ExTrac Profile picture
Mar 18 7 tweets 7 min read
1. This week’s issue of al-Naba’, which was published last night, took #IS's campaign to legitimise its new leader in a new, quite surprising direction.
2. It was very defensive in tone.

Directly comparing the legacy of #IS's 'caliphs' with that of the Rashidun caliphs, it pushed back on criticism—seemingly from within #IS's own circles—of Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi and played down the strategic significance of his loss.
3. #IS also pushed back on criticism about how long it had taken it to confirm that Abu Ibrahim had been killed and replaced by Abul Hasan.

Per al-Naba’, everyone who needed to had pledged allegiance within less than 48 hours of the #Atmeh raid.
4. Lastly, #IS expressed its consternation at those among its supporters who have been speculating about the 'true' identity of Abul Hasan.

Clearly (and justifiably), it is deeply concerned about his security.
5. Separately, the campaign has also revealed something interesting about #IS’s comms setup in #Syria.

Whereas the photosets from #Nigeria and #Iraq were seemingly prepared by distributed media cadres operating in distinct zones of influence, this was not the case in #Syria.
6. In #Syria, all photos from all zones were published simultaneously.

There wasn’t a #Raqqa/#Homs/#Aleppo breakdown.

This suggests there’s one overarching #Syria media office as opposed to the more distributed comms networks we’ve seen in #Nigeria and #Iraq.
7. For more information on this or any other work we're doing at @Ex_Trac, visit extrac.io.

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More from @Ex_Trac

Mar 17
1. Earlier this month, we reported that #IS comms activity had fallen off a cliff in recent weeks.

In the last few days, the reason for that has become clear: its media team was putting everything into prepping for a global campaign drumming up support for the new caliph.
2. The campaign started on 10 March, when #IS published a statement from new spox Abu ‘Umar al-Muhajir declaring that Qurashi had died and been replaced by Qurashi 2.0.

This came after a week-on-week drop in comms that left #IS supporter activities at a historic low.
3. It wasn’t enough to just publish a statement. #IS needed to show that its new leader was credible.

Accordingly, in the days that followed, it published hundreds of photographs showing fighters from West Africa to Southeast Asia pledging allegiance to the new caliph.
Read 7 tweets
Mar 15
1. Recent pronouncements from #Moscow about its ‘concerns’ around the use of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (#CBRN) weapons systems in #Ukraine are having a direct and sustained impact on the pro-#Russia information landscape.
2. @Ex_Trac data shows that #Moscow’s comms re #CBRN have been normalising it as ‘reasonable’ justification for war among pro-#Kremlin communities.

To track this, we visualised the frequency with which #CBRN-related terms have been referenced by pro-#Kremlin voices over 2021/22.
3. The regularity of posts including the word ‘биолаборатория’ (‘biolaboratory’) increased by a factor of more than four hundred after the #Kremlin’s claim it was targeting bioweapons facilities at the end of February.
Read 7 tweets
Mar 11
1. Yesterday #IS confirmed that Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi was killed in February. He has been succeeded by Abul Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi.

It also revealed that Abu Hamza al-Qurashi, his spox, has been killed.

#IS has warned of revenge attacks in weeks to come. Image
2. ExTrac data suggests that this warning of revenge attacks is not likely to be ‘just’ rhetoric.

Just over two weeks after Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Abul Hasan al-Muhajir were killed in November 2019, #IS launched a global revenge campaign. Image
3. This saw it surging attacks globally.

L: #Syria operations more than doubled in the course of a single week.

R: #Nigeria operations also more than doubled. ImageImage
Read 9 tweets
Nov 12, 2021
1. #IS has started reporting attacks from #CaboDelgado again.

This follows a three-month pause in its comms from #Mozambique.

Specifically, in the last three days alone, it’s claimed 16 operations. Image
2. After the recapture of Mocimboa da Praia three months ago by #Mozambique, #Rwanda & #SouthAfrica (among others), #IS’s comms went dark.

However, its network there was far from inactive, as these latest data, combined with what @ACLEDINFO has been reporting, indicate. Image
3. From a geographic perspective, #IS’s self-reported activities in recent months have been confined to the Mocimboa da Praia district of #CaboDelgado.

No attacks were reported from Palma, even though @ACLEDINFO data (displayed in yellow) suggests otherwise. Image
Read 6 tweets
Nov 12, 2021
1. The latest issue of #IS's newspaper contained another nine reports of attacks in #Syria.

This means that, across the last week alone, #IS has reported 17 ops in #Syria.

That’s more attacks in a single week than were reported across August, September and October combined. Image
2. #IS is framing the recent surge in attacks in #DeirEzzor governorate as 'a strong comeback.'

The question remains as to whether or not it will be sustained in the coming weeks. ImageImage
3. Significantly, and in stark contrast with recent weeks, #IS also reported ops across #Raqqa and #Hasaka as well as in #DeirEzzor.

Per its comms at least, #IS has been totally inactive in #Raqqa and #Hasaka since June. Image
Read 4 tweets
Nov 1, 2021
1. A quick thread on official #Taliban comms.

When the #Taliban took control of #Kabul, it also took control of #Afghanistan’s decades-old state media apparatus (the red line).

Simultaneously, it abandoned its own decades-old “Voice of Jihad” network (the yellow line).
2. This graph shows output from “Voice of Jihad” over the last five years. Note how it peaked in the summer months before collapsing, and staying collapsed, in August.

That was the point at which the #Taliban’s “Voice of Jihad” finally went silent.
3. This graph, on the other hand, shows output from #Afghanistan’s state media network, the Bakhtar News Agency. Note the pause in mid-August followed by a new, different pattern of activity.

That was the point at which the #Taliban took over.
Read 8 tweets

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