Propaganda Overview
In last week’s official propaganda Daesh claimed attacks in Afghanistan, Egypt, Syria and Iraq. They also released videos and chants inciting followers to act and attempting to shame Muslims that are rejecting jihad. BBC Monitoring has noted that Daesh has increasingly had to issue “corrections” and “modifications” to official attack claims. Between 11 and 22 of January, 13 correction were issued via Amaq and other official channels. Although issuing corrections is nothing new for the group the amount is unprecedented.
Daesh’s attack on Save the Children in Afghanistan
Last week Amaq published a short statement claiming the attack on offices of Save the Children charity in eastern Afghanistan. Later this was followed by a longer statement by the “Khorasan Province”. They claimed that Save the Children was the target of the attack but wrongly identified it as a UN organisation. A second, unnamed Swedish organisation was also said to be a target. Both organisations were accused of trying to convert Muslim children to Christianity.
The statement named the four attackers, stating were all killed during the attack, and went on to describe the tactics used.
Daesh promotes military campaign
An infographic in al-Naba issued on January 26 describes attacks in eastern Syria’s Deir al-Zour as a military campaign named “Avenging the Virtuous Females”. This campaign is said to have been launched on January 19 and targets the PKK, Daesh’s name for Kurdish fighters in Syria. The infographic gives numbers for how many enemies Daesh claim the campaign has captured, killed and wounded.
Pro-Daesh media groups and followers launched an online campaign using a matching hashtag to promote the ongoing battles against Kurdish fighters and allied forces in Syria. There has been no explanation as to what the significance of the campaign’s name is.
Daesh using disabled fighters in video
Daesh Furat Province released a 12 minute video allegedly showing injured fighters’ determination to keep on fighting. The maimed fighters called upon able Muslims who rejected jihad to fight and encouraged fighters to stand firm. They explained how they were injured on the battle field and the video shows footage of injured men being taking from the battlefield to get treatment in clinics. The narrator in the video told them to remember why they were fighting and told them they were on the “right path”.
Read previous versions of the bulletin here.