Washington: Gone are the days of dreadful terrorist Osama bin Laden and also his modus operandi to send terror threats via video messages. The technologically advanced Islamic State terror group runs its own 24/7 news agency, producing dispatches on a 24-hour news cycle using mobile technology.
As per a NDTV report, the militant outfit owns Amaq news agency which shares journalistic style articles about the group.
In order to instil fear among masses and propagate its ideology, the IS uses Amaq to carry reports on events from Libya and Iraq to the Philippines, in Arabic, English, French and Russian. It refrains from posting videos of beheadings and other graphic images of Islamic State actions, delivering more subtle messages, such as in its labeling of suicide bombings as "martyrdom operations” the report claimed.
“Amaq is an attempt to seize "information dominance" over enemies, Charlie Winter, a senior research associate who focuses on Islamist militancy at Georgia State University in Atlanta was quoted as saying by NDTV. The agency is named after a Syrian town mentioned in an ancient prophecy as the site for an apocalyptic victory over non-believers.
The agency first came into existence in 2014 when Islamic State was trying to seize the northern Syrian city of Kobani from its Kurdish defenders.
Islamic State is also adopting new ways of communicating with supporters, including on the encrypted Telegram Messenger service, prompting Telegram to remove multi-user "channels" that members complained were promoting the terrorist group.
