The Al Hayat Media Center is a formidable social media juggernaut that the United States, its European allies as well as its Gulf State allies in the Middle East have had a hard time combating. One of the central figures in the Al Hayat Media Center is Ahmad Abousamra and he may even be the director of operations for Al Hayat Media Center (HMC).
HMC has been able to saturate numerous cities with its social media messaging through Twitter, Youtube, Diaspora, and just about any other social media outlet you can think of. Al Hayat has a full time staff that develops and tests its messaging and they test it on westerners from within their ranks as well as “sample” groups online. The messages work to play on the religious beliefs of the Islamic faithful, but it particularly pushes that message towards the newly converted.
If you look at many of the recent attacks including the OKC perpetrator of the beheading, Ali Mohammad Brown who killed 4 people, and numerous others that have been arrested have been those that converted to Islam recently. When we are talking about recently it is generally within the past 18 months. The incubation period for radicalization varies with some becoming radicalized within a few months and others taking longer. These times can be shorter or longer.
The outreach also targets those that have been practicing Islam longer, but are still trying to “find” their way in the religion. These are the individuals that HMC targets to come to Syria and Iraq to fight in the jihad there. HMC probes and discovers the depth of commitment an individual might have through their savvy use of messaging. They make the person feel a sense of belonging that they have not found where they currently live.
The thing to keep in mind is that HMC doesn’t have to directly target an individual for radicalization. The process is often self-starting through the individual reading or listening to the promulgated media of the Islamic State. The more the individual reads the deeply religious content the more they start feeling a sense of pride in it and that is what they want in life. They start feeling the need to learn more about the Islamic religion if they are new converts or even those that have been practicing longer. Then the outreach starts, usually initiated by the individual looking to “talk” to those individuals involved with the Islamic State.
HMC has a team of individuals that help develop these contacts. The contact is subtle at first focusing on the individual’s life and spirituality. As the recruit is developed the HMC handler begins probing the individual for commitment level and what sort of role they could potentially play. If the individual is a recent convert the Islamic State may start developing the individual for placement as they look at the individual’s access to potential targets or for recruitment to come to Syria and Iraq.
The Islamic State is also working feverishly to develop individuals in countries that are allied with the United States. The purpose for this is target the population or government of these countries in order to erode popular support for taking action against the Islamic State by making them a target of radicalized citizens at home.
Targeting American allies is not a new strategy but is a campaign of intimidation of the citizens of close allies of the United States. The Islamic State is not the first to do such a thing. The Taliban during their resurgence that started in 2005 began targeting the Canadians specifically to try to disrupt support for their efforts in Afghanistan. The idea behind the Taliban attempts to erode allied support was to inflict more casualties rather than through a social media campaign. They would however post about the attacks on the Canadians, just not nearly as sophisticated as Al Hayat Media Center.
HMC pretty much announces areas that will be attacked prior to the attacks actually taking place while not giving any sort of specifics because they are relying on the self-radicalized to conduct attacks on their behalf. Chances are if they are increasing their “chatter” in or about an area they have reasonable confidence in the radicalized individual to conduct an attack. They had increased their media saturation about Ottawa in the weeks leading up to the individual conducting the attack on the Canadian Parliament.
Self-radicalized Ali Mohammad Brown had killed three individuals in the Seattle, Washington area and then killed Brendan Tevlin in New Jersey. His rationale was because of the US actions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Mr. Brown was a recent convert that was self-radicalized.
Types and levels of radicalization:
Self-radicalized: This is an individual that becomes radicalized through no contact with the Islamic State or other terrorist organization. These individuals simply read the vast amounts of literature that is found all over the internet. They as previously stated are often people that are interested in the Islamic religion or are newly converted. This is a process that can develop slowly or rapidly depending on the individual. Often the individual is a social outcast from the “normal” society of the US or Canada. This is not always the case, but these individuals are more easily susceptible. These individuals are the most difficult to track or acquire anything on them because they may not have direct contact with any known individual through social media connected to the Islamic State.
The seeker: This is an individual that has recently converted to Islam and has been following ISIS mujatweets, videos and other social outreach. This is an individual that is looking to become more involved on behalf of the Islamic State. Eric Harroun is an example of a seeker. He had converted to Islam and sought out the Islamic State and left to Syria to fight on their behalf and was arrested upon return to the US. These individuals pose great danger as they may have become fully radicalized. They are actively involving themselves with the Islamic State through social media.
The combination radicalization: This is a combination of the first two where an individual has recently converted and starts out reading information about the Islamic State. After a certain period of time they are start talking to Islamic State individuals on twitter or FB. The radicalization process may be slower or accelerated depending on the individual’s own will and values. This may also be an individual that can convinced to conduct a homeland attack.
Any of these radicalized individuals could perpetrate an attack on the US or Canadian homeland. The one common factor in them is that they are often recent converts. The US State Department has launched its #Thinkagainturnaway campaign which has not been a very successful endeavor. In fact, it has been poorly thought out and even more poorly executed.
The fault with the State Department campaign is that it tries to play on the human side of right and wrong with its messaging. This is ineffective messaging when trying to counter a religious based message that is influenced by the politics of the Islamic State. Successfully countering the messaging requires knowledge of basic tenants of Islam and the parts of the Quran that focus on the peaceful aspects and also historical references to merciful Islamic leaders. The focus of the messaging has to be religious based to negate the effects of the Islamic State’s religious based messaging. There are a multitude of other things that could be done to counter that messaging through historical reference as well as modern day.
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