ISIS Supporters Turn to AI to Bolster Online Support

FILE PHOTO: AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters and robot hand miniature in this illustration, taken June 23, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters and robot hand miniature in this illustration, taken June 23, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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ISIS Supporters Turn to AI to Bolster Online Support

FILE PHOTO: AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters and robot hand miniature in this illustration, taken June 23, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters and robot hand miniature in this illustration, taken June 23, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

Days after a deadly ISIS attack on a Russian concert hall in March, a man clad in military fatigues and a helmet appeared in an online video, celebrating the assault in which more than 140 people were killed.
"ISIS delivered a strong blow to Russia with a bloody attack, the fiercest that hit it in years," the man said in Arabic, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, an organization that tracks and analyzes such online content.
But the man in the video, which the Thomson Reuters Foundation was not able to view independently, was not real - he was created using artificial intelligence, according to SITE and other online researchers.
Federico Borgonovo, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank, traced the AI-generated video to an ISIS supporter active in the group's digital ecosystem.
This person had combined statements, bulletins, and data from ISIS's official news outlet to create the video using AI, Borgonovo explained.
Although ISIS has been using AI for some time, Borgonovo said the video was an "exception to the rules" because the production quality was high even if the content was not as violent as in other online posts.
"It's quite good for an AI product. But in terms of violence and the propaganda itself, it's average," he said, noting however that the video showed how ISIS supporters and affiliates can ramp up production of sympathetic content online.
Digital experts say groups like ISIS and far-right movements are increasingly using AI online and testing the limits of safety controls on social media platforms.
A January study by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point said AI could be used to generate and distribute propaganda, to recruit using AI-powered chatbots, to carry out attacks using drones or other autonomous vehicles, and to launch cyber-attacks.
"Many assessments of AI risk, and even of generative AI risks specifically, only consider this particular problem in a cursory way," said Stephane Baele, professor of international relations at UCLouvain in Belgium.
"Major AI firms, who genuinely engaged with the risks of their tools by publishing sometimes lengthy reports mapping them, pay scant attention to extremist and terrorist uses."
Regulation governing AI is still being crafted around the world and pioneers of the technology have said they will strive to ensure it is safe and secure.
Tech giant Microsoft, for example, has developed a Responsible AI Standard that aims to base AI development on six principles including fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability.
In a special report earlier this year, SITE Intelligence Group's founder and executive director Rita Katz wrote that a range of actors from members of militant group al Qaeda to neo-Nazi networks were capitalizing on the technology.
"It's hard to understate what a gift AI is for terrorists and extremist communities, for which media is lifeblood," she wrote.
CHATBOTS AND CARTOONS
At the height of its powers in 2014, ISIS claimed control over large parts of Syria and Iraq, imposing a reign of terror in the areas it controlled.
Media was a prominent tool in the group's arsenal, and online recruitment has long been vital to its operations.
Despite the collapse of its self-declared “caliphate” in 2017, its supporters and affiliates still preach their doctrine online and try to persuade people to join their ranks.
Last month, a security source told Reuters that France had identified a dozen ISIS-K handlers, based in countries around Afghanistan, who have a strong online presence and are trying to convince young men in European countries, who are interested in joining up with the group overseas, to instead carry out domestic attacks.
ISIS-K is a resurgent wing of ISIS, named after the historical region of Khorasan that included parts of Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia.
Analysts fear that AI may facilitate and automate the work of such online recruiters.
Daniel Siegel, an investigator at social media research firm Graphika, said his team came across chatbots that mimicked dead or incarcerated ISIS militants.
He told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that it was unclear if the source of the bots was ISIS or its supporters, but the risk they posed was still real.
"Now (ISIS affiliates) can build these real relationships with bots that represent a potential future where a chatbot could encourage them to engage in kinetic violence," Siegel said.
Siegel interacted with some of the bots as part of his research and he found their answers to be generic, but he said that could change as AI tech develops.
"One of the things I am worried about as well is how synthetic media will enable these groups to blend their content that previously existed in silos into our mainstream culture," he added.
That is already happening: Graphika tracked videos of popular cartoon characters, like Rick and Morty and Peter Griffin, singing ISIS anthems on different platforms.
"What this allows the group or sympathizers or affiliates to do is target specific audiences because they know that the regular consumers of Sponge Bob or Peter Griffin or Rick and Morty, will be fed that content through the algorithm," Siegel said.
EXPLOITING PROMPTS
Then there is the danger of ISIS supporters using AI tech to broaden their knowledge of illegal activities.
For its January study, researchers at the Combating Terrorism Center at Westpoint attempted to bypass the security guards of Large Language Models (LLMs) and extract information that could be exploited by malicious actors.
They crafted prompts that requested information on a range of activities from attack planning to recruitment and tactical learning, and the LLMs generated responses that were relevant half of the time.
In one example that they described as "alarming", researchers asked an LLM to help them convince people to donate to ISIS.
"There, the model yielded very specific guidelines on how to conduct a fundraising campaign and even offered specific narratives and phrases to be used on social media," the report said.
Joe Burton a professor of international security at Lancaster University, said companies were acting irresponsibly by rapidly releasing AI models as open-source tools.
He questioned the efficacy of LLMs' safety protocols, adding that he was "not convinced" that regulators were equipped to enforce the testing and verification of these methods.
"The factor to consider here is how much we want to regulate, and whether that will stifle innovation," Burton said.
"The markets, in my view, shouldn't override safety and security, and I think - at the moment - that is what is happening."



Russia Skirts Western Sanctions to Ramp up Its Military Footprint in Africa 

This satellite image provided by Planet Labs PBC shows trucks lined up on a dock as the Russian-flagged cargo ship, Siyanie Severa, unloads its cargo, May 29, 2025, in Bata, Equatorial Guinea. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
This satellite image provided by Planet Labs PBC shows trucks lined up on a dock as the Russian-flagged cargo ship, Siyanie Severa, unloads its cargo, May 29, 2025, in Bata, Equatorial Guinea. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
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Russia Skirts Western Sanctions to Ramp up Its Military Footprint in Africa 

This satellite image provided by Planet Labs PBC shows trucks lined up on a dock as the Russian-flagged cargo ship, Siyanie Severa, unloads its cargo, May 29, 2025, in Bata, Equatorial Guinea. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
This satellite image provided by Planet Labs PBC shows trucks lined up on a dock as the Russian-flagged cargo ship, Siyanie Severa, unloads its cargo, May 29, 2025, in Bata, Equatorial Guinea. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)

Even as it pounds Ukraine, Russia is expanding its military footprint in Africa, delivering sophisticated weaponry to sub-Saharan conflict zones where a Kremlin-controlled armed force is on the rise. Skirting sanctions imposed by Western nations, Moscow is using cargo ships to send tanks, armored vehicles, artillery and other high-value equipment to West Africa, The Associated Press has found.

Relying on satellite imagery and radio signals, AP tracked a convoy of Russian-flagged cargo ships as they made a nearly one-month journey from the Baltic Sea. The ships carried howitzers, radio jamming equipment and other military hardware, according to military officials in Europe who closely monitored them. The deliveries could strengthen Russia’s fledgling Africa Corps as Moscow competes with the United States, Europe and China for greater influence across the continent.

The two-year-old Africa Corps, which has links to a covert branch of Russia’s army, is ascendant at a time when US and European troops have been withdrawing from the region, forced out by sub-Saharan nations turning to Russia for security.

Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have been battling fighters linked with al-Qaeda and the ISIS group for more than a decade.

At first, mercenary groups with an arms-length relationship to the Kremlin entered the fray in Africa. But increasingly, Russia is deploying its military might, and intelligence services, more directly.

"We intend to expand our cooperation with African countries in all spheres, with an emphasis on economic cooperation and investments," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "This cooperation includes sensitive areas linked to defense and security."

From the ports, Russian weapons are trucked to Mali Russia's 8,800-ton Baltic Leader and 5,800-ton Patria are among hundreds of ships that Western nations have sanctioned to choke off resources for Russia's war in Ukraine. The ships docked and unloaded in Conakry, Guinea, in late May, AP satellite images showed.

Other ships made deliveries to the same port in January. They delivered tanks, armored vehicles and other hardware that was then trucked overland to neighboring Mali, according to European military officials and a Malian blogger's video of the long convoy.

The military officials spoke to AP about Russian operations on condition of anonymity. The AP verified the blogger's video, geolocating it to the RN5 highway leading into Bamako, the Malian capital.

After the latest delivery in Conakry, trucks carrying Russian-made armored vehicles, howitzers and other equipment were again spotted on the overland route to Mali.

Malian broadcaster ORTM confirmed that the West African nation's army took delivery of new military equipment. AP analysis of its video and images filmed by the Malian blogger in the same spot as the January delivery identified a broad array of Russian-made hardware, including 152 mm artillery guns and other smaller canons.

AP also identified a wheeled, BTR-80 armored troop carrier with radio-jamming equipment, as well as Spartak armored vehicles and other armored carriers, some mounted with guns. The shipment also included at least two semi-inflatable small boats, one with a Russian flag painted on its hull, as well as tanker trucks, some marked "inflammable" in Russian on their sides.

The military officials who spoke to AP said they believe Russia has earmarked the most potent equipment — notably the artillery and jamming equipment — for its Africa Corps, not Malian armed forces. Africa Corps appears to have been given air power, too, with satellites spotting at least one Su-24 fighter-bomber at a Bamako air base in recent months.

Moscow's notorious secret unit

For years, French forces supported counterinsurgency operations in Mali and neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. But France pulled out its troops after coups in Mali in 2020 and 2021, in Burkina Faso in 2022 and Niger in 2023. Russian mercenaries stepped into the vacuum.

Wagner Group, the most notable, deployed to Sudan in 2017 and expanded to other African countries, often in exchange for mining concessions.

It earned a reputation for brutality, accused by Western countries and UN experts of human rights abuses, including in Central African Republic, Libya and Mali.

Of 33 African countries in which Russian military contractors were active, the majority were Wagner-controlled, according to US government-sponsored research by RAND.

But after Wagner forces mutinied in Russia in 2023 and their leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was killed two months later in a suspicious plane crash, Moscow tightened its grip. Russian military operations in Africa were restructured, with the Kremlin taking greater control through Africa Corps.

It is overseen by the commander of Unit 29155, one of the most notorious branches of Russia’s shadowy GRU military intelligence service, according to the European Union. Unit 29155 has been accused of covertly attacking Western interests for years, including through sabotage and assassination attempts.

The EU in December targeted Unit 29155 Maj. Gen. Andrey Averyanov with sanctions, alleging that he is in charge of Africa Corps operations.

"In many African countries, Russian forces provide security to military juntas that have overthrown legitimate democratic governments, gravely worsening the stability, security and democracy of the countries," the EU sanctions ruling said. These operations are financed by exploiting the continent's natural resources, the ruling added.

The Russian Ministry of Defense didn’t immediately respond to questions about Averyanov’s role in Africa Corps.

Africa Corps recruitment

Researchers and military officials say the flow of weapons from Russia appears to be speeding Africa Corps’ ascendancy over Wagner, helping it win over mercenaries that have remained loyal to the group. Africa Corps is also recruiting in Russia, offering payments of up to 2.1 million rubles ($26,500), and even plots of land, for signing a contract with the Ministry of Defense, plus more on deployment.

Within days of the latest equipment delivery, Wagner announced its withdrawal from Mali, declaring "mission accomplished" in a Telegram post.

Africa Corps said in a separate post that it would remain.

The changeover from Wagner to Africa Corps in Mali could be a forerunner for other similar transitions elsewhere on the continent, said Julia Stanyard, a researcher of Russian mercenary activity in Africa.

"Bringing in this sort of brand-new sophisticated weaponry, and new armored vehicles and that sort of thing, is quite a bit of a shift," said Stanyard, of the Switzerland-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

Armed groups in Mali have inflicted heavy losses on Malian troops and Russian mercenaries. The al-Qaeda linked group JNIM killed dozens of soldiers in an attack this month on a military base. Insurgents also killed dozens of Wagner mercenaries in northern Mali last July.