Jiahd in the Global Village : Al-Qaeda ' s Digital Radicalization and Recruitment Campaign

Following America’s “War on Terror,” al-Qaeda and its affiliates became highly decentralized in terms of organizational and media operations. Though mass media outlets continue to play a significant role in drawing attention to al-Qaeda’s transnational campaign, Salafi Jihadists have recently begun to rely on new media for purposes of legitimization and promotion. The Internet serves as a suitable platform for these groups’ media objectives since it is inherently anonymous and absent of censorship. Most importantly, the Internet facilitates al-Qaeda in reaching a global audience, which is made evident by the growing amount of Salafi Jihadist media that is translated or created for English speakers. The latter change may seem paradoxical to the groups’ anti-Western sentiment, but it underscores an important shift in al-Qaeda’s recruitment strategies. The proliferation of English content promoting the Salafi Jihadist cause may imply that alQaeda is shifting its attention towards the Muslim diaspora in the West with the intent to recruit, radicalize, and promote acts of terror. This study analyzed a variety of online publications that were disseminated by alQaeda and similar Salafi Jihadist groups. The sample included speech and video transcripts, digital magazines, and articles that were analyzed for the intent to radicalize readers through the employment of Albert Bandura’s eight mechanisms of moral disengagement. The analysis provided substantial support for the latter claim, indicating that many of the digital publications disseminated by Salafi Jihadist groups are intended to both radicalize and recruit readers through the promotion of moral disengagement. JIHAD IN THE GLOBAL VILLAGE: AL-QAEDA’S DIGITAL 5 CHAPTER ONE – INTRODUCTION Al-Qaeda’s New Media Campaign Since the United States declared its “War on Terror,” the structure and strategies of terrorist organizations have undergone transformative changes. Today, the al-Qaeda network that successfully executed the atrocities of 9/11 has become highly decentralized as an organization in terms of location and leadership. However, this does not necessarily mean that the group’s ideology is disseminated any less than it was before the United States heightened its presence in the region. While al-Qaeda has been dispersed around the Arabian Peninsula, the Maghreb, the Levant, and the Horn of Africa in terms of onthe-ground operations, the reach of its Salafi Jihadist ideology has been bolstered by new technologies. After decades of relying on rural localities, Islamic organizations, student groups and face-to-face communication for purposes of recruitment and support, potential members are now being attracted to the jihadist movement by means of websites, social media pages and online forums. Individuals who were once far from the influence of Salafi Jihadism can now become active and willing participants in the group’s virtual umma — or community — from the privacy of their bedrooms. Until recently, terrorist cells were largely dependent on mass media outlets in order to garner attention to their radical ideology and global mission. However, with the advent of new media technologies came a new sense of independence for al-Qaeda and its affiliates’ international media campaign. Today, Salafi Jihadist groups have harnessed the ability to disseminate information and communicate with an international audience independent of mass media organizations. This newly found freedom allows such groups to share information that would have otherwise been censored or deemed dangerous to JIHAD IN THE GLOBAL VILLAGE: AL-QAEDA’S DIGITAL 6 the public or state governments. Because of the Internet’s interactive, uncensored, and pervasive nature as a medium, jihadists’ presence has become increasingly accessible to a wider global audience. Though it may seem paradoxical to the anti-Western sentiment that is found at the core of Salafi Jihadism, a substantial amount of the jihadists’ electronic media is created or translated for the English speaking, Muslim diaspora. This development in al-Qaeda’s media campaign compels one to wonder whether these electronic forms of jihadi media are created with the intent to radicalize and recruit individuals beyond the region’s borders; and if so, could such messages of moral disengagement and reinforcement of Salafi Jihadist attitudes potentially influence individuals to carry out acts of terror? The following chapter examines the ways institutions and scholars have defined terrorism and jihad over time. The origins of modern, international terrorism and Salafi Jihadism are then addressed in order to set al-Qaeda’s current operations and campaign in its appropriate, historical context. Because this study will pay particular attention to the propaganda techniques being employed by al-Qaeda and its affiliates, common tactics and methods of persuasion are also explored. However, the implications of exposure to propaganda are of additional interest to this study. Therefore, social learning theory is used to suggest propaganda’s potential effects upon behavior and attitude formation among sympathizers. The literature review concludes with a brief overview of al-Qaeda’s online presence both before and after 9/11, provided by previous research that has examined the uses, benefits, and dangers of digital jihadist media. The third chapter delineates this paper’s method for analyzing Salafi Jihadist propaganda by first defining content analysis, which is followed by the advantages and JIHAD IN THE GLOBAL VILLAGE: AL-QAEDA’S DIGITAL 7 process of conducting a qualitative research for the purposes of understanding political, social, and cultural phenomenon. The eight measurements that were used throughout the analysis are then defined, which leads into the study’s three working hypotheses. The chapter concludes by addressing the limitations of convenience sampling, which is necessary for this study due to language barriers and issues with accessing sensitive content. JIHAD IN THE GLOBAL VILLAGE: AL-QAEDA’S DIGITAL 8 CHAPTER 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW Defining Terrorism and Jihad Though a definition of terrorism has yet to be fully agreed upon by states and global institutions, the term commonly denotes the use of violence and intimidation for political means. Terrorism has been referred by a 2004 United Nations Security Council resolution as: ...criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population or compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act, which constitute offences within the scope of and as defined in the international conventions and protocols relating to terrorism, are under no circumstances justifiable by considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other similar nature . . . (2). Another definition provided by the United States Department of State that can be found within Title 22 of the U.S. Code, Section 2656f(d) also mentions politically motivated, violent tactics that are intended to intimidate a population. However, unlike the 2004 UN resolution, the definition underscores that the violent acts being perpetrated are “usually intended to influence an audience” (2010). The political motivation behind acts of terror has also compelled scholars to suggest that terrorism functions as a form of communication. According to political psychologist John Horgan, what sets terrorism apart from other violent acts is the nature of its victims; the immediate victims of attacks are often unassociated with those who hold positions of political power, thus rendering them to serve the purpose of conveying the terrorists’ message to the intended receiver — state leaders and governments (2005). The victim is entirely arbitrary when it comes to acts of terrorism. In cases of Salafi Jihadism, they are only targeted to express the JIHAD IN THE GLOBAL VILLAGE: AL-QAEDA’S DIGITAL 9 terrorists’ political opposition and discontent towards what they perceive as the Western contamination. Beyond the semantic uncertainty surrounding the term, it is also of importance to differentiate between distinct forms of terrorism. The most common categorizations include state-sponsored and non-state actor acts of terror. The latter form contains subcategories of domestic or international application, which is dependent upon the population being targeted by the non-state actors (Weimann & Winn, 1994). Because alQaeda and its Salafi Jihadist affiliates operate transnationally, they can be categorized as both domestic and international terrorist organizations. However, the groups’ global mission often designates their actions as international terrorism, because they seek to influence a much broader audience than those being victimized (Weimann & Winn, 1994). There has also been contention among some scholars regarding the way the term ‘terrorism’ is employed by Western governments and media. This cohort’s argument rests upon the notion that Western officials and media outlets — most notably of the United States — only apply the term to violent acts carried out against themselves or their allies. Among this cohort are scholars Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, who are frequently cited for their work Manufacturing Consent. Throughout the book, Chomsky and Herman argue that American media propagate U.S. interests by means of editorial distortion (Chomsky & Herman, 1988). Both have also voiced similar suggestions about the government and media’s use of the term ‘terrorism.’ Within his study “The Semantics of Terrorism,” Herman suggests that instances of state-sponsored violence often occur without ever being addressed as acts of terrorism, and that the lack of recognition tends to JIHAD IN T