The Islamic State's propaganda is multifaceted and made up of different narratives. A lot has been written about how the Islamic State (hereafter IS) employs these narratives in their propaganda output, and how the group's media is carefully crafted in order to promote their overall narratives. …
Media
The early SVBIEDs of al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia (2003-2006)
Prior to the formation of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula - or AQAP - in 2009, al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia had been engaged in attempts to lay the basis for a wider insurrection against the Saudi royal family. The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 coincided with a sudden rise in AQ-related attacks in …
The Rocket-upgraded SVBIEDs of Mosul: A story of Islamic State ingenuity
On April 20th 2017, The Islamic State-affiliated 'Amaq News Agency' published a video report from the raging battle in western Mosul. The video, titled "An innovation enters the battlefield in Mosul", showed an Islamic State (hereafter IS) brown camouflaged SVBIED fitted with five rocket pods on the …
The World’s Largest Collection of Suicide Car Bombs (SVBIEDs)
An SVBIED (Suicide Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Device) is usually a very high-value asset for the group using it, meaning that they're typically deployed in quite a reserved fashion. Even for IS, it's not often that you see them use more than two SVBIEDs at the same time. Large collections of …
Media is half the battle – An overview of the Islamic State’s media apparatus
Note: I finished writing this article in early January, 2016 The rapid emergence of the Islamic State in Syria & Iraq has brought with it a greater focus on the organization’s brutality. Widely circulated videos displaying extremely graphic violence, like the beheadings of American and …