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      Jihadists Leverage Social Media Streams to Condemn US-led Airstrikes

   by Matthew Hilburn

   Supporters of Islamist extremist movements took to social media streams
   on Tuesday to slam U.S.-led airstrikes in Syria against the militant
   group calling itself the Islamic State [IS].

   And as a new front in the Syrian civil war has opened, analysts say
   militant fighters could change the way they use social media.

   IS militants, which used social media with particular skill, could be
   affected more than some of the other groups -- such as Jabhat al-Nusra,
   an al-Qaida offshoot in Syria -- analysts say.

   Verifying the identity, location and affiliation of the accounts of
   extremists groups is nearly impossible. But they seemed to make no
   effort to cloak their anger on social media.

   One user calling himself @[1]Khalid_Maghrebi posted a photo of what he
   said was an innocent child killed in the strikes. The same image of the
   same dead toddler was used across numerous jihadist accounts, al though
   it was impossible to verify if the child was a victim of the strikes.

   This user added that the strikes killed fighters from the UK and the
   Netherlands.

   Another pro-extremist account, @[2]MohammedGhazzal, who claims to have
   been on the ground where some of the strikes occurred, warned jihadists
   to be careful.

   '

   ''Extremists also noted that IS was not the only group targeted.

   ''And there was anger at the US.

   "[3]Abu Rumaysah," an influential disseminator of jihadist information,
   tweeted a veiled threat.

   ''One account claiming to be on the "battlefields of Syria" and calling
   themselves @[4]chechclearr, called the strikes "a war on Islam."

   ''Anger among militants was also pointed at the Arab states which
   reportedly joined the US in the strikes, including Bahrain, Saudi
   Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Qatar.

   ''
   This category of Tweet could be harmful to the militants', particularly
   IS's, cause, says Erin Saltman of the London-based Quilliam Foundation,
   a counterterrorism think-tank.

   "The depiction of the enemy is becoming larger and larger," she said,
   noting the countries joining the US are large Sunni Arab countries. She
   said adding Muslim countries to the enemies list could leave IS
   "marginalized as the extremist terrorist organization that they are."

   One user, @[5]ArmyOvJustice,who claims to be "witnessing the birth of
   the caliphate," predicted the Arab countries would soon stop
   participating in the strikes.

   Saltman said airstrikes could change the way extremists, particularly
   IS, uses social media.

   Compared to al-Qaida, which used a very centralized method of
   disseminating its propaganda, ISIS is extremely decentralized, she
   said.

   "ISIS took a new approach so that information could be spread out in as
   many languages and as fluently as possible," she said.

   First off, the bombing could simply make it harder to tweet, said Jytte
   Klausen a Brandeis University professor and founder of the Western
   Jihadism Project, which focuses on jihadi activities in the West.

   "Bombing Raqqa may take down Internet connectivity for a while," she
   said, adding that temporary satellite connections would likely limit
   the impact of any terrestrial disruption.

   Saltman said that now that the US bombing Syria, IS might try to more
   tightly control its social media output, because some of the
   information could be used against IS. But she said it would be hard to
   do that with "such a decentralized group of actors in different
   localities."

   "You wonder how much that's monitored," she said.

   Robbed of a freewheeling social media presence, IS could find itself
   hamstrung.

   "With social media it's easier to tell people you're stronger than you
   are, she said. "Many researchers are arguing that this is not an
   incredibly strong army. The longer they are left alone, they more
   validity they seem to have.The more successful they seem, the more
   people will join."'
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   [6]http://www.voanews.com/content/jihadists-take-to-social-media-to-con
   dem-us-airstrikes/2459833.html

References

   1. https://twitter.com/Khalid_Maghrebi
   2. https://twitter.com/MohammedGhazzal
   3. https://twitter.com/aburumaysah1403
   4. https://twitter.com/chechclearr
   5. https://twitter.com/ArmyOvJustice
   6. http://www.voanews.com/content/jihadists-take-to-social-media-to-condem-us-airstrikes/2459833.html