Young women take lead in Islamic State's online propaganda

Savvy online propaganda on social media websites has been one of the hallmarks of the Islamic State to gain currency worldwide.

According to counter cyber-terrorism experts of security agencies monitoring the ISIS, the slick propaganda posted online is being done with finesse and with jobs well defined by people expert in online posts.

"They first try to hook the youth by showing concocted videos of persecution and victimisation of Muslims. Once gullible youth shows interest by expressing disgust and anger they engage him or her in conversation wherein heavy dose of indoctrination is given. When the youth is ripe enough and is filled with rage starts the process of recruitment. The IS seems to be having a well-defined team to carry out this whole process with proper checks and balances of a HR team," said the security expert.

The online monitoring of ISIS has thrown up interesting facet of role of educated western women who are taking a lead in managing online campaign for the ISIS.

Most of the 540-odd women who are part of 30,000 odd youth that have joined ISIS from different countries, especially the western world, have been assigned the job of online propagandist of a conversationalist, inciter and recruiter.

According to Egyptian historian, Sami Moubayed who, perhaps, is the first one to give an authentic insight of the ISIS working, these women married to ISIS Jihadis are armed with i-phones and manage ISIS-affiliated pages on Facebook, twitter and instagram.

"They (Women) between 18-25 years are in charge of nearly all of ISIS's online media...the material that ISIS women post on social media is cutting edge, trendy and well planned. They reach out to both Muslim and Christian women in Europe," writes Moubayed in his recently released book.

Besides those in Syria, ISIS has other propagandist based in countries outside, mainly Europe.

Sample the following:
British born, Sally Jones has emerged as one of the leading propagandist for IS. Even though she has been sanctioned by the United Nations as one of the leading IS agents, she continues to be on twitter inciting youth worldwide by using the prefix Umm which means Mother in Arabic.

On October 3, she released the address of the US Navy Seal Robert O'Neil who killed Osama bin Laden through her twitter accounts by the name UmmHussainBritaniya @UmmHu55ainBr1t. The tweet created a flutter in US intelligence forcing them to take preventive measures.

Similarly, Amal -- a big name in ISIS online propaganda war with sizeable following is using the prefix of Bint which means daughter in Arabic. Having twitter account @BintRose70, she was found to be posting dangerous propaganda material. Her account was dully suspended by Twitter, but she was able to surface within hours under another handle @BintRose.

Amal, with each new profile's first tweet, includes a screenshot of her previous suspension notice and a photo of IS-logo. She does not disclose her place of origin on her Twitter profile. When a follower once tweeted and disclosed that she lived in Austria, Amal immediately responded by tweeting to keep such information private.

As late as on November 7, she tweeted, "Half of the world is in war against the #IS & they couldn't achieve any victory..."

Another leading IS propagandist is Aisha al-Amriki aka @Tawheed_Sista. A British convert, she has operated Twitter accounts such as Striving4_ Aka @umm_Z1_nthmyet7 and Sara Al-Britaniyah aka @SaraAlBritaniya.

A new one to join the ISIS online propaganda machinery is Ayisha Begum aka @Ayisha_Bangla. London based Ayesha appears to be of Indian or Bangladesh origin as one of her tweets mentioned "Bhaat" a local dialect for rice.

As late as on November 5, she posted, "Excited to eat bhaat (rice) later, with some lamb and shatkhora curry. #mumscookthebest"

Her main task is to re-tweet IS accounts with new identities and promote Jihad. She posts messages such as "He Who Loves To Meet Allah, Allah Loves To Meet Him", inciting vulnerable youth.

Data collected over a month reveals interesting fact about the leaders, followers and those involved in RTs to trigger online radicalisation. One twitter account @SsaffffR_oO14 had joined the platform in February 2013 and since then changed at least 14 handles after termination to carry on with IS propaganda. @SsaffffR_oO14 is prolific twitterati and has around 1013 followers on micro-blogging site.

It releases news bulletin Al-Bayan Broadcast -- IS's official radio news bulletin -- in English every day.

Most accounts monitored over a month reveal that they have at least 3K-4K followers for each handle. @greg__k is being monitored for Pakistan related tweets.

Experts analysing the online propaganda admitted that they have a huge challenge to contain the deluge of IS propaganda material on social media sites, especially Twitter.

Despite the tough task, intelligence agencies have mounted an operation against IS recruiters and propagandists like Ayisha. Sources said that sharing of real time information has improved lately and US and many European countries waste little time to process Indian request to stop an account.

"But the problem is even if you close one account, the IS twitteratti pops up open another account within hours and carries on with the propaganda mocking at how ineffective our efforts have been to stop them. This calls for a serious introspection by social media companies whether they want terrorism to prosper in the name of unbridled liberty for free speech. They urgently need to devise some method to curb this madness," the official said.