 

ruthless;13 it strove and, for the most part, succeeded, to hold the monopoly 

on violence in its heartlands;14 its economy was centrally administered by a 

formal ministry, the Diwan Bayt al-Mal;15 and, it was in pursuit of absolute 

 

9 Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy, Cambridge: 

Harvard University Press, 1965.

10 Friedrich and Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy, 22.

11 Cole Bunzel, “From paper state to caliphate: The ideology of the Islamic State,” The Brookings 

Institution, No. 19, March 2015, accessed 5 May 2017 at https://www.brookings.edu/wpcontent/uploads/2016/06/The-ideology-of-the-Islamic-State.pdf.

12 Matt Bradley, “ISIS declares new Islamist caliphate,” The Wall Street Journal, 29 June 2014, 

accessed 5 May 2017 at https://www.wsj.com/articles/isis-declares-new-islamist-caliphate1404065263.

13 See, for example, Islamic State, “Allah will suffice you against them II,” Euphrates Province 

Media Office, July 2016, accessed 5 May 2017 at http://jihadology.net/2016/07/27/new-videomessage-from-the-islamic-state-and-god-will-be-sufficient-for-you-against-them-wilayat-al-furat/.

14 Jay Akbar, “ISIS barbarians use meat cleaver to chop off hand and foot of two suspected thieves 

as hundreds of men and young boys,” The Daily Mail, 2 July 2015, accessed 5 May 2017 at 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3146928/ISIS-barbarians-use-meat-cleaver-chop-handfoot-two-suspected-thieves-hundreds-men-young-boys-watch-on.html.

15 Borzou Daragahi, “ISIS declares its own currency,” The Financial Times, 13 November 2016, 

accessed 4 May 2017 at https://www.ft.com/content/baf893e0-6b4f-11e4-9337-00144feabdc0. 
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control over the mass media.16 So, while it may be true that for structural 

reasons al-Baghdadi’s caliphate was never as intensely despotic as, say, the 

regimes of Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, or present-day North Korea, its 

state-building project seemed to be crafted along similar totalitarian lines.

For that reason, the group can usefully be understood as a totalitarian protostate, one that strove to realize the trappings of Friedrich and Brzezinski’s 

model over the course of its first few years as a caliphate. 

With this in mind, it serves to briefly touch upon how past 

totalitarian regimes have used propaganda. When applied in this context, 

propaganda is more than just a tool for persuasion. If leveraged alongside 

fear, it offers the ruling elite a way “to impress its formula on the masses” 

while concurrently undermining their very ability to resist—as French 

philosopher Jacques Ellul put it, propaganda can be used to “attack the 

individual, break down his resistance, [and] make his decisions for him.”17

In this sense, it is both a carrot with which to buoy the morale of supporters, 

and a stick with which to coerce adversaries into submission. If executed 

effectively by the totalitarian state, propaganda offers a way to substitute 

spontaneously formed public opinion with the “official image of the 

world,” and undermine dissidence in its most nascent stages.18

From 2014 onwards in its heartlands in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic 

State adopted a communication policy akin to the above. Indeed, alBaghdadi’s organization seemed to be working towards the very same 

strategic ends as totalitarians of bygone years, apparently hoping to use a 

cocktail of information, disinformation, and censorship to crush dissent and 

establish its ideological permanence. In the following pages, I explain how 

and why this came to be, making occasional reference to the means by 

 

16 See al-Masri, Principles, trans. by al-Tamimi.

17 John R. Palmer, “Theories of social change and the mass media,” The Journal of Aesthetic 

Education, 5 (1971), 145; Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, 1965, 

trans. by Konrad Kellen and Jean Lerner, New York: Random House Vintage Books, 1973, 18.

18 C.W. Cassinelli, “Totalitarianism, ideology, and propaganda,” The Journal of Politics, 22 (Feb. 

1960), 93; Paul Kecskemeti, “Totalitarian communications as a means of control: A note on the 

sociology of propaganda,” The Public Opinion Quarterly, 14 (1950), 224.
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which propaganda was used in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. As 

will be seen, similarities abound between the Islamic State’s strategic 

communication operations and those of Hitler’s Third Reich.
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III. The Infrastructure

In January 2017, the Islamic State released a video documentary 

about its defense of the city of Mosul.19 Coming 100 days after the 

campaign to recapture the city was first launched, the video was typically 

over-produced—rich in computer-generated graphics and synth-assisted 

chants. Reminiscent of the group’s other Mosul-related propaganda, the 

focus of the video was its industrialized use of suicide operations. What 

made it remarkable, though, was a segment in which it focused on the 

“knights of the media” that had taken up arms, cameras, and suicide vests 

to fight in the city.

Of particular note was an interview with a pre-adolescent media 

worker who relayed to the camera that he had joined the Islamic State some 

nine months earlier. He spoke in detail of his training and development in 

the organization, a narrative that was accompanied by never-before-seen

footage from inside one of the Islamic State’s so-called “institutes” for 

media training, a scene of highly disciplined, militaristic education. For the 

first time, Islamic State students of propaganda could be seen on film, 

wearing military garb and sitting at desks, listening to their instructors as 

they prepared the drone systems in front of them for battlefield surveillance 

and media production. In those brief seconds, the astonishing sophistication 

of the group’s propaganda infrastructure was laid bare for all to see.

***

In 2016, the Islamic State released a series of videos documenting 

its institutionalized war on satellite dishes.20 As well as focusing on what 

 

19 Islamic State, “The knights of the ministries,” Nineveh Province Media Office, 24 January 2017, 

accessed 3 May 2017 at http://heavy.com/news/2017/01/new-isis-islamic-state-video-knights-ofbureaucracy-mosul-iraq-wilayat-ninawa-modified-weaponized-drones-bombings-airstrikesuncensored-video/. The author prepared a detailed analysis of this video for IHS Markit.

20 Islamic State, “Destroying the satellite devices,” Raqqa Province Media Office, 31 May 2016, 

accessed 3 May 2017 at https://videopress.com/v/8tu1dBs1; Islamic State, “Protect Yourselves and 
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was being taken away, the propagandists spoke of what they were filling the 

resultant information void with. They showed portacabins decked out with 

widescreens and projectors, and media officials were depicted handing out 

copies of the official newspaper to passersby, while another operative 

briefed the cameras on the ever-evolving activities of al-Bayan Radio, the 

official station that operated across the Islamic State’s heartlands in Iraq and 

Syria for much of 2014, 2015, 2016, and some of 2017. This same official 

concluded the video by saying that the Islamic State was working to make 

a private “media point” out of every “Muslim house in the caliphate.” 

***

“When you walk on the streets of Raqqa, there are big 

screens that are showing beheadings. They have, you know, 

the projectors and we are walking in the streets and just 

watching these videos.”

21

***

In the early summer of 2014, the Islamic State began its efforts to

wrest control over the information space in its heartlands once and for all. 

It spearheaded this initiative with the establishment of a devoted 

infrastructure for propaganda dissemination, a way for it to fight, “on an 

internal front, to bring the truth” to the local population.

22 The two most 

 

Your Families from a Fire,” Khayr Province Media Office, 31 May 2016, accessed 3 May 2017 at 

https://videopress.com/v/uWaFHbp2; Islamic State, “And Let the Believers Be Cautious Regarding 

the Prevention of the Dish and Its Destruction,” Nineveh Province Media Office, 31 May 2016, 

accessed 3 May 2017 at https://videopress.com/v/G3Pc0rYy. The author prepared a detailed 

analysis of these videos for IHS Markit.

21 Excerpt of interview between unidentified wife of Islamic State member and CNN’s Arwa 

Damon. See Arwa Damon, “Female commander fighting to liberate Raqqa,” CNN, 22 June 2017, 

accessed 23 June 2017 at http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/2017.06.22.html.

22 Islamic State, “The media point: a window inside the media of the Islamic State,” Al-Naba’ XXI, 

8 March 2016, accessed 5 May 2017 at https://archive.org/details/bedr27, 13.
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important components of this infrastructure were the nuqat i'lamiyya

(literally, “media points’)—makeshift propaganda offices that were often 

nothing more than shipping containers equipped with projectors, printers, 

and plastic chairs—and al-Bayan Radio.

23 In this section, I explore the 

instrumental role these institutions had in allowing the Islamic State to 

market itself to the millions of Syrian and Iraqi civilians over which it ruled

between 2014 and 2017.

24

Notwithstanding their rudimentary nature, media points, which were 

present across the Islamic State’s territories as early as spring 2015, were

potent tools with which to expose civilians to the caliphate message. As well 

as screening its films, they served as satellite publishing houses at which

propaganda was printed and circulated. For example, the organization used 

media points in Syria and Iraq to disseminate all 50 issues of its 12,000-

 

23 Islamic State, “Aspect of the work of the media point in the city of Raqqa,” Raqqa Province 

Media Office, 19 April 2017, accessed 19 April 2017 at https://justpaste.it/15owb; Islamic State,

“Aspect of the work of the media office in the province – the media point,” Khayr Province Media 

Office, 8 March 2017, accessed 8 March 2017 at https://justpaste.it/149yq; Islamic State,

“Establishing a media point in the city of Tadmur,” Homs Province Media Office, 5 June 2015, 

accessed 10 April 2017 at 

https://khlafabook.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/%D9%87%D8%B0%D9%87-

%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A9-

%D8%A8%D9%85%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%A8%D8%A9-

%D9%82%D8%AA%D8%A7%D9%84-

%D8%A5%D8%AE%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%86%D8%A7-%D9%81%D9%8A-

%D8%A7%D9%84/; Islamic State, “Opening a media point in the city of Sirte,” Tripoli Province 

Media Office, 2 September 2015, accessed 10 April 2017 at

http://www.muslm.org/vb/showthread.php?530075-%D8%AF%D9%88%D9%84%D8%A9-

%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AE%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%81%D8%A9-

%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%A9-

%D8%A3%D8%AE%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1-

%D9%85%D8%AA%D8%AC%D8%AF%D8%AF%D8%A9/page956; Islamic State, “A 

screening of Allah and His Messenger spoke the truth at the media point in the city of Raqqa,”

Raqqa Province Media Office, 22 April 2017, accessed 3 May 2017 at http://store6.up00.com/2017-04/149288054523111.jpg.

24 Eli Berman and Jacob N. Shapiro, “Why ISIL will fail on its own,” Politico, 29 November 2015, 

accessed 5 May 2017 at http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/why-isil-will-fail-on-itsown-213401.
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word weekly newspaper, al-Naba’, in 2016.

25,26 It also used media points as 

digital distribution structures, facilities at which to burn electronic 

magazines onto compact discs and flash drives before giving them out to 

passersby free of charge.

27 These activities were not just limited to towns 

and cities; the Islamic State also rigged up vans so its propaganda could 

reach even the remotest areas of Iraq and Syria, a practice distinctly 

reminiscent of the mobile cinemas that roamed throughout rural Germany 

in the 1930s and 1940s.28

Intended as substitutes for conventional news outlets, the Islamic 

State’s media points were the principal tools through which it marketed

itself offline. At one and the same time, they were capable of delivering 

news updates on its domestic and external war effort, projecting its utopian 

narrative, and entrenching its existence within the local body politic. 

Attendance was assured both by blatant intimidation and the host

population’s desire to appear loyal—after all, what better way to feign 

support for a totalitarian insurgent group than to appear to voluntarily 

consume its propaganda?29

Although it was already deeply entrenched by 2015, the media point 

project was a relatively novel innovation.30 According to a written feature 

 

25 As of 19 December 2015, al-Naba’ has been disseminated in electronic form, too, through the 

Islamic State’s official propaganda disseminator, Nashir.

26 Islamic State, “Distributing the weekly al-Naba’ newspaper to ordinary Muslims,” Nineveh 

Province Media Office, 19 November 2016, accessed 10 April 2017 at 

https://dawaalhaq.com/post/57406; Islamic State, “Distributing al-Naba’ and video materials in 

south Shirqat,” Dijla Province Media Office, 23 July 2016, accessed 10 April 2017 at 

https://dawaalhaq.com/post/47966; Islamic State, “Distributing al-Naba’ in the city of Tal’afar,”

Jazira Province Media Office, 14 April 2017, accessed 14 April 2017 at https://justpaste.it/15j5i.

27 Interview between the author and activist from Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, 15 June 

2017; interview between the author and Waleed al-Fahdawi, Ramadi-based member of al-Bu Fahd 

tribal militia, 4 June 2017; and interview between author and Khaled al-Homsi of the Palmyra 

Coordination Committee, 31 May 2017.

28 See for example, the final sequence of Islamic State, “Raiding the villages to spread guidance,” 

Aleppo Province Media Office, 4 May 2016, accessed 5 May 2017 at 

https://videopress.com/v/KyiRyY1F; see also David Welch, The Third Reich: Politics and 

Propaganda, London: Routledge, 2002, 121.

29 Interview between the author and Waleed al-Fahdawi, 4 June 2017.

30 Islamic State, “The media point,” 12-13.
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in the Islamic State’s newspaper, the first point was established in spring 

2014 in the town of al-Bab in Aleppo province, geared towards

disseminating news in an environment that was “lacking in 

communications mechanisms.”

31 Its declared aim was to “present media in 

all of its forms to the ordinary people” of the region.32 Quite literally, the 

propagandists intended it to be a “coupling link” between the Islamic State 

organization and the people over whom it ruled.

33 After its early successes 

in al-Bab, the project became “one of the rudiments of [the Islamic State’s] 

domestic media,” proliferating rapidly ahead of June 2014’s caliphate

declaration.34

By March 2016, the organization claimed that it had as many as 60 

individual media points in Nineveh province—with 25 in the city of Mosul 

alone—and a further 39 in Dijla province.35 In Raqqa, the symbolic seat of 

the caliphate, activists asserted that there were “many in the city and its 

environs.”36

Media points did not just emerge in places that the Islamic State 

considered to be its heartlands. For example, soon after the Islamic State 

captured Palmyra in Syria and Ramadi in Iraq in 2015, it set up media points 

on thoroughfares in both cities.37 In Palmyra, just days elapsed before 

Islamic State officials were broadcasting propaganda to the civilians 

remaining in the city.

38 In overtly military contexts, then, media points 

seemed to be a way to normalize and entrench the group’s rule in areas 

where its power had not yet been consolidated.

Complementing the media point project was al-Bayan Radio, the 

Islamic State’s FM station, another institution that was set to become a 

 

31 Islamic State, “The media point,” 12. 

32 Islamic State, “The media point,” 12.

33 Islamic State, “The media point,” 12.

34 Islamic State, “The media point,” 13.

35 Islamic State, “The media point,” 12.

36 Interview between author and Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, 15 June 2017.

37 Interview between author and Khaled al-Homsi, 31 May 2017; interview between author and 

Waleed al-Fahdawi, 4 June 2017.

38 Interview between author and Khaled al-Homsi, 31 May 2017.
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critical part of the propagandists’ everyday operations from 2014 onwards. 

Its most important product was the official daily bulletin, which provided a

World War II-style overview of the previous day’s military exploits and 

enabled the organization to tactically respond to enemy propaganda.

39 In 

some places, listening to it was optional.40 In others, media officials forced 

al-Bayan upon the local population by playing it on media point 

loudspeakers for all to hear.41 It is difficult to overstate the importance of 

the radio station—by 2017, it had become a vehicle for defensive and

offensive information operations, a way for the group to directly engage 

with and repudiate reality on a regular, systematic basis.

42

When it comes to the infrastructure behind the Islamic State’s

propaganda operations, similarities between it and past totalitarians abound. 

Take, for instance, the Third Reich, which notoriously recognized the 

importance of stacking the media cards against civilians by co-opting local 

media structures to dictate official news. In 1930s Germany, radio sets, 

attendance at theaters, and tickets to cinemas were all heavily subsidized by 

the Nazi state, as its propaganda machine attempted to “manufacture a 

consensus where one did not previously exist.”

43 Moreover, at the height of 

the Blitzkrieg, its military campaigns were offset with offensive radio 

propaganda geared toward undermining the potential for resistance in the 

target population.44 When the Islamic State was spreading across Iraq and 

Syria in 2014 and 2015, it adopted a largely analogous strategy. As it 

 

39 In a November 2015 issue of al-Naba’, the Islamic State published an al-Bayan Radio 

infographic detailing nine FM radio stations—one in Libya, four in Syria, and four in Iraq—and 

three operations centers—one in Syria and two in Iraq. Islamic State, “Bayan Radio Infographic,”

30 November 2015, accessed 5 May 2017 at https://dawaalhaq.com/post/33205. 

40 Interview between author and Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, 15 June 2017.

41 Interview between author and Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, 15 June 2017.

42 At the time of writing, al-Bayan Radio bulletins are disseminated in Uyghur, Arabic, Turkish, 

Kurdish, Russian, French, and English. In the eleventh issue of al-Naba’, an al-Bayan Radio 

infographic notes the 12 “most important programs” for Rabi’ al-Awwal and Rabi’ al-Akhr 1437. 

See Islamic State, “al-Naba’ XI: Wait, we are also waiting,” 29 December 2015, accessed 5 May 

2017 at https://dawaalhaq.com/post/34790. 

43 Welch, The Third Reich, 61.

44 Welch, The Third Reich, 124.
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advanced, it systematically took control of communications technology and 

fought ferociously to seize radio stations, from which it would broadcast 

news bulletins straight from the battlefield.

45 Evidently, both totalitarians—

both the Nazi regime and the salafi-jihadist proto-state—considered media 

infrastructure to be a sound investment, a way to communicate ideology and 

construct reality on a lasting basis.46

 

45

“Alleged ISIS gunmen in Libya ‘seize radio station’,” AFP, 13 February 2015, accessed 5 May 

2017 at http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/02/13/Alleged-ISIS-gunmen-inLibya-seize-radio-station-.html. 

46 In February 2015, for example, Islamic State fighters captured a public radio station in Sirte, 

Libya. Within hours, they were using it to transmit excerpts from speeches by Abu Muhammad al-

‘Adnani and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and calling upon their enemies to defect. See “Alleged ISIS 

gunmen in Libya ‘seize radio station’,” AFP.
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IV. The Medium

“Propaganda must be total. The propagandist must utilize all 

of the technical means at his disposal—the press, radio, TV, 

movies, posters, meetings, door-to-door canvassing[.] There 

is no propaganda as long as one makes use, in sporadic 

fashion and at random, of a newspaper article here, a poster 

or a radio program there, organizes a few meetings and 

lectures, writes a few slogans on walls; that is not 

propaganda.”

47

***

In May 2016, the Islamic State’s media office in Aleppo province 

released a video entitled Raiding the Villages to Spread Guidance.48 It 

presented a case study into Islamic State outreach in the region’s most 

remote villages, thereby providing important insight into the bureaucratic 

and logistical structures behind the group’s local recruitment efforts. It 

began with a media official claiming that there had been, in the months prior 

to filming, a sudden surge in new recruits to the Islamic State that was a 

result of two things: first, Islamic State propaganda; and, second, the 

campaigns of the Office of Proselytization and Mosques, one of which 

would be the subject of this video.

The account followed a team of recruiters as they traveled to a 

number of mud brick villages, where they were shown engaging in what 

was termed “the first stage of proselytization”—distributing leaflets 

throughout the villages, putting particular focus on children. Next, footage 

cut in showing a mosque in which dozens of prepubescent boys were 

 

47 Ellul, Propaganda, 9.

48 Islamic State, “Raiding the villages to spread guidance,” Aleppo Province Media Office, 4 May 

2016, accessed 5 May 2017 at https://videopress.com/v/KyiRyY1F. The author prepared a detailed 

analysis of this video for IHS Markit.
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gathered for a “primary” course. They could be seen learning the Qur’an

by rote, being taught how to write, and playing educational games, before 

the camera cut to an interview with an official who claimed that, in the last 

five months alone, roughly 70,000 of these “cubs” had attended courses 

delivered by him and his associates. 

Next, a different official was filmed speaking about the courses that 

were delivered specifically to women. He claimed that some 40,000 female 

supporters had attended them in the last few months alone, resulting in a 

situation in which mothers were signing their own children up to the Islamic 

State’s military forces, and encouraging them to volunteer for suicide 

operations. 

On the tenth and final day of the campaign, the newly assimilated 

villagers were shown collectively pledging allegiance to the caliph. After 

the ceremony was concluded, a “da’wa caravan”—a colorfully decorated 

truck equipped with loudspeakers—was shown hosting a celebration in the 

village square, complete with comedy, singing, and copious amounts of 

boiled sweets.

***

Even prior to 2014, the Islamic State had begun to adopt what has 

been described by Ellul as a “total” propaganda strategy.49 It did not just 

communicate with civilians through audiovisual media published on an 

occasional basis. Rather, its propaganda cadres worked constantly to embed 

themselves and their organization within the local population, using all 

means of communication. Taking this into account, the group’s propaganda 

efforts can be divided into two broad and overlapping categories.

The first is “consumed propaganda.” This comprises all media that

was watched, listened to, or read, and included the Islamic State’s

documentaries, current affairs features, radio programs, photographic 

 

49 Ellul, Propaganda, 9.
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reports, newspapers, magazines, operation claims, theological literature, 

infographics, posters, billboards, and so on. The second category, which 

relied upon direct engagement, is the Islamic State’s “performative

propaganda.” Primarily delivered by officials working in the Media 

Ministry, Office of Proselytization and Mosques, Education Ministry, and 

Hisba Police, this kind of propaganda comprised choreographed

interactions between the Islamic State and its civilian population. Most of 

the time, performative propaganda operations occurred at public spectacles

like executions and amputations, as well as town fairs, mosque sermons,

and school lessons. This category also includes propaganda that was not 

staged as such, but spread by word of mouth—the Islamic State’s equivalent 

of the Nazi “whispering campaigns,” or Mundpropaganda.

50

Evidently, the Islamic State recognized the power of physical 

presence, and that the act of media dissemination could itself become a 

mechanism of propaganda. With that in mind, the group ensured that its 

consumed propaganda was persistently iterated and reiterated in the course 

of its performative propaganda operations, an approach that increased both 

the durability and sustainability of its indoctrination efforts.

 

50 See Aristotle A. Kallis, Nazi Propaganda and the Second World War, New York: Palgrave 

Macmillan, 2005, 139-141. 
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Image 1: DVDs being distributed in Tal’afar.

51

Image 2: Islamic State fighters watching propaganda.52

 

51 Islamic State, “Aspect of the distribution of Nineveh Province video release The procession of 

light to normal Muslims in the city of Tal’afar,” Jazira Province Media Office, 12 April 2017, 

accessed 12 April 2017 at https://justpaste.it/15fzl.

52 Islamic State, “Screening videos to those on the frontlines in the east of the province,”

Raqqa Province Media Office, 4 May 2017, accessed 4 May 2017 at https://justpaste.it/168le.
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Image 3: Poster for documentary about Bayan Radio in Mosul.53

Image 4: Islamic State fighters reading the newspaper in central Syria (note 

infographic).

54

 

53 Islamic State, “Bayan Radio in Nineveh Province,” Nineveh Province Media Office, 13 April 

2015, accessed 4 May 2017 at https://archive.org/details/bayan_radio.

54 Islamic State, “Distribution of the weekly magazine al-Naba’ to those on the frontlines,” Hama 

Province Media Office, 16 April 2017, accessed 16 April 2017 at https://justpaste.it/15ksm.
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Image 5: Newspaper being distributed to civilians in Tal’afar.55

Image 6: Da’wa literature being distributed in Raqqa.56

 

55 Islamic State, “Distribution of the weekly newspaper al-Naba’ in the city of Tal’afar,” Jazira 

Province Media Office, 14 April 2017, accessed 14 April 2017 at https://justpaste.it/15j5i.

56 Islamic State, “The Da’wa Center—distributing da’wa literature to Muslims in Raqqa,” Raqqa 

Province Media Office, 29 March 2017, accessed 29 March 2017 at https://justpaste.it/14z67.
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Image 7: A sermon in Mosul.57

Image 8: A billboard stipulating rules for womenswear in Damascus.58

 

57 Islamic State, “Al-Sawwaf Mosque in Mosul,” Nineveh Province Media Office, 21 January 

2017, accessed 21 January 2017 at https://justpaste.it/moswf.

58 Islamic State, “Aspect of the work of the Da’wa Office in Yarmuk Camp—preparing and setting 

up billboards,” Damascus Province Media Office, 20 February 2017, accessed 20 February 2017 at

https://justpaste.it/15qnh.
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Image 9: A public spectacle in Mosul.59

Image 10: A mural being painted in Tabqa.60

 

59 Islamic State, “Whipping a cigarette smuggler in Mosul,” Nineveh Province Media Office, 5 

February 2017, accessed 4 May 2017 at http://store6.up-00.com/2017-02/148629006471483.jpg.

60 Screenshot from Islamic State, Building Blocks, Raqqa Province Media Office, 5 February 2017, 

accessed 4 May 2017 at https://archive.org/details/fff0110101_gmail_LBRQ_201702.
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V. The Messenger

In 2016, the Islamic State released three videos that focused on the 

issue of information censorship in Syria and Iraq. The first, produced by 

Raqqa province’s media office, was entitled Destroying the Satellite 

Devices.61 Next was Nineveh province’s And Let the Believers Be Cautious 

Regarding the Prevention of the Dish and Its Destruction.62 Third was 

Khayr province’s Ward Yourselves and Your Families Away from Fire.

63

The three videos, which lasted between nine and thirteen minutes, 

closely resembled each other, with each fusing together interviews with 

religious policemen, media officials, and civilian supporters of the Islamic 

State. At the beginning of each, the propagandists alleged that the 

“Crusader coalition” had launched an all-out information war against Sunni 

Islam in general and the Islamic State in particular. They went on to explain 

that, because of this, satellite broadcasting—the coalition’s “chief weapon” 

in this war—must cease immediately, and all associated technologies be 

destroyed. 

An official in the Khayr province video was depicted reprimanding 

parents who permitted their children to watch satellite television, claiming 

that they were willfully corrupting the next generation of the Islamic State’s 

mujahidin. Another official, this time in Raqqa province, could be viewed 

castigating the masses for allowing satellite dishes to distract them from the 

teachings of the Qur’an. Because of satellite television, he held, “corrupt 

 

61 Islamic State, “Destroying the satellite devices,” Raqqa Province Media Office, 31 May 2016, 

accessed 3 May 2017 at https://videopress.com/v/8tu1dBs1. The author prepared a detailed analysis 

of this video for IHS Markit.

62 Islamic State, “And Let the Believers Be Cautious Regarding the Prevention of the Dish and Its 

Destruction,” Nineveh Province Media Office, 31 May 2016, accessed 3 May 2017 at 

https://videopress.com/v/G3Pc0rYy. The author prepared a detailed analysis of this video for IHS 

Markit.

63 Islamic State, “Protect Yourselves and Your Families from a Fire,” Khayr Province Media 

Office, 31 May 2016, accessed 3 May 2017 at https://videopress.com/v/uWaFHbp2. The author 

prepared a detailed analysis of this video for IHS Markit.
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practices” like democracy were able to take root among Muslims. For these 

reasons, their destruction was a shari’a imperative. 

After justifying why censorship was necessary, the propagandists 

went on to examine how the policy was actually being implemented. 

Throughout all the videos, emphasis was placed upon public consent and 

cooperation. Gatherings in Mosul showed civilians, young and old, 

shattering their satellite receivers with glee; likewise, residents of Raqqa 

were depicted as willing enforcers of the new laws; and supporters in 

Syria’s Deir ez-Zor governorate could be observed enthusiastically 

dismissing instruments of “Crusader” propaganda, and announcing that 

they preferred to consume the Islamic State’s media instead.

***

As Ellul noted in 1962, for a totalitarian propaganda strategy to be 

truly effective, a particular set of logistical circumstances is required.64 In 

essence, he held that the ruling elite must strive to be the sole messenger

when engaging with an audience. Hence, he contended, totalitarians must

exert full control—or something close to it—over the mass media.

65 In the

age of digital communication, the totalitarian’s information monopoly 

cannot stop there; it must comprise all forms of new media as well.

66

Given the advances in communications technology that occurred in 

recent years, “true monopoly is now very rare.”67 Nevertheless, the Islamic 

State still pursued one after announcing its caliphate in 2014. Like any 

totalitarian movement, external channels of information running against its

particular party line posed a long-term destabilizing threat. Hence, from 

2014 onwards, the group set about physically removing or ideologically 

discrediting them. Seemingly cognizant of the fact that immediately 

 

64 Ellul, Propaganda, 9.

65 Ellul, Propaganda, 102.

66 Ellul, Propaganda, 22.

67 Denis McQuail, Mass Communication Theory (6th edition), New York: Sage Publications, 195.
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withdrawing civilian access to the outside world would have risked 

irreparably harming its appeal, it opted for an incremental approach toward

censorship. Between 2014 and early 2017, it worked gradually, at times

imperceptibly, to inhibit access to the Internet, jam radio signals, and ban

satellite dishes (which it at one point condemned as ‘adu min al-dakhil—

“an enemy within”).68

To be sure, it would be wrong to overstate the extent of the Islamic 

State’s censorship program; even at its height, it was only ever a partial 

success. In 2017, activists living in Raqqa reported to the author that the 

Islamic State had legislatively forbidden use of the Internet soon after its 

capture of the city, but that enforcing the ban was easier said than done and, 

for that reason, it had out of necessity been more flexible than its laws 

suggested.69 That being said, the activists also noted that, while it may have 

 

68 On 2 December 2015, the Islamic State’s Department of Hisba released a statement banning 

satellite TV transmitters due to their insidious spreading of “deceit, lies, and defamation.” By the 

end of the month, this statement had been officially translated into English and Farsi. In the weeks 

that followed, al-Naba’ featured an infographic detailing the seven central evils of satellite 

transmission, which was subsequently translated into English. Islamic State, “The banning of 

satellite receivers,” Department of Hisba, 6 December 2015, accessed 3 May 2017 at 

http://www.all4syria.info/Archive/278488; Islamic State, “The banning of satellite TV receivers,”

Diwan al-Hisbah, 30 December 2015, accessed 3 May 2017 at 

http://www.aljazeera.net/news/reportsandinterviews/2016/1/19/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D9

%82%D8%A9-%D8%B3%D8%AC%D9%86-%D8%AA%D9%86%D8%B8%D9%8A%D9%85-

%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF%D9%88%D9%84%D8%A9-

%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%83%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%B1; Islamic State, “al-Naba’ XI: Wait, we 

are also waiting,” 29 December 2015, accessed 3 May 2017 at https://archive.org/details/nbaa11;

Islamic State, “Purifying the homes of the Muslims from satellite dish receivers,” Hisba 

Committee, 17 May 2016, accessed 3 May 2017 at

http://www.anapress.net/ar/articles/%D8%A3%D8%AE%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1/217792837

947810/-%D8%AA%D8%B7%D9%87%D9%8A%D8%B1-

%D8%A8%D9%8A%D9%88%D8%AA-

%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B3%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8A%D9%86-

%D9%85%D9%86-%D8%A3%D8%AC%D9%87%D8%B2%D8%A9-

%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA%D9%82%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84-

%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%81%D8%B6%D8%A7%D8%A6%D9%8A-..-

%D8%B4%D8%B9%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D8%AD%D9%85%D9%84%D8%A9-

%D8%AC%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%AF%D8%A9-

%D9%84%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%B4-%D9%81%D9%8A-

%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B2%D9%88%D8%B1.

69 Interview between author and Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, 15 June 2017.
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been relatively easy to access the Internet in early 2014, “it became harder 

to do so in 2015, and even harder in 2016 and 2017.”

70,71 Indeed, by early 

2017, Raqqa’s once myriad Internet cafes had been whittled down to just a 

handful, each of which was run by Islamic State supporters who recorded

customers’ names and facilitated regular police inspections.72

The group’s attempts to crack down on satellite television followed 

a similar trajectory. After months of legal ambiguity on the matter, it began 

to take a more proactive stance towards the end of 2015, eventually

threatening citizens with “severe punishment” if they were caught using 

satellite dishes.

73 So, once again, while its stated position was long clear, it 

was quite some time before the organization actually began implementing

it.

74

In Mosul, the situation was similar, though initially less advanced. 

According to its residents, public Internet cafes faced similar regulations to 

those implemented in Raqqa, but private Internet usage remained fairly 

popular.

75 And, again like in Raqqa, measures taken against the use of

satellite dishes were piecemeal until the summer of 2016, with many 

citizens continuing to watch television news surreptitiously in spite of the 

Islamic State’s efforts to stop them.

76 Notwithstanding this reluctance to 

bend to the group’s totalitarian will, satellite broadcasting and Internet 

 

70 Interview between author and Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, 15 June 2017.

71 As an aside, it is worth noting that private Internet access only continued as it did throughout this 

period because the citizens of Raqqa had already spent years circumventing Assad regime 

censorship, something that gave rise to an informal network of satellite-powered Wi-Fi that not 

even the Islamic State could shut down. Michael Weiss, “ISIS’s jihad against WiFi,” The Daily 

Beast, 21 July 2015, accessed 25 May 2017 at 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/21/isis-s-jihad-against-wifi.html.

72 Interview between author and Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, 15 June 2017.

73 Interview between author and Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, 15 June 2017.

74 As signified by the release of Islamic State, “Destroying the satellite devices,” Raqqa Province 

Media Office, 31 May 2016, accessed 3 May 2017 at https://videopress.com/v/8tu1dBs1.

75 Heather Murdock, “Staying online in dangerous times,” VOA News, 22 January 2017, accessed 

27 June 2017 at https://projects.voanews.com/mosul/profile/59221-staying-online-in-dangeroustimes.

76 “Satellite dishes reconnect post-IS Mosul to world,” AFP, 20 April 2017, accessed 27 June 2017 

at http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/afp/2017/04/iraq-conflict-jihadists-television.html.
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access were severely hampered over the years, as the Islamic State sought 

to isolate the civilian population from the rest of the world.

77

In Raqqa and Mosul, it seemed that the group was relatively 

cautious, intent on preserving the fragile acquiescence of the local 

population. The same cannot be said of towns and cities that were of lesser 

strategic value to it, especially those that were seized after protracted 

military campaigns. In Palmyra, for example, the Islamic State 

circumvented any pretense of censorship gradualism and enforced a de facto 

ban on the Internet by refusing to repair any of the cyber infrastructure that 

had been so crippled during its seizure of the city in May 2015.78 Likewise, 

in Ramadi, it banned the Internet by the same means, though it did 

eventually permit some limited access alongside mobile telephony, 

provided it took place in custom-built, Islamic State-administered “halls.”

79

In these facilities, the activities of attendees were carefully monitored, with 

screens being checked as often as every five minutes.80

As a cumulative result of these policies, credible news that ran

contrary to the Islamic State’s propaganda was structurally challenged in 

the group’s heartlands. Whether in Iraq or Syria, verifiable reports about the 

coalition’s efforts were scarce, and the tidbits that did get past the caliphate 

firewall were often obscured by Islamic State disinformation. Conspiracy 

theories ran amok, and confusion as to the coalition's real aims blossomed.

81

Crucially, too, the Islamic State’s official propaganda narrative emerged as 

the only constant, a point that is revisited in the next section.

To summarize, the Islamic State benefitted from its attempted 

communications monopoly in three main ways: first, it enabled the group

 

77 Similar to in Raqqa, the Islamic State’s ramped up anti-satellite television measures were 

signified by the release of the Islamic State, “And Let the Believers Be Cautious Regarding the 

Prevention of the Dish and Its Destruction,” Nineveh Province Media Office, 31 May 2016, 

accessed 3 May 2017 at https://videopress.com/v/G3Pc0rYy.

78 Interview between author and Khaled al-Homsi, 31 May 2017.

79 Interview between the author and Waleed al-Fahdawi, 4 June 2017.

80 Interview between the author and Waleed al-Fahdawi, 4 June 2017.

81

“Satellite dishes reconnect post-IS Mosul to world,” AFP, 20 April 2017, accessed 27 June 2017 

at http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/afp/2017/04/iraq-conflict-jihadists-television.html.
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to mitigate operational risks presented by the almost ubiquitous mobile 

phone cameras that were present across its heartlands (photographs could 

be taken, but not easily uploaded);

82 second, it allowed the Islamic State’s 

central media foundations to narrowly dictate their propaganda line;

83 third, 

and most important in this context, it limited the access that ordinary 

civilians had to the outside world. While many fighters were ideologically 

committed to pursuing the goals of the Islamic State, the majority of people 

ruled by it in Syria and Iraq were not, and only lived in the caliphate because 

they had no better alternative.84 In this sense, they posed a critical, but latent, 

security risk to the caliphate, which seemingly determined that if it limited 

the civilian population’s ability to access outside channels of information,

any rebellious spirit would be derailed almost as soon as it emerged. 

Particularly in places like Mosul and Raqqa, this approach seemed to pay 

off—indeed, in spite of persistent coalition backing and communiqués on 

the matter, there was no mass uprising in either city, even when the Islamic 

State’s position was at its most perilous.85

At this stage, it serves to return to the comparison with the Third 

Reich. Like the Islamic State, the Nazi regime was notoriously “afraid of 

enemy propaganda” and went to great lengths to undermine and restrict 

access to channels of information that ran against, or could be seen to run 

 

82 As was widely publicized by the coalition in June 2015, photographs could be used against the 

group in airstrike planning. Louisa Loveluck, “‘Moron’ militant’s selfie leads to US air raid on Isil 

unit,” The Telegraph, 4 June 2015, accessed 3 May 2017 at 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11652942/Moron-militants-selfie-leadsto-US-air-raid-on-Isil-unit.html. As journalists moved into territories seized from the group in 

2017, it soon became clear that at least some Islamic State fighters were keen amateur 

photographers. See, for example, Quentin Somerville and Riam Dalati, “The secret lives of young 

IS fighters,” BBC News, 23 June 2017, accessed 25 September 2017 at 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/is_fighters.

83 Al-Masri, Principles, trans. by al-Tamimi.

84 Berman and Shapiro, “Why ISIL will fail on its own.”

85 Martin Chulov, “Anti-ISIS resistance group plans to rise up in Mosul, say residents,” The 

Guardian, 19 October 2016, accessed 3 May 2017 at 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/19/anti-isis-resistance-group-plans-rise-up-mosuliraq.
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against, the party line.86 Concurrently, it coordinated and centralized official 

information as much as possible in order to maximize narrative coherence.

87

After it seized Mosul in 2014, the Islamic State adopted a similar approach, 

albeit one that was inhibited by the situational exigencies it faced. It worked 

assiduously to disrupt and discredit non-Islamic State information flows, 

attempting to force new subjects—whether they were supporters or 

adversaries—to defer to its version of events alone. Notably, its approach 

was more gradualist in places where its presence was based more upon 

consent than coercion. In any case, there is little doubt about what the 

Islamic State was pursuing through the activities outlined above: its media 

strategists wanted to complement their propaganda infrastructure with a 

watertight information monopoly.

 

86 Leonard W. Doob, “Goebbels’ principles of propaganda,” The Public Opinion Quarterly 14 

(1950), 429.

87 Doob, “Goebbels’ principles of propaganda,” 430.
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VI. The Message

In early 2017, the Islamic State released a video entitled Building 

Blocks.88 Produced and disseminated by Raqqa province’s media office, the 

documentary-style film was one of the most fine-tuned manifestations of 

the Islamic State’s utopia narrative to date. After opening with a brief 

montage of military propaganda—Islamic State soldiers preparing their 

weapons before operations and firing off mortars into the distance—the 

video changed tack, shifting its focus away from the martial Islamic State 

toward the civilian Islamic State. Vivid scenes of sunsets, playgrounds, 

fishing, and markets cut across the screen, as the narrator spoke of the twin 

pillars of the Islamic State caliphate—shura (consultation) and shari’a

(law)—before he set out the roles of its various ministries, which covered 

all aspects of life in the caliphate, whether they were “administrative, 

judicial, security-related, services-related, religious, or health-related.”

The video went on to showcase the various “building blocks” of 

caliphal governance in Raqqa. First, there was the Office of Proselytization 

and Mosques; next was the Education Office, followed by the Traffic 

Police, Social Welfare Committee, Health Ministry, Emergency Services 

Office, Street Repair Committee, Bureau for Electricity and Water, 

Municipal Services, Media Centers, Inspections Office, Transport 

Department, and Bakeries Administration. 

The “important work” of each of these departments was then 

exhibited in a series of video clips depicting everything from supermarket 

inspections to fire trucks, traffic police, and schooling. One of the civilian 

workers interviewed during this vignette announced that, “by the will of 

God, job opportunities have blossomed, the economy has boomed, and trade 

has increased.”

 

88 Islamic State, “Building blocks,” Raqqa Province Media Office, 5 February 2017, accessed 3 

May 2017 at https://dawaalhaq.com/post/63614. The author prepared a detailed analysis of this 

video for IHS Markit.
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The remainder of the video flitted between mosque seminars, roads, 

water purification stations, and power plants. As the propagandists 

meandered between these various walks of Islamic State life, they 

interviewed a series of individuals who alleged that they were elated at their 

lives in the caliphate, which were, they contended, on the whole more 

successful and more rewarding than they had been under the Assad regime. 

One electricity engineer even said: “I worked for 12 years for the regime 

and, thanks be to God, now I am an employee of the Islamic State. Thanks 

be to God, the difference is big, both professionally and personally. Now, 

you get to work with others, other Muslim brothers. Thanks be to God, it’s 

a big, big difference.”

***

While the prevailing media narrative regarding the Islamic State’s

message has tended to focus on its brutality, in reality, the organization’s 

propaganda was always varied, incorporating a complex thematic cocktail 

of positivity and negativity. Reflecting their totalitarian inclinations, alBaghdadi’s propagandists worked to refract as many aspects of existence 

through their caliphal lens as possible. When considered in aggregate, the 

picture they painted was a complicated fusion of ideas that loosely revolved 

around three nebulous and non-discrete themes: victimhood, warfare, and 

utopianism.89

Perhaps the most potent aspect of Islamic State media were its vivid 

representations of millenarian utopia—the photographic essays and videos 

that showed everything from farms and markets to street cleaners and 

 

89 See Charlie Winter, “The virtual caliphate: Understanding Islamic State's propaganda strategy,”

Quilliam, July 2015, accessed 3 May 2017 at http://www.stratcomcoe.org/charlie-winter-virtualcaliphate-understanding-islamic-states-propaganda-strategy; and Charlie Winter, “Documenting the 

virtual caliphate,” Quilliam, October 2015, accessed 3 May 2017 at 

http://truevisiontv.com/uploads/websites/39/wysiwyg/doctors/jihad/FINAL-documenting-thevirtual-caliphate.pdf.
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maternity wards.90 While this kind of propaganda almost always went 

unnoticed in mainstream news coverage, it was instrumental to the Islamic 

State’s appeal, contributing as it did to an unparalleled picture of euphoric, 

efficient, and functioning “Islamic” rule. It was this offer of a seemingly 

viable, certainly radical alternative to the status quo that gave the group the 

edge over its salafi-jihadist rivals, who, lest it be forgotten, were competing 

for the same scarce resources—namely, recruits and donors.

That being said, it is crucial to recognize that the Islamic State’s

propaganda was never just geared toward recruiting new members and 

attracting donors. Rather, it was just as much—if not more—produced in 

order to sustain the morale of current supporters and convince them that 

they remained on the right path. To this end, the propagandists used 

audiovisual media to bolster the perception that their “state” was as 

contiguous as it was transnational. They constructed an alternate 

propagandistic reality, one that was conveyed by a persistent stream of 

multimedia content—at its height, some 35 individual products each day—

drawn from a range of locations and focusing on multiple themes.91 While 

the scope of its propaganda declined from 2015 onwards, even at its lowest 

ebb the group was circulating about 20 unique propaganda products each 

day: in early 2017, for example, it disseminated no fewer than 570

individual pieces of propaganda in a single month.

92

On any given day—in this case, 12 January 2017—civilians in the 

caliphate would be force-fed images of anything from theology 

competitions, industrial pipe factories, and sheep markets to military 

 

90 Islamic State, “A Friday market in the village of al-‘Aluliyya,” Jazira Province Media Office, 28 

April 2017, accessed 28 April 2017 at https://justpaste.it/1618y; Islamic State, “Agricultural work 

in the countryside of the province,” Raqqa Province Media Office, 18 March 2017, accessed 18 

March 2017 at https://justpaste.it/14l71; Islamic State, “Aspect of the work of the Services Center,”

Khayr Province Media Office, 18 February 2017, accessed 18 February 2017 at 

https://justpaste.it/13m7n; and Islamic State, “ISHS: Healthcare services,” Raqqa Province Media 

Office, 24 April 2015, accessed 3 May 2017 at https://videopress.com/v/ZloTFd6Y. 

91 Winter, “Documenting the virtual ‘caliphate.’”

92 Charlie Winter, “The ISIS propaganda decline,” ICSR Insight, 23 March 2017, accessed 3 May 

2017 at http://icsr.info/2017/03/icsr-insight-isis-propaganda-decline/.
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operations and bomb sites—and that is not to mention the content emerging 

from overseas affiliates.93 Indeed, even in early 2017 after many of its 

global branches had become dormant, depictions of snowy mountains in 

Afghanistan, rocket fire in Yemen, ambushes in Nigeria, and intelligence 

operations in Egypt were almost as ubiquitous as the above.

94

As its territorial integrity crumbled across 2016 and 2017, the 

Islamic State’s propagandistic claims became much more audacious. Its 

media officials increasingly indulged in military denialism while

celebrating their organization’s overseas terrorist “victories” and bundling 

adversaries together, regardless of whether they were allies or enemies of 

each other.

95 However, this did not necessarily mean that their efforts were 

less effective. Regardless of the credulity of the Islamic State narrative, true 

believers continued to embrace it, just as adversaries appeared to remain

inhibited by it. In this sense, the overarching message of the Islamic State’s 

 

93 An activist in Raqqa reported to the author that “the Islamic State broadcast news and videos 

from all of its provinces and not just Raqqa.” Interview between author and Raqqa Is Being 

Slaughtered Silently, 15 June 2017. See also, Islamic State, “Aspect of the Quran memorization 

sessions in Tabqa,” Raqqa Province Media Office, 12 January 2017, accessed 12 January 2017 at 

https://justpaste.it/12cbs; Islamic State, “The production of water pipes in the city of al-Bu Kamal,”

Euphrates Province Media Office, 12 January 2017, accessed 12 January 2017 at 

https://justpaste.it/kertum2; Islamic State, “Thursday market in the town of Ma’dan to the south of 

the province,” Raqqa Province Media Office, 12 January 2017, accessed 12 January 2017 at 

https://justpaste.it/12cmu; Islamic State, “Garrisons on the edges of the village of Tal al-Dhahab to 

the west of Hawija,” Kirkuk Province Media Office, 12 January 2017, accessed 12 January 2017 at 

https://justpaste.it/12cbf; and Islamic State, “Deaths and damage from an American air raid 

yesterday in New Mosul,” A’maq News Agency, 12 January 2017, http://bit.ly/2joepoE. See also 

Charlie Winter and Colin Clarke, “Is ISIS breaking apart?,” Foreign Affairs, 31 January 2017, 

accessed 3 May 2017 at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2017-01-31/isis-breaking-apart.

94 Islamic State, “The district of Mamand Achin in Nangarhar,” Khurasan Province Media Office,

23 January 2017, accessed 23 January 2017 at https://justpaste.it/12pob; Islamic State, “Targeting 

Huthi positions with B10 weapons systems in Hama Laqah in Fayqa,” Baydha Province Media 

Office, 6 January 2017, accessed 6 January 2017 at https://justpaste.it/1258q; Islamic State, “The 

progress of battles in Yubiyya district,” West Africa Province Media Office, 30 January 2017, 

accessed 30 January 2017 at https://justpaste.it/12xw5; and Islamic State, “Aspect of the work of 

the Security Centre in Sinai Province,” Sinai Province Media Office, 1 April 2017, accessed 1 April 

at https://justpaste.it/152wk.

95 Douglas A. Ollivant, “ISIS is losing the war,” CNN, 12 March 2016, accessed 3 May 2017 at 

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/08/opinions/isis-is-losing-the-war-opinion-ollivant/; and Islamic 

State, “The global alliance scrutinized and afflicted,” Raqqa Province Media Office, 2 December 

2014, accessed 3 May 2017 at https://videopress.com/v/10K60v1H. 
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propaganda was seemingly retarding the free formation of public opinion, a 

phenomenon discussed at length by Ellul, whose theory of propaganda—

discussed below—once again presents a useful aid to evaluate the group’s 

information strategy.

96

For the most part, the Islamic State’s media output was what Ellul

would have regarded as “integrative” and “strategic”—that is, delivered 

with a long-term socializing intent in mind—not “agitative” and 

“tactical”—that is, disseminated with a view to opposing the status quo and

instigating direct action.97 To a large extent, it appears that it was circulated 

in Syria and Iraq with the intent of stopping the population from 

differentiating between the Islamic State’s constructed reality and fact.98 By

doing this, the propagandists could work to erase the distinction between 

the individual and the mass and hobble their current and future ability to 

engage—or even consider engaging—in dissent. On the one hand, terror 

could be directed at the “potential enemy” as much as at the overt rebel 

and, on the other, narrative believability could be cast aside entirely, as the 

propagandists “mocked those under [their] control” by circulating 

exaggerated claims of economic plenty, battlefield success, and, in the 

Islamic State’s case at least, religious perfection.99

In this sense, the world constructed in Islamic State propaganda was 

not simply used to convince subjects that the organization was on the right 

path—it was equally a coercive political weapon. Besides straightforward 

recruitment, it was leveraged in order to buoy morale among supporters and 

entrench despair in the hearts of potential dissenters: civilian supporters

were able to distract themselves from the iniquities of caliphal rule by 

looking on at the seemingly stable, fruitful lives of their brethren elsewhere; 

soldiers losing ground on one front could find inspiration from victories 

 

96 See Winter, “The virtual caliphate.”

97 For more on the application of Ellul’s theory of propaganda in the context of Islamic State media, 

see Winter, “The virtual caliphate.” For further context, see also “Categories of propaganda” in 

Ellul, Propaganda, 61.

98 Ellul, Propaganda, 185.

99 Aviezer Tucker, The Legacies of Totalitarianism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
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allegedly won hundreds, sometimes thousands, of miles away; and rebels 

were deterred by gruesome films in which like-minded associates were 

burned alive, beheaded, and drowned.

100

The Islamic State’s media strategists shared much with Hitler’s 

propagandists when it came to the essence of the stories they told. Indeed, 

both were “remarkably ambitious” when it came to constructing reality.101

In the Nazi instance, domestic propaganda was used to portray daily life as 

a utopian but sober realization of communal will, the expression of an 

industrious national community that only grew in defiance and resolve, 

even as the war progressed and Nazi prospects of global hegemony 

diminished.102 Similarly, the Islamic State leveraged information in Iraq and 

Syria to maintain the morale of military and civilian supporters and, to 

adversaries with whom such utopian claims did not resonate, used it to

brand itself as unstoppable, and ruthlessly efficient. 103

However, there was one notable distinction: unlike the Nazis, who 

tended to spread terror by rumor, the Islamic State wore brutality on its 

sleeve.

104 It is worth ruminating on this because, over the course of the last 

century, most totalitarian regimes relied on the rumor mill to keep up their 

climate of fear, occasionally executing dissidents in public in order to 

 

100 Islamic State, “You must fight them O muwahhid,” Raqqa Province Media Office, 26 

November 2016, accessed 3 May 2017 at http://heavy.com/news/2016/11/new-isis-islamic-stateamaq-news-video-you-must-fight-them-o-muwahhid-english-execution-terrorism-knife-attackslaughtering-tutorial-video-raqqa-syria-uncensored-download-mp4/; Islamic State, “Making of 

ilusion [sic],” Khayr Province Media Office, 12 September 2016, accessed 3 May 2017 at 

http://heavy.com/news/2016/09/new-isis-islamic-state-amaq-news-video-the-making-of-illusioniraqi-army-soldiers-shia-shiite-eid-al-adha-meat-hook-execution-throat-slitting-full-uncensoredyoutube-video-download-mp4/; and Islamic State, “But if you return, we will return III,” Nineveh 

Province Media Office, 19 November 2016, accessed 3 May 2017 at 

https://videopress.com/v/5JUNCbOj. 

101 Welch, “Volksgemeinschaft,” 213.

102 Welch, The Third Reich, 135; Speier, “Decline,” 358; and Jay Gonen, The Roots of Nazi 

Psychology: Hitler’s Utopian Barbarism, Kentucky: University of Kentucky Press, 2003, 54.

103 Welch, “Volksgemeinschaft,” 217. For more on Nazi propaganda that was directed toward 

adversaries, see Michael Balfour, Propaganda in War, 1939-1945: Organisations, Policies and 

Publics in Britain and Germany, London: Faber and Faber, 2011.

104 Julius Yourman, “Propaganda techniques within Nazi Germany,” The Journal of Education 

Sociology 13 (1939), 156; and Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism, 438. 
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underline it—propaganda was rarely used to overtly terrorize the masses 

with threats of violence.105 In the Islamic State context, though, extreme 

violence was something that the propagandists reveled in. Indeed, besides 

the executions and amputations that were frequently staged in town squares 

across its heartlands, the organization produced countless videos in which 

prisoners of war and civilian hostages alleged to have been spies were 

flamboyantly put to death—beheaded, exploded, drowned, burned, or 

dismembered.106

Upon reflection, it seems that the Islamic State might have deemed 

brutality, visualized with Hollywood-esque attention to detail, to be a way 

to politically outmaneuver its rivals. As Hannah Arendt noted in 1970, civil 

violence occurs most when political actors want to demonstrate power.107 It 

follows that, if a given political actor needed to compensate for structural 

disadvantages—namely, if it was an insurgent group operating in a highly 

contested theater—violent propaganda could be used to amplify this 

demonstration of power. In the Islamic State’s case, it apparently

determined that encouraging discrete, dispersed pockets of civilians to 

attend executions and amputations, while a start, did not have sufficient

impact. The group appeared to have calculated that, in order to better sustain 

the proto-state project, its coercive capabilities needed not only to be 

implied but advertised, too. Thus, it used propaganda to magnify and 

multiply the meting out of capital punishments, be it to “criminals” or 

 

105 As noted in Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, New York: Harcourt Brace, 1966;

see also Fyodor Vasilevich Mochulsky, Gulag Boss: A Soviet Memoir, translated by Deborah 

Kaple, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012; and Kanan Makiya, Republic of Fear: The Politics 

of Modern Iraq, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.

106 Islamic State, “Story of slaughter,” Euphrates Province Media Office, 28 June 2016, accessed 5 

May 2017 at https://videopress.com/v/1yeG306X; Islamic State, “Killing the apostates in revenge 

for the monotheists II,” Khurasan Province Media Office, 9 August 2015, accessed 5 May 2017 at 

https://videopress.com/v/2cz8RUw1; Islamic State, “The procession of light,” Nineveh Province 

Media Office, 3 January 2017, accessed 5 May 2017 at https://videopress.com/v/L1IVFht3; Islamic 

State, “Healing of the believers” chests,” Furqan Foundation, 3 February 2017, accessed 5 May 

2017 at https://archive.org/download/AlFurqaanMediaHealingTheBelieversChests; and Islamic 

State, “Deterring the spies I,” Dijla Province Media Office, 16 June 2015, accessed 5 May 2017 at 

https://videopress.com/v/zorr50Lu.

107 Hannah Arendt, On Violence, New York: Harcourt Brace, 1970, 56.
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“traitors.” In sum, the ability to mass-mediate acts of brutality was just as 

instrumental to the Islamic State as the acts of brutality themselves.
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VII. Conclusion

In the summer of 2014, the Islamic State became the new bête noire

of salafi-jihadist terrorism. In a matter of weeks, it went from being a 

relatively unknown entity to one that was perpetually in the headlines, 

globally notorious for the extent of its military might and brutality. While 

this was in no small part due to its capture of large swaths of Iraq and 

Syria—most notably the city of Mosul—the role of online propaganda in 

projecting and amplifying its menace was undeniable. For that reason, in 

the immediate aftermath of its advances, the group’s online media 

operations were scrutinized by governments, academics, and journalists 

alike. However, this scrutiny, while prudent, was too myopic, and ended up 

distracting observers from what was happening in the caliphate heartlands,

where, in a manner distinctly reminiscent of some twentieth-century 

totalitarian regimes, the Islamic State was weaponizing information offline 

just as enthusiastically as it was online. As this case study has demonstrated, 

media dissemination and censorship were being manipulated in tandem by 

the group, complemented by a carefully constructed portrayal of caliphate 

“reality.” 

Clearly, the Islamic State’s media strategists were aware of the 

power of information. While they were not in a position to exert the level 

of control that, say, the Nazis enjoyed in Germany prior to and during World 

War II, they did strive towards an information monopoly of which Hitler 

would have been proud. Operating gradually in order to avoid alienating the 

local population, they developed a sophisticated and resilient media 

delivery infrastructure in places where it was lacking; produced a constant, 

multimedia flood of propaganda; disabled channels through which 

adversaries could communicate with the masses; and concocted their own 

all-encompassing version of existence. Through the lens of their totalitarian 

information operations, the Islamic State caliphate was framed as allpowerful: uncontested, inevitable, and unassailable. 
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In light of this, there is a distinct possibility that the greatest 

challenge to emerge from the Islamic State’s propaganda operations in 

recent years may only become apparent in the long term. Without 

comprehensive survey data from inside the caliphate heartlands of Iraq and 

Syria, it is not possible to gauge the extent to which the Islamic State was 

able to permanently alter public opinion in the region on a mass scale. 

However, we can be confident that the cumulative effect of years of 

indoctrination operations will not simply evaporate, even if the Islamic 

State, as an overt organization, eventually disintegrates. Ideas, unlike 

armies, cannot be beaten with bullets, and there can thus be little doubt that 

the after-effects of the group’s carefully systematized strategic 

communication endeavors will long outlive its military might.

It therefore serves to think about what could follow the Islamic 

State’s eventual defeat—even if, at the time of writing in Spring 2017, it is 

still a long way off.

108 Without effective counter-ideological measures, the 

prospects of an Islamic State resurgence will be extremely high. Even if the 

organization ceases to control territory, its supporters could go on to act as 

incubators for the caliphate idea and facilitate its re-emergence as soon as

conditions allow. Lest it be forgotten, the group has risen from the ashes of 

defeat once before.109

It is beyond the scope of this study to propose a comprehensive 

strategy for mitigating this threat, but there are multiple historic and 

contemporary contexts from which practitioners—both policy makers and 

warfighters—could learn. Take, for example, Germany, which at the end of 

World War II was home to millions of Nazi Party members. In an effort to 

lessen the long-term destabilizing threat they presented in the years that 

followed the Third Reich’s demise, a far-reaching set of denazification 

 

108 While the group lost a number of key strongholds as of the time of writing in 2017—including

the cities of Mosul and Tal’afar in Iraq—it remained a deeply entrenched force in eastern Syria, 

one that would not easily be dislodged.

109 Craig Whiteside, “War, interrupted, part I: The roots of the jihadist resurgence in Iraq,” War on 

the Rocks, 5 November 2014, accessed 5 June 2017 at https://warontherocks.com/2014/11/warinterrupted-part-i-the-roots-of-the-jihadist-resurgence-in-iraq/.
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policies was implemented by the Allies. For the most part, they were built 

upon foundations of collective guilt and were thus deeply unpopular with 

the German people.

110 For that reason among others, many of the most 

sophisticated initiatives were largely ineffectual. With this in mind, Allied 

denazification may be more fruitful as an example of what not to do, rather 

than serve as a prototype for what works. However, even if these policies

were often counterintuitive, stabilization-focused practitioners should still 

examine the post-war German context, for it serves as one of just a few 

examples in history of post-totalitarian mass de-indoctrination. 

It would also be prudent to examine successful cases of post-war 

reconciliation in Africa, particularly those that came in the aftermath of 

conflicts involving cultic fighting groups and heavily indoctrinated child 

soldiers. After all, while the Islamic State’s salafi-jihadist ideology hardly 

compares with that of groups like Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army,

the way that both use pseudo-religious beliefs and millenarian principles to 

coerce support and maintain adherence is at times strikingly similar.111

In any case, moving forward, those engaging in stabilization and 

deradicalization in post-Islamic State Iraq and Syria will be entering into

largely unchartered territory—and, for that reason, it is crucial that they 

learn as much as possible from history. This is all the more important given 

that stabilization models developed for the post-Islamic State context will 

increasingly be required in other scenarios. After all, while the Islamic State 

may currently be the most notorious, it is not the only transnational salafijihadist group to be in control of large territories—far from it. One only 

needs look to Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen, and Syria to find other examples of 

where comprehensive post-conflict counter-indoctrination strategies could 

well be required in years to come.

 

110 Brian Puaca, Learning Democracy: Education Reform in West Germany, 1945-1965, New 

York: Berghahn Books, 2009, 34.

111 Eleanor Beevor, “Coercive radicalization: Charismatic authority and the internal strategies of 

ISIS and the Lord’s Resistance Army,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 40 (2017), 496-521. 
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Discussion Questions

1. Why should we pay attention to this old-fashioned form of indoctrination 

when the issue of online propaganda and recruitment is in the headlines? 

2. How does in-theater indoctrination differ in terms of target audience, 

reach, and impact compared on online indoctrination? In particular, 

which audiences does offline strategic communication target?

3. What are other effective methods of in-theater indoctrination and why 

would groups chose to use them?

4. What is the relationship between in-theater and online indoctrination,

and why would armed groups devote resources to one versus the other? 

How do external terrorism attacks—Propaganda of the Deed—figure in 

this dynamic? 

5. What internal and external skills and circumstances allowed the Islamic 

State to operate with this degree of latitude? Were those unique to that

organization?

6. What outward evidence suggests that this systematic propaganda 

machine is being used? 

7. What are the limitations of studying propaganda by using propaganda? 

What issues arise from working with the source materials to which we 

have access?

8. How can a systematic internal propaganda machine be organized? 

9. How can a systematic internal propaganda system be disrupted? 
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10. How did the Islamic State adapt to disruption and resistance?

11. What are the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the system or underlying 

premises? What are the limitations of this system, and how can they be 

exploited? 

12. Given the evidence in this case study, how embedded is the Islamic State 

ideology in the areas where Islamic State occupied? Will their ideas 

simply wash away, or are there deep seams of indoctrinated underground 

cadres? Can we know?

13. Has the Islamic State changed the perceptions of more than just “true 

believers” in its ranks? Does this bode ill for the region and elsewhere? 

What local, regional, and international implications does this have for 

the U.S.? 

14. Under what circumstances and with what adaptations could this model 

be replicated by the Islamic State in another area? Are any other Salaafijihadist groups using propaganda in a similar manner? (i.e., AQAP, 

AQIM, Al-Shabab?)

15. At the operational level, what short- and long-term implications does this 

have for intervention in areas held or once held by the Islamic State?

16. At the strategic and international level, what short- and long-term 

implications does this have for intervention in areas held or once held by 

the Islamic State?
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