ISIS Announces Virtual War against West, Says US Report

The aftermath of the 2016 terrorist attack in Nice, France in 2016. (AFP)
The aftermath of the 2016 terrorist attack in Nice, France in 2016. (AFP)
TT
20

ISIS Announces Virtual War against West, Says US Report

The aftermath of the 2016 terrorist attack in Nice, France in 2016. (AFP)
The aftermath of the 2016 terrorist attack in Nice, France in 2016. (AFP)

The ISIS terrorist group has declared a “virtual war” against western countries and interests after losing its stronghold of Raqqa in Syria in 2017, said a US report on Tuesday.

American experts said that the internet war will harm western countries because ISIS will be able to recruit members for operations in these countries and not in the Middle East.

“ISIS is now showing the first signs of a regrouping media operation,” said SITE Intelligence Group Executive Director Rita Katz. “The group suffered major setbacks by coalition and (Syrian) regime attacks, but is now clearly taking major steps to reassemble its propaganda operation, which is among its most dangerous weapons.”

At the end of 2017, the group released a photograph of a man wearing a scarf, showing the ISIS logo, with New York City’s Central Park in the background. The photo’s caption read: “We are in your home.”

Later the group released a video on its internet channels on terrorist operations it had carried out. In one of the videos, a narrator says: “It is time to harvest the heads.”

The SITE report, released by the Washington Post on Monday, said that ISIS’ propaganda content “has changed significantly since the loss of Raqqa, formerly home to the group’s official media division and production facilities.”

“Gone are the glossy ISIS magazines and slick videos extolling the virtues of life under militant extremist rule. In their place is a steady stream of incitements, nearly all of them aimed at offering encouragement and detailed instructions for carrying out terrorist attacks,” it added.

Some are amateurish and appear to originate not from studios or official spokesmen, but from bloggers and other volunteers who often are only loosely affiliated with ISIS.

Last week, ISIS’ Amaq News Agency issued its first English-language communiques since mid-September, just before the fall of Raqqa. The first weeks of 2018 have also seen a sharp rise in traffic on pro-ISIS social media accounts compared with previous months, said the SITE report.

The newest propaganda campaign illustrates the difficulties faced by counter-terrorism officials in seeking to stop extremists from connecting with would-be terrorists in the US and throughout the West.

Even after the destruction of ISIS’ stronghold and the successful blocking — with help from private companies — of hundreds of the group’s social media accounts, the terrorists and their supporters continue to find ways to get their messages out, analysts said.

“The depletion of ISIS on the battlefield has not yet translated into the degradation of ISIS in the online space,” said Tara Maller, a former CIA military analyst and senior policy adviser for the Counter Extremism Project, a nonpartisan group that promotes policies to block extremist content online.

“What we see is a continuing effort to engage online and an increased effort to inspire people to carry out lone-wolf attacks.”

US officials and analysts have been watching closely to see how the collapse of ISIS’ “caliphate” would affect the group’s propaganda machine, the driving force behind its rise to global prominence. Beginning in Syria in 2013, the group’s leaders spent millions of dollars creating a nimble, technically savvy media operation with a heavy social media presence, reported the Washington Post.

The analysis by SITE showed that websites affiliated with ISIS put out a total of 907 communiques, reports and videos between November and December 2016. During the same period this past year, the group and its supporters managed only 211.

An analysis published on January 7 by the national security blog Lawfare cited an overall drop in content of about 90 percent from ISIS’ high-water mark in 2015.

“This is not just a media decline — it is a full-fledged collapse,” the report’s authors, counter-terrorism researchers Charlie Winter and Jade Parker, write in the blog.

But volunteers have stepped up to fill the gap, analysts said.

The broader web of extremist commentators and videographers — a network that was encouraged and facilitated by ISIS in its heyday — was designed to continue functioning even if the mother branch was completely shut down.



Gazans’ Daily Struggle for Water After Deadly Israeli Strike

 Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
TT
20

Gazans’ Daily Struggle for Water After Deadly Israeli Strike

 Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)

The al-Manasra family rarely get enough water for both drinking and washing after their daily trudge to a Gaza distribution point like the one where eight people were killed on Sunday in a strike that Israel's military said had missed its target.

Living in a tent camp by the ruins of a smashed concrete building in Gaza City, the family say their children are already suffering from diarrhea and skin maladies and from the lack of clean water, and they fear worse to come.

"There's no water, our children have been infected with scabies, there are no hospitals to go to and no medications," said Akram Manasra, 51.

He had set off on Monday for a local water tap with three of his daughters, each of them carrying two heavy plastic containers in Gaza's blazing summer heat, but they only managed to fill two - barely enough for the family of 10.

Gaza's lack of clean water after 21 months of war and four months of Israeli blockade is already having "devastating impacts on public health" the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said in a report this month.

For people queuing at a water distribution point on Sunday it was fatal. A missile that Israel said had targeted fighters but malfunctioned hit a queue of people waiting to collect water at the Nuseirat refugee camp.

Israel's blockade of fuel along with the difficulty in accessing wells and desalination plants in zones controlled by the Israeli military is severely constraining water, sanitation and hygiene services according to OCHA.

Fuel shortages have also hit waste and sewage services, risking more contamination of the tiny, crowded territory's dwindling water supply, and diseases causing diarrhea and jaundice are spreading among people crammed into shelters and weakened by hunger.

"If electricity was allowed to desalination plants the problem of a lethal lack of water, which is what's becoming the situation now in Gaza, would be changed within 24 hours," said James Elder, the spokesperson for the UN's children's agency UNICEF.

"What possible reason can there be for denying of a legitimate amount of water that a family needs?" he added.

COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last week, an Israeli military official said that Israel was allowing sufficient fuel into Gaza but that its distribution around the enclave was not under Israel's purview.

THIRSTY AND DIRTY

For the Manasra family, like others in Gaza, the daily toil of finding water is exhausting and often fruitless.

Inside their tent the family tries to maintain hygiene by sweeping. But there is no water for proper cleaning and sometimes they are unable to wash dishes from their meager meals for several days at a time.

Manasra sat in the tent and showed how one of his young daughters had angry red marks across her back from what he said a doctor had told them was a skin infection caused by the lack of clean water.

They maintain a strict regimen of water use by priority.

After pouring their two containers of water from the distribution point into a broken plastic water butt by their tent, they use it to clean themselves from the tap, using their hands to spoon it over their heads and bodies.

Water that runs off into the basin underneath is then used for dishes and after that - now grey and dirty - for clothes.

"How is this going to be enough for 10 people? For the showering, washing, dish washing, and the washing of the covers. It's been three months; we haven't washed the covers, and the weather is hot," Manasra said.

His wife, Umm Khaled, sat washing clothes in a tiny puddle of water at the bottom of a bucket - all that was left after the more urgent requirements of drinking and cooking.

"My daughter was very sick from the heat rash and the scabies. I went to several doctors for her and they prescribed many medications. Two of my children yesterday, one had diarrhea and vomiting and the other had fever and infections from the dirty water," she said.