Extremists’ media war outpaces Arab states

Associated Press

DUBAI, U.A.E.

As the Islamic State group battles across Syria and Iraq, pushing back larger armies and ruling over entire cities, it is also waging an increasingly sophisticated media campaign that has rallied disenfranchised youths and outpaced the sluggish efforts of Arab governments to stem its appeal.

Long gone are the days when militant leaders such as Osama bin Laden smuggled grainy videos to Al-Jazeera. Nowadays, Islamic State backers use Twitter, Facebook and other online platforms to entice recruits with professionally made videos showing fighters waging holy war and building an Islamic utopia.

The extremist group’s opponents say it is dragging the region back into the Middle Ages with its grisly beheadings and massacres, but its tech-savvy media strategy has exposed the ways in which Arab governments and mainstream religious authorities seem to be living in the past.

Most Arab governments see social media as a threat to their stability and have largely failed to harness its power, experts say. Instead, they have tried to monitor and censor the Internet while churning out stale public statements and state-approved sermons on stuffy government-run media.

Last week, Saudi Arabia’s top council of religious scholars issued a lengthy Arabic statement via the state-run news agency denouncing terrorism and calling on citizens to back efforts to fight extremist groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaida. Leading Sunni Muslim authorities in Egypt have issued similar government-backed statements.

Compare that with the Islamic State group. Its Furqan media arm produces slick videos with Arabic and English subtitles. Islamic State fighters even tweet live from the battlefield, giving real-time updates and waging theological debates with online detractors.