islamic terrorism research paper

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Events, news & press, the religious sources of islamic terrorism.

What the fatwas say

W hile terrorism — even in the form of suicide attacks — is not an Islamic phenomenon by definition, it cannot be ignored that the lion’s share of terrorist acts and the most devastating of them in recent years have been perpetrated in the name of Islam. This fact has sparked a fundamental debate both in the West and within the Muslim world regarding the link between these acts and the teachings of Islam. Most Western analysts are hesitant to identify such acts with the bona fide teachings of one of the world’s great religions and prefer to view them as a perversion of a religion that is essentially peace-loving and tolerant. Western leaders such as George W. Bush and Tony Blair have reiterated time and again that the war against terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. It is a war against evil.

The non-Islamic etiologies of this phenomenon include political causes (the Israeli-Arab conflict); cultural causes (rebellion against Western cultural colonialism); and social causes (alienation, poverty). While no public figure in the West would deny the imperative of fighting the war against terrorism, it is equally politically correct to add the codicil that, for the war to be won, these (justified) grievances pertaining to the root causes of terrorism should be addressed. A skeptic may note that many societies can put claim to similar grievances but have not given birth to religious-based ideologies that justify no-holds-barred terrorism. Nevertheless an interpretation which places the blame for terrorism on religious and cultural traits runs the risk of being branded as bigoted and Islamophobic.

The political motivation of the leaders of Islamist jihadist-type movements is not in doubt. A glance at the theatres where such movements flourished shows that most fed off their political — and usually military — encounter with the West. This was the case in India and in the Sudan in the nineteenth century and in Egypt and Palestine in the twentieth. The moral justification and levers of power for these movements, however, were for the most part not couched in political terms, but based on Islamic religious sources of authority and religious principles. By using these levers and appealing to deeply ingrained religious beliefs, the radical leaders succeed in motivating the Islamist terrorist, creating for him a social environment that provides approbation and a religious environment that provides moral and legal sanction for his actions. The success of radical Islamic organizations in the recruitment, posting, and ideological maintenance of sleeper activists (the 9-11 terrorists are a prime example) without their defecting or succumbing to the lure of Western civilization proves the deep ideological nature of the phenomenon.

Therefore, to treat Islamic terrorism as the consequence of political and socioeconomic factors alone would not do justice to the significance of the religious culture in which this phenomenon is rooted and nurtured. In order to comprehend the motivation for these acts and to draw up an effective strategy for a war against terrorism, it is necessary to understand the religious-ideological factors — which are deeply embedded in Islam.

The Weltanschauung of radical Islam

M odern international Islamist terrorism is a natural offshoot of twentieth-century Islamic fundamentalism. The “Islamic Movement” emerged in the Arab world and British-ruled India as a response to the dismal state of Muslim society in those countries: social injustice, rejection of traditional mores, acceptance of foreign domination and culture. It perceives the malaise of modern Muslim societies as having strayed from the “straight path” ( as-sirat al-mustaqim ) and the solution to all ills in a return to the original mores of Islam. The problems addressed may be social or political: inequality, corruption, and oppression. But in traditional Islam — and certainly in the worldview of the Islamic fundamentalist — there is no separation between the political and the religious. Islam is, in essence, both religion and regime ( din wa-dawla ) and no area of human activity is outside its remit. Be the nature of the problem as it may, “Islam is the solution.”

The underlying element in the radical Islamist worldview is ahistoric and dichotomist: Perfection lies in the ways of the Prophet and the events of his time; therefore, religious innovations, philosophical relativism, and intellectual or political pluralism are anathema. In such a worldview, there can exist only two camps — Dar al-Islam (“The House of Islam” — i.e., the Muslim countries) and Dar al-Harb (“The House of War” — i.e., countries ruled by any regime but Islam) — which are pitted against each other until the final victory of Islam. These concepts are carried to their extreme conclusion by the radicals; however, they have deep roots in mainstream Islam.

While the trigger for “Islamic awakening” was frequently the meeting with the West, Islamic-motivated rebellions against colonial powers rarely involved individuals from other Muslim countries or broke out of the confines of the territories over which they were fighting. Until the 1980 s, most fundamentalist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan Muslimun ) were inward-looking; Western superiority was viewed as the result of Muslims having forsaken the teachings of the Prophet. Therefore, the remedy was, first, “re-Islamization” of Muslim society and restoration of an Islamic government, based on Islamic law ( shari’ah ). In this context, jihad was aimed mainly against “apostate” Muslim governments and societies, while the historic offensive jihad of the Muslim world against the infidels was put in abeyance (at least until the restoration of the caliphate).

Until the 1980 s, attempts to mobilize Muslims all over the world for a jihad in one area of the world (Palestine, Kashmir) were unsuccessful. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a watershed event, as it revived the concept of participation in jihad to evict an “infidel” occupier from a Muslim country as a “personal duty” ( fard ’ein ) for every capable Muslim. The basis of this duty derives from the “irreversibility” of Islamic identity both for individual Muslims (thus, capital punishment for “apostates” — e.g., Salman Rushdie) and for Muslim territories. Therefore, any land (Afghanistan, Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya, Spain) that had once been under the sway of Islamic law may not revert to control by any other law. In such a case, it becomes the “personal duty” of all Muslims in the land to fight a jihad to liberate it. 1 If they do not succeed, it becomes incumbent on any Muslim in a certain perimeter from that land to join the jihad and so forth. Accordingly, given the number of Muslim lands under “infidel occupation” and the length of time of those occupations, it is argued that it has become a personal duty for all Muslims to join the jihad. This duty — if taken seriously — is no less a religious imperative than the other five pillars of Islam (the statement of belief or shahadah , prayer, fasting, charity, and haj ). It becomes a de facto (and in the eyes of some a de jure) sixth pillar; a Muslim who does not perform it will inherit hell.

Such a philosophy attributing centrality to the duty of jihad is not an innovation of modern radical Islam. The seventh-century Kharijite sect, infamous in Islamic history as a cause of Muslim civil war, took this position and implemented it. But the Kharijite doctrine was rejected as a heresy by medieval Islam. The novelty is the tacit acceptance by mainstream Islam of the basic building blocks of this “neo-Kharijite” school.

The Soviet defeat in Afghanistan and the subsequent fall of the Soviet Union were perceived as an eschatological sign, adumbrating the renewal of the jihad against the infidel world at large and the apocalyptical war between Islam and heresy which will result in the rule of Islam in the world. Along with the renewal of the jihad, the Islamist Weltanschauung, which emerged from the Afghani crucible, developed a Thanatophile ideology 2 in which death is idealized as a desired goal and not a necessary evil in war.

An offshoot of this philosophy poses a dilemma for theories of deterrence. The Islamic traditions of war allow the Muslim forces to retreat if their numerical strength is less than half that of the enemy. Other traditions go further and allow retreat only in the face of a tenfold superiority of the enemy. The reasoning is that the act of jihad is, by definition, an act of faith in Allah. By fighting a weaker or equal enemy, the Muslim is relying on his own strength and not on Allah; by entering the fray against all odds, the mujahed is proving his utter faith in Allah and will be rewarded accordingly.

The politics of Islamist radicalism has also bred a mentality of bello ergo sum (I fight, therefore I exist) — Islamic leaders are in constant need of popular jihads to boost their leadership status. Nothing succeeds like success: The attacks in the United States gave birth to a second wave of mujahidin who want to emulate their heroes. The perception of resolve on the part of the West is a critical factor in shaping the mood of the Muslim population toward radical ideas. Therefore, the manner by which the United States deals with the present crisis in Iraq is not unconnected to the future of the radical Islamic movement. In these circles, the American occupation of Iraq is likened to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; a sense of American failure would feed the apocalyptical ideology of jihad.

The legality of jihad

T hese beliefs are commonly viewed as typical of radical Islamic ideology, but few orthodox Islamic scholars would deny that they are deeply rooted in orthodox Islam or would dismiss the very ideology of jihad as a military struggle as foreign to the basic tenets of Islam.

Hence, much of the debate between radicals and nonradicals is not over the religious principles themselves, but over their implication for actual behavior as based on the detailed legal interpretation of those principles. This legal interpretation is the soul of the debate. Even among moderate Islamic scholars who condemn acts of terrorism (albeit with reservation so as not to include acts perpetrated against Israel in such a category), there is no agreement on why they should be condemned: Many modernists acknowledge the existence of a duty of jihad in Islam but call for an “Islamic Protestantism” that would divest Islam of vestiges of anachronistic beliefs; conservative moderates find in traditional Islamic jurisprudence ( shari’ah ) legal justification to put the imperative of jihad in abeyance; others use linguistic analysis to point out that the etymology of the word jihad ( jahada ) actually means “to strive,” does not mean “holy war,” and does not necessarily have a military connotation. 3

The legalistic approach is not a barren preoccupation of scholars. The ideal Islamic regime is a nomocracy: The law is given and immutable, and it remains for the leaders of the ummah (the Islamic nation) to apply it on a day-to-day basis. Islam is not indifferent to any facet of human behavior; all possible acts potentially have a religious standing, ranging between “duty” ( fard , pl. fara’id ); “recommended” ( mandub ); “optional” ( jaiz ); “permitted” ( mubah ); “reprehensible” ( makruh ); and “forbidden” ( haram ). This taxonomy of human behavior has far-reaching importance for the believer: By performing all his religious duties, he will inherit paradise; by failing to do so (“sins of omission”) or doing that which is forbidden (“sins of commission”), he will be condemned to hell. Therefore, such issues as the legitimacy of jihad — ostensibly deriving from the roots of Islam — cannot be decided by abstract morality 4 or by politics, but by meticulous legal analysis and ruling ( fatwa ) according to the shari’ah , performed by an authoritative Islamic scholar (’ alem , pl. ’ ulama ).

The use of fatwas to call for violent action first became known in the West as a result of Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie, and again after Osama bin Laden’s 1998 fatwa against the United States and Israel. But as a genuine instrument of religious deliberation, it has not received the attention it deserves. Analysts have frequently interpreted fatwas as no more than the cynical use of religious terminology in political propaganda. This interpretation does not do justice to the painstaking process of legal reasoning invested in these documents and the importance that their authors and their target audience genuinely accord to the religious truthfulness of their rulings.

The political strength of these fatwas has been time-tested in Muslim political society by rebels and insurgents from the Arabian peninsula to Sudan, India, and Indonesia. At the same time, they have been used by Muslim regimes to bolster their Islamic credentials against external and domestic enemies and to legitimize their policies. This was done by the Sudanese mahdi in his rebellion against the British ( 1881-85 ); by the Ottoman caliphate (December 1914 ) in World War i ; by the Syrian regime against the rebellion in northern Syria ( 1981 ); and, mutatis mutandis, by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to legitimize his peace policies toward Israel.

The fatwas promulgated by sheikhs and ’ulama who stipulate that jihad is a “personal duty” play, therefore, a pivotal role in encouraging radicalism and in building the support infrastructure for radicals within the traditional Islamic community. While one may find many fatwas which advocate various manifestations of terrorism, fatwas which rule that those who perform these acts do not go to paradise but inherit hell are few and far between.

The questions relating to jihad which are referred to the religious scholars 5 relate to a number of issues:

The very definition, current existence, and area of application of the state of jihad . Is jihad one of the “pillars” ( arkan ) or “roots” ( usul ) of Islam? Does it necessarily imply military war, or can it be perceived as a duty to spread Islam through preaching or even the moral struggle between one’s soul and Satan? 6 If the former, then what are the necessary conditions for jihad ? Does a state of jihad currently exist between Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb ? And how can one define Dar al-Islam today, in the absence of a caliphate? Is the rest of the world automatically defined as Dar al-Harb with which a state of jihad exists, or do the treaties and diplomatic relations which exist between Muslim countries and “infidel” countries (including the charter of the United Nations) change this? 7

Who must participate in jihad, and how ? Is jihad a personal duty ( fard ’ein ) for each and every Muslim under all circumstances or a collective duty ( fard kiffaya ) that can be performed only under the leadership of a leader of all Muslims ( imam , khalifa , amir al-mu’aminin )? Is it incumbent on women? On minors? (According to Islamic law, in the case of a defensive jihad for the liberation of Islamic territory from infidel occupation, “a woman need not ask permission of her husband nor a child of his parents nor a slave of his master.”) May a Muslim refrain from supporting his attacked brethren or obey a non-Muslim secular law which prohibits him from supporting other Muslims in their struggle?

How should the jihad be fought (jus in bellum) ? The questions in this area relate, inter alia, to: ( a ) Is jihad by definition an act of conflict against the actual “infidels” or can it be defined as a spiritual struggle against the “evil inclination”? If it is the former, must it take the form of war ( jihad fi-sabil Allah ) or can it be performed by way of preaching and proselytization ( da’awah )? ( b ) Who is a legitimate target? Is it permissible to kill noncombatant civilians — women, children, elderly, and clerics; “protected” non-Muslims in Muslim countries — local non-Muslims or tourists whose visas may be interpreted as Islamic guarantees of passage ( aman ); Muslim bystanders? ( c ) The legitimacy of suicide attacks ( istishhad ) as a form of jihad in the light of the severe prohibition on a Muslim taking his own life, on one hand, and the promise of rewards in the afterlife for the shahid who falls in a jihad on the other hand. 8 ( d ) The weapons which may be used. For example, may a hijacked plane be used as a weapon as in the attacks of September 11 in the light of Islamic prohibitions on killing prisoners? ( e ) The status of a Muslim who aids the “infidels” against other Muslims. ( f ) The authority to implement capital punishment in the absence of a caliph.

How should jihad be funded ? “Pocketbook jihad” is deeply entrenched in Islamic tradition. It is based on the injunction that one must fight jihad with his soul or with his tongue ( jihad al-lissan or da’awah ) or with his money ( jihad fi-mal ). Therefore, financial support of jihad is politically correct and even good for business for the wealthy supporter. The transfer of zakat (almsgiving) raised in a community for jihad fi-sabil Allah (i.e., jihad on Allah’s path or military jihad) has wide religious and social legitimacy. 9 The precepts of “war booty” ( ghaneema or fay’ ) call for a fifth ( khoms ) to be rendered to the mujahidin. Acts that would otherwise be considered religiously prohibited are thus legitimized by the payment of such a “tax” for the sake of jihad. While there have been attempts to bring Muslim clerics to denounce acts of terrorism, none, to date, have condemned the donation of money for jihad.

The dilemma of the moderate Muslim

I t can be safely assumed that the great majority of Muslims in the world have no desire to join a jihad or to politicize their religion. However, it is also true that insofar as religious establishments in most of the Arabian peninsula, in Iran, and in much of Egypt and North Africa are concerned, the radical ideology does not represent a marginal and extremist perversion of Islam but rather a genuine and increasingly mainstream interpretation. Even after 9-11 , the sermons broadcast from Mecca cannot be easily distinguished from those of al Qaeda.

Facing the radical Weltanschauung, the moderate but orthodox Muslim has to grapple with two main dilemmas: the difficulty of refuting the legal-religious arguments of the radical interpretation and the aversion to — or even prohibition of — inciting an Islamic Kulturkampf which would split the ranks of the ummah .

The first dilemma is not uniquely Islamic. It is characteristic of revelation-based religions that the less observant or less orthodox will hesitate to challenge fundamental dogmas out of fear of being branded slack or lapsed in their faith. They will prefer to pay their dues to the religious establishment, hoping that by doing so they are also buying their own freedom from coercion. On a deeper level, many believers who are not strict in observance may see their own lifestyle as a matter of convenience and not principle, while the extreme orthodox is the true believer to whom they defer.

This phenomenon is compounded in Islam by the fact that “Arab” Sunni Islam never went though a reform. 10 Since the tenth century, Islam has lacked an accepted mechanism for relegating a tenet or text to ideological obsolescence. Until that time, such a mechanism — ijtihad — existed; ijtihad is the authorization of scholars to reach conclusions not only from existing interpretations and legal precedents, but from their own perusal of the texts. In the tenth century, the “gates of ijtihad ” were closed for most of the Sunni world. It is still practiced in Shiite Islam and in Southeast Asia. Reformist traditions did appear in non-Arab Middle Eastern Muslim societies (Turkey, Iran) and in Southeast Asian Islam. Many Sufi (mystical) schools also have traditions of syncretism, reformism, and moderation. These traditions, however, have always suffered from a lack of wide legitimacy due to their non-Arab origins and have never been able to offer themselves as an acceptable alternative to ideologies born in the heartland of Islam and expressed in the tongue of the Prophet. In recent years, these societies have undergone a transformation and have adopted much of the Middle Eastern brand of Islamic orthodoxy and have become, therefore, more susceptible to radical ideologies under the influence of Wahhabi missionaries, Iranian export of Islam, and the cross-pollination resulting from the globalization of ideas in the information age.

The second dilemma — the disinclination of moderates to confront the radicals — has frequently been attributed to violent intimidation (which, no doubt, exists), but it has an additional religious dimension. While the radicals are not averse to branding their adversaries as apostates, orthodox and moderate Muslims rarely resort to this weapon. Such an act ( takfir — accusing another Muslim of heresy [ kufr ] by falsifying the roots of Islam, allowing that which is prohibited or forbidding that which is allowed) is not to be taken lightly; it contradicts the deep-rooted value that Islam places on unity among the believers and its aversion to fitna (communal discord). It is ironic that a religious mechanism which seems to have been created as a tool to preserve pluralism and prevent internal debates from deteriorating into civil war and mutual accusations of heresy (as occurred in Christian Europe) has become a tool in the hands of the radicals to drown out any criticism of them.

Consequently, even when pressure is put on Muslim communities, there exists a political asymmetry in favor of the radicals. Moderates are reluctant to come forward and to risk being accused of apostasy. For this very reason, many Muslim regimes in the Middle East and Asia are reluctant to crack down on the religious aspects of radical Islam and satisfy themselves with dealing with the political violence alone. By way of appeasement politics, they trade tolerance of jihad elsewhere for local calm. Thus, they lose ground to radicals in their societies.

The Western dilemma

I t is a tendency in politically oriented Western society to assume that there is a rational pragmatic cause for acts of terrorism and that if the political grievance is addressed properly, the phenomenon will fade. However, when the roots are not political, it is naïve to expect political gestures to change the hearts of radicals. Attempts to deal with the terrorist threat as if it were divorced from its intellectual, cultural, and religious fountainheads are doomed to failure. Counterterrorism begins on the religious-ideological level and must adopt appropriate methods. The cultural and religious sources of radical Islamic ideology must be addressed in order to develop a long-range strategy for coping with the terrorist threat to which they give birth.

However, in addressing this phenomenon, the West is at a severe disadvantage. Western concepts of civil rights along with legal, political, and cultural constraints preclude government intervention in the internal matters of organized religions; they make it difficult to prohibit or punish inflammatory sermons of imams in mosques (as Muslim regimes used to do on a regular basis) or to punish clerics for fatwas justifying terrorism. Furthermore, the legacy of colonialism deters Western governments from taking steps that may be construed as anti-Muslim or as signs of lingering colonialist ideology. This exposes the Western country combating the terrorist threat to criticism from within. Even most of the new and stringent terrorism prevention legislation that has been enacted in some counties leans mainly on investigatory powers (such as allowing for unlimited administrative arrests, etc.) and does not deal with prohibition of religion-based “ideological crimes” (as opposed to anti-Nazi and anti-racism laws, which are in force in many countries in Europe).

The regimes of the Middle East have proven their mettle in coercing religious establishments and even radical sheikhs to rule in a way commensurate with their interests. However, most of them show no inclination to join a global (i.e., “infidel”) war against radical Islamic ideology. Hence, the prospect of enlisting Middle Eastern allies in the struggle against Islamic radicalism is bleak. Under these conditions, it will be difficult to curb the conversion of young Muslims in the West to the ideas of radicalism emanating from the safe houses of the Middle East. Even those who are not in direct contact with Middle Eastern sources of inspiration may absorb the ideology secondhand through interaction of Muslims from various origins in schools and on the internet.

Fighting hellfire with hellfire

T aking into account the above, is it possible — within the bounds of Western democratic values — to implement a comprehensive strategy to combat Islamic terrorism at its ideological roots? First, such a strategy must be based on an acceptance of the fact that for the first time since the Crusades, Western civilization finds itself involved in a religious war; the conflict has been defined by the attacking side as such with the eschatological goal of the destruction of Western civilization. The goal of the West cannot be defense alone or military offense or democratization of the Middle East as a panacea. It must include a religious-ideological dimension: active pressure for religious reform in the Muslim world and pressure on the orthodox Islamic establishment in the West and the Middle East not only to disengage itself clearly from any justification of violence, but also to pit itself against the radical camp in a clear demarcation of boundaries.

Such disengagement cannot be accomplished by Western-style declarations of condemnation. It must include clear and binding legal rulings by religious authorities which contradict the axioms of the radical worldview and virtually “excommunicate” the radicals. In essence, the radical narrative, which promises paradise to those who perpetrate acts of terrorism, must be met by an equally legitimate religious force which guarantees hellfire for the same acts. Some elements of such rulings should be, inter alia:

• A call for renewal of ijtihad as the basis to reform Islamic dogmas and to relegate old dogmas to historic contexts.

• That there exists no state of jihad between Islam and the rest of the world (hence, jihad is not a personal duty).

• That the violation of the physical safety of a non-Muslim in a Muslim country is prohibited ( haram ).

• That suicide bombings are clear acts of suicide, and therefore, their perpetrators are condemned to eternal hellfire.

• That moral or financial support of acts of terrorism is also haram .

• That a legal ruling claiming jihad is a duty derived from the roots of Islam is a falsification of the roots of Islam, and therefore, those who make such statements have performed acts of heresy.

Only by setting up a clear demarcation between orthodox and radical Islam can the radical elements be exorcized. The priority of solidarity within the Islamic world plays into the hands of the radicals. Only an Islamic Kulturkampf can redraw the boundaries between radical and moderate in favor of the latter. Such a struggle must be based on an in-depth understanding of the religious sources for justification of Islamist terrorism and a plan for the creation of a legitimate moderate counterbalance to the radical narrative in Islam. Such an alternative narrative should have a sound base in Islamic teachings, and its proponents should be Islamic scholars and leaders with wide legitimacy and accepted credentials. 11 The “Middle-Easternization” of Asian Muslim communities should also be checked.

A strategy to cope with radical Islamic ideology cannot take shape without a reinterpretation of Western concepts of the boundaries of the freedoms of religion and speech, definitions of religious incitement, and criminal culpability of religious leaders for the acts of their flock as a result of their spiritual influence. Such a reinterpretation impinges on basic principles of Western civilization and law. Under the circumstances, it is the lesser evil.

1 “If the disbelievers occupy a territory belonging to the Muslims, it is incumbent upon the Muslims to drive them out, and to restore the land back to themselves; Spain had been a Muslim territory for more than eight hundred years, before it was captured by the Christians. They [i.e., the Christians] literally, and practically wiped out the whole Muslim population. And now, it is our duty to restore Muslim rule to this land of ours. The whole of India, including Kashmir, Hyderabad, Assam, Nepal, Burma, Behar, and Junagadh was once a Muslim territory. But we lost this vast territory, and it fell into the hands of the disbelievers simply because we abandoned Jihad. And Palestine, as is well-known, is currently under the occupation of the Jews. Even our First Qibla, Bait-ul-Muqaddas is under their illegal possession.” — Jihaad ul-Kuffaari wal-Munaafiqeen .

2 This is characterized by the emphasis on verses in the Koran and stories extolling martyrdom (“Why do you cling to this world when the next world is better?”) and praising the virtues of paradise as a real and even sensual existence.

3 This is a rather specious argument. In all occurrences of the concept in traditional Islamic texts — and more significantly in the accepted meaning for the great majority of modern Muslims — the term means a divinely ordained war.

4 A frequently quoted verse “proving” the inadequacy of human conscience in regard to matters of jihad is Koran 2:216: “Fighting is ordered for you even though you dislike it and it may be that you dislike a thing that is good for you and like a thing that is bad for you. Allah knows but you do not know.”

5 The following list of questions has been gleaned from a large corpus of fatwas collected by the author over recent years. The fatwas represent the questions of lay Muslims and responses of scholars from different countries. Some of the fatwas were written and published in mosques, others in the open press, and others in dedicated sites on the internet.

6 This claim, a favorite of modernists and moderates, comes from a unique and unconfirmed hadith which states: “The Prophet returned from one of his battles, and thereupon told us, ‘You have arrived with an excellent arrival, you have come from the Lesser Jihad to the Greater Jihad — the striving of a servant [of Allah] against his desires.’’

7 Some Islamic judicial schools add to the Dar al-Islam/Dar al-Harb dichotomy a third category: Dar al-’Ahad , countries which have peace treaties with Muslims and therefore are not to be attacked. The basis for discerning whether or not a country belongs to Dar al-Islam is not agreed upon. Some scholars claim that as long as a Muslim can practice his faith openly, the country is not Dar al-Harb .

8 It should be noted that in the historic paradigms of “suicide” terror, which are used as authority for justification of such attacks, the martyr did not kill himself but rather placed himself in a situation in which he would most likely be killed. Technically, therefore, he did not violate the Koranic prohibition on a Muslim taking his own life. The targets of the suicide terrorist of ancient times were also quite different — officials of the ruling class and armed (Muslim) enemies. The modern paradigm of suicide bombing called for renewed consideration of this aspect.

9 The prominent fundamentalist Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, for example, gave a fatwa obliging Muslims to fund jihad out of money collected for charity ( zakat ). ( Fatwa from April 11, 2002 in Islamonline.)

10 True, religions are naturally conservative and slow to change. Religious reforms are born and legitimized through the authority of a supreme spiritual leader (a pope or imam), an accepted mechanism of scholarly consensus (Talmud, the ijma’ of the schools of jurisprudence in early Islam), internal revolution (Protestantism), or external force (the destruction of the Second Temple in Judaism). Islam canonized itself in the tenth century and therefore did not go through any of these “reforms.”

11 Here the pessimist may inject that, today, all the leading Islamic scholars in the Middle East who enjoy such prestige are in the radical camp. But there have been cases of “repentant” radicals (in Egypt) who have retracted (albeit in jail and after due “convincing”) their declarations of takfir against the regime. In Indonesia, the moderate Nahdlatul Ulama led by former President Abdurahman Wahid represents a genuine version of moderate Islam.

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Reformulating the Battle of Ideas: Understanding the Role of Islam in Counterterrorism Policy

Subscribe to the center for middle east policy newsletter, rashad hussain and rashad hussain u.s. special envoy to the organization of islamic cooperation al-husein n. madhany anm al-husein n. madhany.

August 31, 2008

As the National Commission on the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks emphasized, significant progress against terrorism cannot be achieved exclusively through the use of military force. This paper argues that in order to win the “battle of ideas,” the United States government must carefully reformulate its strategy and work with the Muslim world to promote mainstream Islam over terrorist ideology. The global effort to end terrorism must be more effective in utilizing its strongest ally: Islam. There is nothing more persuasive to Muslims than Islam. If the global coalition to stop Al-Qaeda and other terrorists groups is to succeed, it must convince potential terrorists that Islam requires them to reject terrorism. As a part of this effort, this paper recommends the following:

First, rather than characterizing counterterrorism efforts as “freedom and democracy versus terrorist ideology,” policymakers should instead frame the battle of ideas as a conflict between terrorist elements in the Muslim world and Islam.

Second, policymakers should reject the use of language that provides a religious legitimization of terrorism such as “Islamic terrorism” and “Islamic extremist.” They should replace such terminology with more specific and descriptive terms such as “Al-Qaeda terrorism.”

Third, the United States should seek to build a broad and diverse coalition of partners, not limited to those who advocate Western-style democracy, and avoid creating a dichotomy between freedom and Islamic society. Such a coalition should incorporate those who may have political differences, so long as they reject terrorism.

Fourth, the United States should enlist the assistance of scholars of Islam and the Muslim world to determine how best to frame the mission of the global counterterrorism mission. Rather than framing the conflict as “pro-freedom” or “anti-Jihadist,” these scholars should analyze the most persuasive methods for applying Islamic law to reject terrorism.

Fifth, the United States should incorporate the Muslim community as well as scholars of Islam and of the Muslim world in the policymaking process to help craft policies that reflect a more nuanced understanding of those targeted.

Sixth, the United States should promote and distribute scholarship such as the North American Muslims Scholars’ Fatwa against Terrorism and the Aal al-Bayt Institute’s anti-terrorism rulings, which carefully analyze issues such as the use of force in Islam and conclude that terrorism must be rejected unequivocally.

Seventh, recognizing the benefit of strengthening the authoritative voices of mainstream Islam, the United States should welcome and encourage the further development of mainstream Muslim organizations and moderate institutions.

Finally, the United States should continue to promote effective economic and social reforms and to work with allies in crafting fair and peaceful resolutions to conflicts in the Middle East and in other parts of the Muslim world, as these conflicts are often the preeminent grievances fueling extremist violence.

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Where Terrorism Finds Support in the Muslim World

That may depend on how you define it – and who are the targets.

by Richard Wike, Pew Global Attitudes Project and Nilanthi Samaranayake, Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

What produces terrorists and what conditions allow them to multiply in number and power in the Muslim world? While many studies point to the important role public opinion plays in creating an environment in which terrorist groups can flourish, relatively few works have explored survey data to measure support for terrorism among general publics. Findings from the 2005 Pew Global Attitudes survey on attitudes toward suicide bombing and civilian attacks and other measures of support for terrorism offer some revealing perspectives on this question. 1

Most notably, the survey finds that terrorism is not a monolithic concept–support for terrorist activity depends importantly on its type and on the location in which it occurs. For example, Moroccans overwhelmingly disapprove of suicide bombings against civilians, but, among respondents in the six predominantly Muslim countries surveyed, they are the most likely to see it as a justifiable tactic against Americans and other westerners in Iraq. Opinions about the United States, its attitudes in dealing with the larger world and the Iraq war are also powerful factors in shaping support for terrorism, as are perceptions that Islam is under threat. With the exception of gender, demographic differences, including income, explain little if anything about attitudes toward terrorism in the Muslim world, but country-specific differences are significant, suggesting the importance of local social, political and religious conditions.

These findings are generally though not entirely consistent with other studies of the origins and growth of Islamic terrorism. Much of the relevant literature, however, differs in its focus, concentrating instead on the motivations of terrorist organizations and their members. For example, groups may turn to suicide bombing when other strategies fail (Martha Crenshaw, 1998) or when they find themselves in competition for public support with other militant groups (Mia Bloom, 2005). Robert Pape (2003) finds that terrorism can be a “rational” strategy, pursued by groups, including secular groups, seeking territorial concessions from liberal democracies (2003). Several authors examine the link between political authoritarianism and terror. Alberto Abadie (2004) finds countries in transition from authoritarianism to democracy at a heightened risk for terrorist activities, while Gregory Gause (2005) argues that authoritarian regimes may be best equipped to stifle terrorism – he offers China as an example. Still others see support for terrorism driven in part by opposition to U.S. foreign policy. For instance, Scott Atran (2004) finds “no evidence that most people who support suicide actions hate Americans’ internal cultural freedoms, but rather every indication that they oppose U.S. foreign policies, particularly regarding the Middle East.”

Relatively few studies have addressed the public attitudes that allow terrorism to take root and grow in certain societies; those that have rely on earlier data than is provided by the 2005 Pew study. In their analysis of Lebanese Muslim attitudes, Simon Haddad and Hilal Khashan (2002) find that younger respondents and those who endorse political Islam are more likely than others to approve of the September 11 attacks. However, they find that income and education are unrelated to such opinions. Examining polling data from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, Alan Krueger and Jitka Maleckova (2002) also conclude that, contrary to much conventional wisdom, poverty and low education are not key drivers of support for terrorism.

Similarly, in a recent study, Christine Fair and Bryan Shepherd (2006) analyze 2002 Pew Global Attitudes data and find that women, young people, computer users, those who believe Islam is under threat, and those who want religious leaders to play a larger role in politics are more likely to support suicide bombing and other attacks against civilians. Fair and Shepherd find that financial status is also a significant determinant — that the very poor are less, not more, likely to support such attacks.

What then do more recent data show?

Declining Support for Terrorism

Overall, the 2005 Pew Global Attitudes survey finds that support for terrorism has generally declined since 2002 in the six predominantly Muslim countries included in the study – Indonesia, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, and Turkey – although there are some variations across countries and survey items.

We will focus on results for three terrorism-related measures: attitudes about suicide bombing and other violence against civilians, views on suicide bombing carried out against Americans and other Westerners in Iraq, and opinions about Osama bin Laden. The first two measures were only asked of Muslim respondents. All respondents were asked their opinion of bin Laden; however, we will restrict our analysis to Muslim respondents.

The most basic measure of support for terrorism asked respondents the following question: “Some people think that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets are justified in order to defend Islam from its enemies. Other people believe that, no matter what the reason, this kind of violence is never justified. Do you personally feel that this kind of violence is often justified to defend Islam, sometimes justified, rarely justified, or never justified?”

As Table 1 illustrates, the share of the public that believes suicide bombing and other violence is justifiable varies considerably across countries, with Jordanian Muslims significantly more likely than others to support terrorist acts. Lebanon and Pakistan form a middle tier on this question, followed by Indonesia, Turkey, and Morocco, where solid majorities say these forms of violence are never justified. In five of the six countries, support for such attacks has dropped since the last time the question was asked, although the decline in Turkey is insignificant. The lone exception is Jordan, where support has actually increased 14 points since 2002.

The most dramatic drop in support for terrorism is seen in Morocco, a country that experienced a devastating terrorist attack in May 2003. Fully 79% of Moroccans surveyed in 2005 said that support for suicide bombing and violence against civilians was never justified–more than double the percentage (38%) who had expressed this view a year earlier.

A second question asked respondents specifically about suicide bombing in Iraq: “What about suicide bombing carried out against Americans and other Westerners in Iraq? Do you personally believe that this is justifiable or not justifiable?”

Interestingly, despite the overall decline in support for terrorist acts among its citizens, Morocco is the only country in which a majority says attacks on Americans and other westerners in Iraq are justified. Roughly half of Jordanian and Lebanese Muslims support such acts, while fewer than 30% of Muslims in Pakistan, Indonesia and Turkey agree. In all four countries where trends exist, support for suicide attacks in Iraq has declined, including a large, 21-point drop in Jordan.

Finally, respondents were asked how much confidence they have in Osama bin Laden to do the right thing in world affairs. The results show support for bin Laden has declined in four of the six countries. Jordan and Pakistan are the exceptions, with the percentage of Muslims who have a lot or some confidence in bin Laden rising five points among Jordanians and six points among Pakistanis.

Independence of Terrorism Measures

It is clear that across all three measures, support for terrorism has declined generally. However, it is also clear that levels of support vary across questions, suggesting that each measures a different facet of how people view terrorism.

This can be illustrated by examining the relationship between views about suicide bombing generally and suicide bombing specifically in Iraq. As Table 4 demonstrates, in some predominately Muslim countries a significant number of people who believe that suicide bombing and other attacks against civilians are at least sometimes justifiable still do not support suicide bombing against Westerners in Iraq. For example, in Turkey among respondents who say suicide bombing is rarely, sometimes, or often justified, a 49% plurality says that suicide bombing in Iraq is not justifiable. By contrast, in Morocco 81% and in Jordan 68% of those who say targeting civilians is at least sometimes justified also find it justifiable in Iraq.

Similarly, those who believe that suicide bombing and other attacks against civilians are at least sometimes justifiable do not necessarily have confidence in Osama bin Laden. Again, results vary significantly by country, with 71% of Jordanian Muslims who believe violence against civilians can be justified also having confidence in bin Laden, compared with only 5% of Turks.

Finally, the relationship between views about suicide bombing in Iraq and views of bin Laden also differ significantly among the six countries. For instance, 82% of Jordanian Muslims who think suicide bombing in Iraq against Westerners is justifiable also have a lot or some confidence in bin Laden. However, only 6% of Lebanese in the same category also have confidence in bin Laden.

Correlates of Support for Terrorism

As noted above, differences in opinions about terrorism have been linked not only to demographic variables, notably age and gender, but also to views about Islam, democracy, and the United States. Four sets of variables are used to explore whether these patterns are significant in the 2005 survey data.

• Demographic variables – these include gender, age, education, and income, as well as whether a respondent has a child under age 18 living in the household and whether the respondent regularly uses a computer. Since measures for education and income differ across countries, for the purposes of analysis respondents are characterized as low or high education, and as low, middle, or high income.
• Views about Islam – Both the academic literature and the popular press have emphasized links between terrorism and an extremist brand of Islam. Responses to three questions are used to explore any potential relationships between opinions on religion and terrorism. The first asks respondents whether their primary identity is as a Muslim or as a citizen of their country (Jordanian, Moroccan, etc.). The second asks how important it is that Islam plays a more influential role in the world than it does now. The third asks whether the respondent thinks there are any serious threats to Islam today.
• Opinions about democracy – Two questions test these attitudes among respondents. The first asks whether democracy is a Western way of doing things that will not work in the respondent’s country or if democracy is not just for the West and would work in their country. The second asks respondents if they are more optimistic or more pessimistic these days that the Middle East will become more democratic.
• Attitudes toward the United States – In addition to a straightforward favorability question about the U.S., these measures include questions about: the extent to which the U.S. takes into account the interests of countries such as the respondent’s country when making international policy decisions; how worried, if at all, respondents are that the American military will become a threat to their country; whether the war in Iraq has made the world safer or more dangerous; and whether the U.S. government favors or opposes democracy in the respondent’s country. 2

Comparison of levels of support for the three measures of terrorism against these four sets of variables reveals a number of associations. As seen in Table 6, across all three measures, men are generally more supportive of terrorism than are women. Meanwhile, individuals with children are less supportive of suicide bombing generally, but more supportive of bin Laden. Support for terrorism is also more common among persons who identify primarily as Muslim, those who believe it is important for Islam to play an influential role on the world stage, and those who believe Islam faces serious threats.

Whether or not an individual thinks democracy is solely a Western way appears to have only modest effects on support for terrorism (it should be noted that relatively few Muslims, ranging from 12% in Morocco to 38% in Turkey, believe democracy is solely a Western form of government). On the other hand, across all three measures, those who are pessimistic about the prospects for Middle East democracy have more favorable attitudes toward terrorism.

Views about the U.S. appear strongly associated with attitudes toward terrorism, with support for terrorism higher among people who have an unfavorable opinion of the U.S., those who believe American foreign policy does not consider the interests of countries like theirs, those who are concerned that the U.S. may pose a military threat to their country, and those who believe the U.S. opposes democracy in their country.

Multivariate Analysis

Still, the question remains whether many of these variables have independent strength in explaining attitudes toward terrorism or whether they are primarily proxies for other significant variables with which they themselves are correlated. To determine whether these associations remain significant once other factors are controlled for, we conducted two types of regressions 3 including the variables described above as along with dummy variables to assess country specific effects.

As illustrated in Table 7, when other factors are controlled for, most demographic variables no longer show significant effects on opinions regarding suicide bombing and civilian attacks. However, gender remains significant in views about suicide bombing against Westerners in Iraq or confidence in bin Laden, with women less likely than men to support such bombing or the Al Qaeda leader. Income is also a significant determinant of support for bin Laden, with wealthier individuals holding a more negative view of the al Qaeda leader.

Two of the measured attitudes toward Islam also remain significant. The belief that it is important for Islam to play an influential role in the world is positively related to support for suicide bombing in Iraq and confidence in bin Laden. The perception that there are serious threats to Islam is positively associated with support for suicide bombing and other attacks against civilians, as well as suicide bombing against Westerners in Iraq. However, primarily identifying as a Muslim is not significantly related to any of the three dependent variables.

Variables measuring attitudes toward democracy show limited effects. The only instance in which either of the two democracy measures is significant is that people who believe democracy is not just a western way and can work in their country are less likely to support terrorist attacks against civilians.

By contrast, some attitudes toward the U.S. are strongly associated with views on terrorism. Support for terrorism is positively correlated with negative views of the U.S., a perception that the U.S. does not favor democracy in a respondent’s country, and a belief that the Iraq war has made the world more dangerous.

Finally, nearly all of the country indicators are significant, indicating that country specific factors have a great deal of influence on attitudes toward terrorism. 4

The results show that the variables for Jordan and Lebanon are positively related to support for attacks against civilians, while the other three countries are negatively related to this measure. In the second model, with support for suicide bombing in Iraq as the dependent variable, variables for three countries — Morocco, Lebanon, and Jordan — are positively associated with approval of suicide attacks in Iraq. Meanwhile, the Turkey variable is negatively associated with support for suicide terrorism in Iraq. Finally, in the third model Morocco is the excluded category, and Pakistanis, Jordanians, and Indonesians are found to be more supportive of bin Laden, while Lebanese and Turkish Muslims are less likely to have confidence in bin Laden.

Conclusions

The findings suggest several general conclusions about public opinion regarding terrorism in these six predominantly Muslim countries. First, the 2005 poll finds support for terrorism on the decline, although there are a few exceptions to this pattern, and support remains rather high in some countries, notably Jordan. Previous research has shown that support tends to decline among publics after they have experienced attacks on their own soil, and future research will determine whether such a drop has occurred in Jordan following the November 2005 bombings in Amman.

Second, terrorism is not a monolithic concept, and different facets of terrorism have different patterns of public support. Many individuals who say suicide bombing in defense of Islam may be justifiable do not support it in Iraq, and vice versa. 5 For example, while Moroccans are the least supportive of suicide bombing when it is described in general terms, they are the most likely to approve of suicide bombing specifically in Iraq.

Third, demographic characteristics appear to have relatively small effects on attitudes towards terrorism, with the exception of gender. Contrary to Fair and Shepherd, we find that women are generally less likely to approve of terrorist acts and are less likely to hold favorable views of Osama bin Laden.

Fourth, views about Islam are linked, to some extent, to views about terrorism. In particular, and consistent with Fair and Shepherd, we find the perception that Islam is under threat is positively correlated with support for terrorism.

Next, we find that opinions of the United States and of American foreign policy are important determinants of attitudes towards terrorism. The perception that the U.S. acts unilaterally in international affairs, concerns about the American military becoming a threat, negative views of the Iraq war, the belief that the U.S. opposes democracy in the region, and a generally unfavorable view of America all drive pro-terrorism sentiments.

Finally, the multivariate analysis finds significant country-specific effects, suggesting that conditions giving rise to terror are greatly influenced by local political, social, and religious factors. Future studies should seek to shed more light on these country specific influences, as well as the factors that shape public opinion on terrorism across nations.

A longer version of the paper was presented at the annual conference of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Montreal, Canada, May 18-21, 2006

Field dates for the survey, as well as the number of Muslims in each country sample are shown below.

Full wording of questions

Works Cited

Abadie, Alberto. 2004. “Poverty, Political Freedom, and the Roots of Terrorism.” Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Paper Series.

Atran, Scott. 2004. “Mishandling Suicide Terrorism.” The Washington Quarterly 27: 67-90.

Bloom, Mia. 2005. Dying to Kill: the Allure of Suicide Terror . New York: Columbia University Press.

Crenshaw, Martha. 1998. “The Logic of Terrorism: Terrorist Behavior as a Product of Strategic Choice.” In Walter Reich (ed.), Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind . Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.

Fair, C. Christine and Bryan Shepherd. 2006. “Who Supports Terrorism? Evidence from Fourteen Muslim Countries.” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 29: 51-74.

Gause, F. Gregory III. 2005. “Can Democracy Stop Terrorism?” Foreign Affairs 84: 62-76.

Haddad, Simon and Hilal Khashan. 2002. “Islam and Terrorism: Lebanese Muslim Views on September 11.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 46: 812-828.

Krueger, Alan B. and Jitka Maleckova. 2002. “The Economics and the Education of Suicide Bombers: Does Poverty Cause Terrorism?” The New Republic June 24.

Pape, Robert A. 2003. “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.” American Political Science Review 97: 343-361.

• See the 2005 Pew Global Attitudes Survey for more information, including sample sizes and exact field dates. The analyses in this report are based on Muslim respondents only, except for Morocco, where a religious preference question was not asked. However, given that Morocco’s population is 99% Muslim, it is likely that nearly all of the Moroccan sample is Muslim. ↩
• The question was not asked in Turkey. ↩
• Standard OLS regression was employed for the questions regarding suicide bombing and other attacks against civilians and confidence in bin Laden and logistic regression for the question concerning whether suicide bombing against Americans and other Westerners in Iraq is justified. ↩
• To test the independent importance of the country variables, in each model the country closest to the median position on the attitude in question was excluded. As shown in Table 7, in the first and second models, Pakistan is the excluded country, and the other country dummy variables should be interpreted as in comparison to Pakistan. ↩
• This was a split form question asked of approximately half the sample. ↩

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Harvard Human Rights Journal

Perpetuating Islamophobic Discrimination in the United States: Examining the Relationship Between News, Social Media, and Hate Crimes

May 11, 2021 By

The following piece is published as an honorable mention in the Harvard Human Rights Journal’ s Winter 2021 Essay Contest. The contest, Beyond the Headlines: Underrepresented Topics in Human Rights, sought to share the work of Harvard University students with a broader audience and shed light on important issues that popular media may overlook.

Perpetuating islamophobic discrimination in the united states: examining the relationship between news, social media, and hate crimes      , janna ramadan [*].

Abstract: Discrimination against minority communities and on the basis of religious identity violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Following 9/11, the American public and greater Western world came to associate Islam and Muslim populations with terrorism. The introduction of bans on the burqa in France, oppression of Uyghur Muslim populations in China legitimized by a supposed threat of extremism, the Christchurch mosque shooting in New Zealand, and the U.S. Muslim ban display the degree to which the stereotype between Muslim populations and terrorism has permeated society, even to the level of domestic policy. Also important in perpetuating the association is the media, particularly social media.

  To understand the degree to which social media influences or corroborates in the United States’ failure to secure basic human rights to its Muslim citizens and residents, this paper analyses the connection between media coverage and hate crimes in search for a predictive model and analyzes tweets to predict the average sentiment rating of tweets referring to Muslim populations or affiliated ethnic communities. The findings show no predictive relationship between media coverage and Anti-Islamic or Anti-Arab hate crimes but do predict a negative sentiment measure of tweets referring to the Muslim and affiliated communities.

Replication Materials: Data and code required to replicate analysis or further investigate claims made in this paper are accessible at https://jannaramadan.shinyapps.io/USIslamophobia/.

I. Introduction

In post-9/11 America, Muslims have been inextricably linked to terrorism in the public imagination. Americans have consumed media headlines about the Patriot Act, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, violent extremist organizations, and the Muslim ban, all perpetuating an association between Muslims and terrorism. Explicit Islamophobic comments uttered by elected representatives have implied legitimacy to these stereotypes with former President Trump stating, “I think Islam hates us.” [1] Former Congressman Steve King also famously questioned the loyalty of elected Muslim-American Congressman Keith Ellison. [2]

Religion in the United States also carries a racial designation. Despite no one racial group constituting more than 30% of the Muslim population, Muslims are racialized as a community of color. [3] At the center of Islamophobia in the United States is a convergence of racial and religious discrimination. Hate crimes against Muslims in the United States are a violation of human rights rooted in discrimination and ostracization within American institutions.

Discrimination against minority communities and on the basis of religious identity is a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. [4] This paper seeks to investigate how media coverage of Muslims interacts with Anti-Islamic or Anti-Arab, as an affiliated ethnic community, hate crime rates and the social media rhetoric towards Muslims. It fills the gaps in existing studies on anti-Islamic hate crimes and media rhetoric complicity by centering its analysis on the United States. [5] Building on Twitter sentiment analysis on the topic of Islamophobia conducted in the United Kingdom, this project collects original data and seeks to predict the sentiment of tweets referring to Muslims and affiliated ethnic communities. [6]

Sentiment analyzing over 51,000 tweets and regressing 23 years of hate crime data on 12 years of media coverage records, this project finds that tweets containing references to Muslims, Islam, and related ethnic groups are predicted to carry a slight negative sentiment and that the frequency of media coverage of Muslims and terrorism does not predict anti-Islamic or anti-Arab hate crimes. Conclusions on the predictability of anti-South Asian hate crimes based on frequency of media coverage are not identified as the FBI does not separate anti-South Asian hate crimes from the broader anti-Asian hate crimes.

The discussion that follows has four parts: (1) current trends of hate crimes and media and social media coverage of Muslims and terrorism, (2) the design of the research project and data collection, (3) the main findings of hate crime and tweet sentiment predictability, and (4) a discussion of the broader implications of the findings and evident human rights failures of the United States regarding protection of its Muslim minority.

II. Current Trends in Hate Crimes, Search Interests, and Public Definitions of Terrorism

Findings from a 2019 report by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding found that fear of, and discrimination against, Muslims is on the rise in the United States. The trend is reflected in policy such as the Patriot Act and the 2017 Muslim Ban, which disproportionately targeted and impacted Muslim, Arab, and South Asian Americans, as well as the rise in hate crimes against Muslims and Arabs. [7]

FBI hate crime data from 1995 shows a steady increase in anti-Islamic and anti-Arab motivated hate crimes (see Figure 1). [8] The dashed lines reflect the annual average number of hate crimes by motivation type. With the annual average anti-Islamic hate crime count at 163.78 hate crimes compared to the 84 annual anti-Arab hate crimes, there are more Islamophobic offenses recorded. However, note the similar trends in hate crimes. As anti-Islamic hate crimes increased between 2015 and 2016, so did anti-Arab motivated hate crimes. The parallel trend continued in the 2017-2018 hate crime decrease. Having only four years of collected anti-Arab hate crime data, the trend is not further corroborated in this project, but presents an interesting preliminary trend, reflecting conflation of Muslim and Arab identities.

General media coverage trends on the topics of “Muslim” and “Terrorism” are garnered from Google News Trends of the United States from January 2008 to September 2020. [9] The similar “Muslim” and “Terrorism” search interest trends over a 12-year period display a clear association that reflects the American held association of Muslims and terrorism. When searches of news coverage on terrorism increase, so too do searches of news coverage on Muslims. This result reflects that internet users searching for news on Google in the United States actively search for both in tandem. This conclusion may come as a result of the searcher’s own perceptions of Islam and terrorism as related. It may also be a result of news coverage mentioning both topics, which further directs searchers to news coverage that presents terrorism as linked to Islam.

Literature on how the American public defines terrorism further corroborates the trends displayed in hate crimes and media search interests. In an experimental study, researchers synthesized scholarly definitions and public debates to create predictions for how various attributes of incidents and perpetrators affect perceptions of whether the events were acts of terrorism. [10] They found that when perpetrators were described as Muslim, subjects were significantly more likely to classify a given event as terrorism. [11] In addition, perpetrators described as carrying foreign ties and the goal of changing policy have an 82% likelihood of being deemed perpetrators of terrorism. [12] Framing of events is an impactful exercise in both initiating and entrenching stereotypes linking Muslims to terrorism.

III. Method

This paper seeks to assess hate crime trends, search interest trends, and U.S.-based tweets on a series of keywords to investigate the predictability of anti-Islamic or anti-Arab hate crimes and the predictability of tweet sentiments. [13] Each of the two predictability questions is assessed utilizing different coding methods.

Predictability of Hate Crimes

As a research project focused on Islamophobia in the United States, FBI anti-Islamic and anti-Arab hate crime records between 1995 and 2018 present quantitative counts for discriminatory action while also cataloging events by motivation. Separating anti-Islamic and anti-Arab motivated hate crimes allowed the model to distinguish between religious and ethnic identities and compare predictability rates.

Due to a lack of quantitative values for news articles featuring the keywords “Muslim” and “Terrorism” at major news institutions, news coverage on Muslims and terrorism was represented by Google News search trends, displaying aggregate interest in the topics. The search results were also filtered geographically to only reflect searches within the United States. Using Google News search trends is advantageous in that it measures search interest on the basis of topics, aggregating clicks to all available news sources and reflecting public interest and engagement with the topics. However, Google News search trends do not reflect the content nor the descriptions of Muslims and terrorism in the news articles. Thus, this measure does not reflect the type of content searchers encounter.

Predictability of the count of hate crimes on the basis of news searches was then determined from the base beta values and range of the confidence intervals from the following Bayesian linear regression model: Count i = β 1 x mean_value + β 2 x key_word – 1

Twitter Sentiment Analysis

Scraping Twitter for English language tweets posted from accounts based in the United States that include key word groupings of “Muslim”, “Islam”, “Arab” or “South Asian”, and “Anti-Democratic” separately from November 3, 2020 to November 17, 2020, garnered 51,873 tweets.

After de-identifying the tweets and removing “stop words” such as “I”, “being”, “have”, etc., a bing text sentiment analysis was run to determine most frequent word associations, frequent word association sentiments, and general tweet sentiment of a 10-point numerical range.

Bing text analysis measures sentiments of words in each key word dataset in descending order of frequency on a 10-point scale, with word sentiment ratings ranging from -5, extremely negative, to 5, extremely positive. Sentiment ranges were weighed by term frequency to reflect the reality of the distribution. From there the data was bootstrapped 100 times to estimate the predictability of tweet sentiments based on keywords. The methods were repeated at the aggregate level for all ethno-religious keyword terms and aggregate of all key words.

Twitter data collection occurred before, during, and immediately after the United States 2020 election which impacted coding. Words such as “vice” for Vice President are coded negatively due to vice’s alternate definition associated with intoxicants. Likewise, the coding of “trump” as a word with a positive sentiment measure is not a reflection of political beliefs, but a reflection of the definition of the word trump.

IV. Findings

The regression model of count of anti-Islamic and anti-Arab hate crimes against variables of news searches count and searched topics found no causation relationship between the two (see Figure 3). The measure of mean value of hate crimes ranges from -2.8 to 7.9. The impacts of online searches including the word “Muslim” predict hate crime counts ranging from 6.1 to 266.6, looking at the range of the upper and lower bounds of the confidence interval. This trend follows on the searches including the term “Terrorism”. From the data, it cannot be concluded that frequency of searches including the words “Muslim” and “Terrorism” correlate with rises or decreases in anti-Islamic or anti-Arab hate crimes— a positive finding in light of the human rights issue of discriminatory action in the United States.

Twitter sentiment analysis led to several findings beyond the central question of sentiment predictability.

Excluding the words “vice” and “trump” due to their political meanings, comparisons of word associations to frequency, particularly for ethno-religious key words, highlight the greater frequency of negative sentiment words at the aggregate level (see Appendix A). Examining the top 20 most frequent positive and negative sentiment words, the volume of negative sentiment words is greater, particularly for the “Muslim” and “Anti-Democratic” key word and aggregate of the ethno-religious terms. Also notable was the degree of violent language referencing extremism, explicit language, authoritarianism, and death. Terrorism itself was the 18 th most frequent negative sentiment word across the ethno-religious key words aggregate dataset.

In examining predictability through the bootstrapped dataset, tweets including the term “Anti-Democratic” are associated with the most negative sentiment words at -0.76. This should be taken in the context of the November 2020 elections, when this data was collected. In second place are tweets including the key words “Muslim” and “Islam”, with average weighted sentiments of -0.71 (see Figure 4). The bounds of all the tested key words never differ by more than 0.02, which indicates a very high confidence in the estimated sentiment values of words associated with tweets containing the studied key words.

V. Broader Implications and Future Studies

Regarding the issue of discrimination against Muslim populations as an issue of human rights in the United States, the findings of this research present both positive and negative implications. Based on the analysis of anti-Islamic and anti-Arab hate crimes and news search interest of the topics “Muslim” and “Terrorism”, public news interest in Muslims does not predict discriminatory offenses. However, looking at the years in which hate crimes increase and news searches increase, there is a parallel. As terrorist events occur or elected officials speak negatively of Muslims and associated ethnic communities, discriminatory offenses rise as do internet news searches, a correlation.

The twitter sentiment analysis clearly displays that tweets referring to Muslims, Islam, and affiliated ethnic communities will predictably have a negative sentiment.

Although predicting more negative sentiments, the predictions of the term “Anti-Democratic” were significantly impacted by the election. Future studies should take into account the predictable current events when deciding keyword selection.

Remaining questions on the subject revolve around the causal versus correlated relationship between online rhetoric, across social media and news coverage, and anti-Islamic motivated violence. This study has found a strong correlation, and further research should center on testing a causal relationship to identify sources of anti-Islamic motivated violence, which may assist policy development efforts.

The treatment of all individuals as deserving of equal respect and freedom are central to the Declaration of Human Rights. [14] In neglecting the treatment of its Muslim citizens and allowing the perpetuation of Islamophobic rhetoric on online platforms, which correlates to in-person violent crimes rooted in hateful sentiment, the United States fails to secure the human rights of its own citizens. As a global hegemon, the U.S. is concerningly setting precedent for the mistreatment of Muslim minorities across developed and developing nations.

Appendix A.

[*] Harvard University, A.B. Candidate 2023.

[1] Jenna Johnson & Abigail Hauslohner, ‘I Think Islam Hates Us’: A Timeline of Trump’s Comments about Islam and Muslims , The Washington Post (Apr. 28, 2019) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/20/i-think-islam-hates-us-a-timeline-of-trumps-comments-about-islam-and-muslims/ .

[2] Oscar Rickett, Steve King: Five Islamophobic Moments from Outgoing Congressman, Middle East Eye (June 3, 2020) https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/steve-king-five-islamophibic-moments-outgoing-congressman .

[3] Besheer Mohamed, A New Estimate of the U.S. Muslim Population, Pew Research Center (Jan. 6, 2016) https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/06/a-new-estimate-of-the-u-s-muslim-population/ .

[4] UN OHCHR, A Special Focus on Discrimination https://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/discrimination/pages/discrimination.aspx .

[5] Matthew L. Williams et al., Hate in the Machine: Anti-Black and Anti-Muslim Social Media Posts as Predictors of Offline Racially and Religiously Aggravated Crime, 60 Brit. J. of Criminology 93 (2020).

[6] Imran Awan, Islamophobia and Twitter: A Typology of Online Hate Against Muslims on Social Media, 6 Pol’y & Internet 133 (2014).

[7] Esther Yoon-Ji Kang, Study Shows Islamophobia Is Growing in The U.S. Some Say It’s Rising in Chicago, Too, NPR (May 3, 2019) https://www.npr.org/local/309/2019/05/03/720057760/study-shows-islamophobia-is-growing-in-the-u-s-some-say-it-s-rising-in-chicago-too .

[8] Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reporting: Hate Crime (July 15, 2010) https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/ .

[9] Google Trends, 01/01/2008 – 10/01/2020.

[10] Connor Huff & Joshua D. Kertzer, How the Public Defines Terrorism, 62 Am. J. of Pol. Sci. 55 (2018).

[13] Keywords tested: “Anti-Democratic”, “Arab”, “Islam”, “Muslim”, “South Asian”, and “Terrorism”.

[14] G.A. Res. 217 (III) A, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art. 1, 7 (Dec. 10, 1948); see also OHCHR, supra note 4.

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Terrorists and Social Media Messages: A Critical Analysis of Boko Haram’s Messages and Messaging Techniques

Chris wolumati ogbondah.

2 Department Communication Studies, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA USA

Pita Ogaba Agbese

3 Department of Political Science, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA USA

Post-colonial Nigeria has been plagued with violent conflicts. A bloody civil war in which an estimated 1 million people were killed ravaged the country from 1967 to 1970. Interethnic and intra-communal conflicts have also shaken the foundations of the nation since 1960 when colonial rule ended. Other violent conflicts that have plagued the country are religious conflicts in Kano, Bauchi, Kaduna, Kafanchan, Zaria, Jos, Maiduguri, and many other places. Blood-letting in the name of religion in these and other places in Nigeria has left thousands dead and wounded. Destruction of property in the course of religious violence in Nigeria has also wreaked economic calamity on the country. For instance, wanton destruction of property during the Maitatsene religious uprising in Kano from 1980 to 1985 resulted in the loss of lives and of millions of dollars. Clashes between members of the militant Shi’ite religious sect and the Nigerian army in 2016 led to the demolition of an entire neighborhood in Zaria city Nigeria’s latest bout of violence emanates from a deadly terrorist group, Boko Haram. Since 2009, it has killed over 20,000 people, displaced more than one million people, and contributed to the devastation of Nigeria’s northeast region. Initially, Boko Haram could not be contained by Nigerian security forces. It captured and held on to 14 local government districts and it constantly churned out online propaganda about its invisibility and its certainty that it would impose a radical Islamic government over the entire country. This chapter provides a critical analysis of Boko Haram’s propaganda. It examines the group’s core messages and the stylistic techniques used in delivering them. The chapter notes that Boko Haram deliberately used crude, unvanished imagery to reinforce the brutality of its actions in suicide bombings, drive-by shootings, and direct attacks against military barracks, markets, mosques, and churches. We contend that the effectiveness of Boko Haram’s propaganda began to decline as it suffered military defeats by Nigerian forces.

Introduction

Post-colonial Nigeria has been plagued with various types of violent conflicts. A bloody civil war in which an estimated 1 million people were killed ravaged the country from 1967 to 1970. Accounts of the war, both real and in fictional forms, have been provided by several writers, including Amadi ( 1973 ), Achuzia ( 1986 ), Shillington ( 2005 ), St Jorre ( 1972 ), Madiebo ( 1980 ), Forsyth ( 1969 ), Kirk-Greene ( 1971 ), Iroh ( 1979 ), Ademoyega ( 1981 ), Adichie ( 2007 ), and Johnson ( 2017 ). Interethnic and intra-communal conflicts have also shaken the foundations of the nation since 1960 when colonial rule ended. 1 Other violent conflicts that have plagued the country are religious conflicts in Kano, Bauchi, Kaduna, Kafanchan, Zaria, Jos, Maiduguri, and many other places. Blood-letting in the name of religion in these and other places in Nigeria has left thousands dead and wounded. Destruction of property in the course of religious violence in Nigeria has also wreaked economic calamity on the country. For instance, wanton destruction of property during the Maitatsene religious uprising in Kano from 1980 to 1985 resulted in the loss of lives and of millions of dollars. 2 Clashes between members of the militant Shi’ite religious sect and the Nigerian army in 2016 led to the demolition of an entire neighborhood in Zaria city. 3 Violence perpetrated by militants aggitating for greater control over the oil resources of the Niger Delta has also taken a heavy toll on lives and property in the region.

Armed robbery and kidnapping for ransom are other deadly acts that have plagued Nigeria in the last two decades. For many years, some Nigerians from the eastern part of the country who live in other parts of the country could not visit their ancestral homes because they were afraid of being kidnapped. Kidnapping for ransom that began in the Niger Delta region has now spread to other parts of the nation, including Lagos and Abuja. Other forms of violence in Nigeria are those perpetrated by the Niger Delta Avengers and cult groups, including the Badoo Boys. 4 Nigeria’s most recent orgy of violence is the ongoing killing and destruction of lives and property perpetrated by the so-called cattle herdsmen who have wreaked havoc in places such as Kaduna, Plateau, Benue and Taraba states. The image of nomadic cattlemen is no longer that of nomads who carry long sticks used in corralling their cattle; it is the image of battle-ready men who are armed with AK-47 rifles.

By far the biggest security issue that Nigeria has faced since 1999 when the country transitioned from military autocracy to civil democracy is the Boko Haram Islamic insurgency. A militant Islamic terrorist group whose official name is Ahlis Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad), but which is generally known as Boko Haram, has since 2009 carried out bloody bombing campaigns and armed attacks in its bid to overthrow the Nigerian government and establish an Islamic state (caliphate) over the country. Boko Haram began its bloody campaign in the city of Maiduguri but soon extended its influence over much of the north-eastern part of Nigeria. It initially concentrated its attacks on Bornu, Yobe and Adamawa states, but it soon successfully carried out suicide bombing campaigns and drive-by shootings in other parts of Nigeria including Abuja, the federal capital, Kano, Bauchi, Benue, Plateau and several other parts of the country.

A renewed offensive by the Nigerian armed forces since the middle part of 2015 has dealt Boko Haram some significant military losses; and on December 22, 2016 Camp Zero—the sect’s headquarters in the Sambisa Forest—was captured by Nigerian soldiers. However, the sect is still able to successfully attack government targets and to launch suicide missions in several villages in the north-eastern part of Nigeria. In July 2017, it successfully ambushed members of a government team exploring for oil in north-east Nigeria during which the terrorists killed over seventy members of the team. Boko Haram’s success in the attack clearly underscores the persistent threat it poses, despite the claim by the government that the group is a spent force. Its success in the attack also shows that the jihadist group has continued to acquire enough resources to attack what it may consider as targets of high value in the country.

Boko Haram rejects the secularism of the Nigerian state and wishes to foist its own brand of Islamic ideology on the country. It views itself as being at war with the Nigerian state. Boko Haram also denies the legitimacy of the Nigerian government and constitution, and opposes secular Western-style education. The terrorist group opposes democracy and rejects Christianity in Nigeria, and it seeks to convert Christians and other non-Muslims to Islam. Other things that have incurred the ire of the group have included the consumption of alcohol and participation in civic activities such as voting and running for elective posts. The terrorist group, operating in the name of Islam, rejects any ideology and teachings of the faith that differs from its own. It sees itself as part of a global movement for the restoration of the glories of Islam.

Boko Haram shot its way into the global limelight in 2014 when it abducted 278 students from a girls’ boarding high school and threatened to sell them into slavery or forcefully marry them off to its members. That successful operation, and its bombing of the United Nations’ offices in Abuja in August 2011, as well as its pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State(IS) in March 2016, further beamed an international searchlight on its military capabilities and prowess. The Nigerian government, its armed forces and scholars have concentrated their analysis of Boko Haram based on its military exploits.

In contrast, this chapter examines the terrorist organization through the lens of its social media presentations and messaging. It provides a critical analysis of Boko Haram’s media strategy and shows that its social media messaging is part of its overall military and ideological strategies. The authors examine Boko Haram’s attempts to wage a battle for the hearts and minds of Nigerians through a deliberate use of social media to disseminate its messages. Focusing on statements and video appearances by its leader, Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram’s overt and subtle messages to Nigerians and the world at large are outlined. Using content-analytic methodology, the chapter examines the thrust of the messages to decipher their major themes, intents and target audiences. The authors contend that Boko Haram’s messages reveal what the group thinks of itself, the Nigerian government and the Nigerian security establishment. We contend that Boko Haram deliberately uses crude and unsophisticated messaging techniques to convey its brutality, military invisibility and total disdain for the Nigerian government and its armed forces. We contend that Boko Haram uses its social media messaging to assert the righteousness of its interpretation of Islam, arguing that Boko Haram uses Islamic religious imageries and rhetoric to justify its atrocities. We have analyzed Boko Haram’s media strategy within the theoretical framework of propaganda and conclude that unlike IS, Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations that use social media messaging as a recruitment tool, Boko Haram uses its messaging to instill fear and to convince its viewers of its inevitable victory over the Nigerian government. Our analysis reveals that not only does Boko Haram use its messaging to claim that the Nigerian government is anti-Islamic but also that it utilizes it to define good or proper Muslims.

Importance of the Study

As noted earlier, Boko Haram’s reign of violence has been the biggest national security threat that Nigeria has faced since 1999 when the country returned to civil rule. It has also been the biggest blood-letting since the end of the Civil War in 1970. From August 2014 until February 2015 when combined military operations by Nigeria and its neighbors—Cameroon, Chad, and Niger—reversed Boko Haram’s territorial gains, the Jihadist group controlled a good portion of Nigeria. During that period, it controlled fourteen local governments areas, several major towns and many villages—swathes of Nigerian territories that amounted to over 70,000 square miles, about the size of Belgium, and six times more land than IS in Iraq and Syria controlled at about the same time. All of the territories amounted to about 20 % of Nigeria, according to a New York Times report. 5 According to a November 15, 2015 report in the New York Times , Boko Haram was responsible for 6664 deaths in 2014, overtaking IS, which killed 6073 in the same year as the world’s most number one terrorist organization. Like IS in Iraq and Syria, it decapitates some of its enemies by slitting their throats. In fact, it openly pledged allegiance to IS in March 2015. Like IS, it intends to create an Islamic caliphate. Unlike IS, however, what Boko Haram opposes is more certain than what it intends to do with power.

Since its violent phase began in 2009, the insurgency has led to the death of over 100,000 Nigerians, according to Adaramola (February 14, 2017 ). According to the report, Kashim Shettima, the governor of Borno State, noted that 2.1 million people had been displaced, and property worth $9 billion destroyed by Boko Haram as at December 2016. In addition, Shettima said that 956,453 private houses, representing 30 % of the number of houses in Borno State, were destroyed across the twenty-seven local government areas of the state. In a single attack on the city of Baga in January 2015, for example, Boko Haram killed over 2000 people. 6 Churches, banks, schools, markets, car parks, farms, government offices, police stations and military barracks have been the principal targets of Boko Haram’s attacks. Suicide bombings, motorcycle ride-by shootings, detonation of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and invasions by a large contingent of its fighters are the main instruments of the terrorists’ destructive strategies. In addition to creating millions of internally displaced persons (IDPs), Boko Haram has forced over 300,000 Nigerians to seek refuge in neighboring countries. An editorial in The Guardian (Nigerian) newspaper of November 13, 2014 stated that “there were in Cameroun alone, 33,000 Nigerians that fled Gwoza, a town in Borno State….” Although Boko Haram began its terrorist activities in Nigeria, it has become a regional menace in West Africa as it has spread its attacks to Niger, Cameroon, and Chad.

Boko Haram’s terrorist activities, in addition to causing thousands of deaths in Nigeria, have virtually brought all economic activities in the north-eastern zone of the country to a halt. Apart from the humanitarian crisis created by the jihadist organization, the economic costs of the violence have been enormous. By September 2015, Boko Haram had destroyed infrastructure that would cost more than $1 billion to rebuild in Borno State alone (Ibukun and Olukayode, 2015 ). Shehu ( 2015 ) has argued that violent attacks by Boko Haram paralyzed businesses, banking, tourism, transportation and investments in the affected region. The group has seriously disrupted agricultural production, the mainstay of the economy in the area. Drastic reduction in agricultural production has created a specter of famine for millions of people in the violence-ravaged areas. In 2014, the Nigerian government budgeted 12 billion Naira to feed people in internally displaced persons’ camps. The government earmarked 47 billion Naira in the 2017 budget for that purpose. According to the Presidential Committee on North-East Initiatives (PCNI), this was grossly inadequate as the figure to feed the IDPs at the displaced camps should have been 108 billion Naira. Quoting a United Nations estimate, The Economist magazine in its September 1, 2016 issue reported that “240,000 children in Borno are suffering from severe acute malnutrition—the deadliest category of it. More than 130 persons will die each day without assistance. Across the wider north-east part of Nigeria, a population equivalent to New Zealand’s, is in need of food aid.” Searcey and Santora (November 18, 2015), noted how Boko Haram’s violence has caused food shortages in Cameroon. According to their report in the New York Times : “Farmers have fled, leaving behind fallow fields. Herdsmen have rerouted cattle drives to avoid the violence. Throughout the region, entire villages have emptied, leaving a string of ghost towns with few people for Boko Haram to dominate—and little for the group to plunder.” 7 Boko Haram’s attacks on Baga and other fishing communities in the Lake Chad area have drastically reduced the quantity of fish harvested in the area. Attacks by Boko Haram have also curtailed tourism in the north-western part of Cameroon as well as various parts of north-eastern Nigeria. In addition, the Nigerian government has expended billions of dollars in extra defense in response to Boko Haram.

Boko Haram’s bloody attacks have naturally led analysts to focus on its military strategies and capabilities, but the group recognizes the potency of propaganda, and hence it devotes time and resources to the dissemination of its messages through statements and video appearances. We contend that a comprehensive understanding of what Boko Haram stands for and the implications of its attacks can be understood by adding succinct analyses of its media strategy to what is already known about its military strategy. Boko Haram uses its media strategy to advance its military goals as it frequently utilizes video appearances by its leader, Abubakar Shekau, to threaten military attacks. We also seek to demonstrate, using Boko Haram for illustrative purposes, that social media make it relatively easy for extremist groups such as Al Shabaab, IS, Al Qaeda, and other jihadist groups to articulate and disseminate their messages to a worldwide audience, a global reach that would not have been possible without the commitment of enormous and resources. A group such as Boko Haram may be particularly successful in articulating its messages when it is not confronted with counter-narratives by governments and other entities, or when the counter-narratives appear less persuasive than the propaganda that the group is churning out.

An examination of Boko Haram’s attempts to win the battle for the hearts and minds of Nigerians through a deliberate use of video propaganda as well as a critical analysis of the statements by its leader, Shekau, will provide governmental and institutional policymakers in Nigeria a deeper understanding of the nature and operations of Boko Haram. In particular, this chapter will provide government policymakers in North Africa, Middle East, and Europe with a further understanding of major terrorist organizations in these parts of the world. An understanding of the nature and operations of one terrorist organization—whether Al Qaeda, IS, Boko Haram, or Al-Shabaab—can help shape the formulation of governmental policies on how to counter the efforts of such organizations to radicalize potential recruits. Therefore, this chapter is significant in the sense that its conclusions can be useful in the formulation of policies on global terrorism.

Terrorists have discovered that social media can be important tools for recruitment of fighters and supporters and for the dissemination of their world views. IS has been very deft in using Twitter and its English language magazine, Dabiq , for its propaganda. According to Koerner ( 2016 ), Tashfeen Malik who, with her husband Syed Farook, shot and killed fourteen people in San Bernardino, California, in December 2015, used Facebook to pledge allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi a few minutes after the killings began. Berger ( 2015 ) acknowledged the indispensability of social media to terrorism. As he noted, “jihadists have figured out how to use social media to make an impact, even though their numbers are minuscule in comparison to the overall user base … its highly organized social media campaign uses deceptive tactics and shows a sophisticated understanding of how such networks operate” (p. 1). Blaker ( 2015 ), examining IS’ use of social media, asserted that:

ISIS has made great use of the Internet and online social media sites to spread its message and encourage others, particularly young people, to support the organization, to travel to the Middle East to engage in combat—fighting side-by-side with other jihadists, or to join the group by playing a supporting role—which is often the role carved out for young women who are persuaded to join ISIS. (p. 1)

This chapter is also significant because by analyzing the speeches made by Boko Haram’s leader in the social media and in particular YouTube videos and major acts of terrorism carried out by the group, Nigerian and West African leaders and leaders elsewhere in the world might further understand how the minds of the leaders of terrorist organizations work. The more they are understood, the more the world will be able to know what motivates them to commit such heinous, atrocious and acrimonious crimes.

Understanding the mindset(s) of these groups and how they operate is critical for the governments of Nigeria and other West African countries, so that policymakers can predict major acts of terrorism in the region and nip them in the bud. If government policymakers had been able to predict the abduction of 278 secondary school girls in Chibok, and heinous massacres in Baga and elsewhere, they would have been able to stave off the colossal loss of innocent lives and billions of dollars in property in those acts of terrorism. This is why this chapter, which has highlights the motivations and operations of a terrorist group such as Boko Haram is unquestionably significant and potentially enormously valuable.

As a concomitant outcome, the chapter will enrich the literature on the nature of global terrorism, and the terrorism that is now on the rise in sub-Saharan Africa. As the number of studies like this increases, scholars and experts on global terrorism will be able to analyze the media coverage of terrorism more holistically. They will be able to compare, for example, acts of terrorism committed by Boko Haram and those committed by other terrorist organizations.

Boko Haram: A Brief Background

Boko Haram was formed in Maiduguri, Borno State, in 2002 by a young Muslim cleric, Mohammed Yusuf. After his expulsion from two mosques for preaching a radical brand of Islam, he set up his own mosque and was able to attract a large following among the city’s young men. The group became better known in 2009 when it clashed with the police, attacking police stations and other public institutions in Maiduguri. When the police could not contain the group, the federal government deployed the armed forces. The military fought pitched battles with Boko Haram fighters, and its mosque and headquarters were destroyed. Yusuf was apprehended by the military and handed over to the police; he was subsequently shot to death while being held in police custody. According to Mu’azu ( 2011 ), the police stated that he died during gunfire exchanges with their officers. Yusuf’s father-in-law and about eight hundred members of Boko Haram were killed during the fighting in 2009. Some of the group’s survivors fled to the neighboring countries of Chad and Niger. Boko Haram was able to recover from its losses, and, as subsequent events clearly demonstrated, it became even more deadly. It is now led by another young cleric, Abubakar Shekau. However, one Abu Musab al-Barnawi claims that he leads another faction of the group.

Boko Haram views its members as warriors in a holy war between Islam and the rest of Nigeria. In a statement rejecting calls for it to cease hostilities, the leader of the insurgency spelled out its mission:

We want to reiterate that we are warriors who are carrying out jihad in Nigeria and our struggle is based on the traditions of the holy prophet. We will never accept any system of government apart from the one stipulated by Islam because that is the only way that Muslims can be liberated. We do not believe in any system of government, be it traditional or orthodox except the Islamic system and that is why we will keep on fighting against democracy, capitalism, socialism and whatever. We will not allow the Nigerian Constitution to replace the laws that have been enshrined in the Holy Qur’an, we will not allow adulterated conventional education to replace Islamic teachings. We will not respect the Nigerian government because it is illegal. We will continue to fight its military and the police because they are not protecting Islam. We do not believe in the Nigerian judicial system and we will fight anyone who assists the government in perpetrating illegalities. 8

The sophistication of Boko Haram’s bombing operations and its simultaneous and co-ordinated attacks on multiple targets indicate its ability to tap into external resources in the form of weapons, training, logistics and financing. Evidence of the group’s military capability is the use of rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft guns in its May 2013 attacks on Bama and its September 12, 2014 downing of a Nigeria Air Force jet plane. 9 While its immediate grievances are directed against the federal government of Nigeria, Boko Haram operates under a global brand of Islamic fundamentalism. It is thus a grievous error to view the group solely through the prism of the internal dynamics of Nigerian politics. Its ability to attract fighters from Niger and Chad as well as its pledge of allegiance to IS in March 2015 and the acknowledgement that some of its fighters are trained in Somalia and Mali are clear pointers to its global dimensions. Even though some of its complaints are wrapped around Nigeria-specific issues, Boko Haram is motivated by a global Islamic radicalism. As was the case with Al-Shabab in Somalia and Al Dine in Mali, Boko Haram has struck with a deadly force in Nigeria because the country’s poor governance made it a target of opportunity. The group merely capitalized on the weakness of the Nigerian state, and exploited existing ethnoreligious tensions to launch its insurgency against the country. The external dimensions of Boko Haram are also signposted by the similarities between its tactics and those adopted by Islamic insurgents in Iraq, Afghanistan and North Africa. This is not a mere coincidence. Boko Haram’s suicide-bombing, co-ordinated simultaneous attacks on multiple targets, the use of IEDs and the utilization of motorcycle ride-by assassinations are precisely the methods that have recently been used by Islamic terrorists in other parts of the world.

The ruthlessness and brutality of Boko Haram, such as slitting the throats of schoolchildren, their teachers and other victims also mirror those in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its opposition to secular education recalls the ideology of the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is therefore fallacious to argue that Boko Haram is a political tool of Northern Nigerian elites who were unhappy with the President Goodluck Jonathan administration. The 2009 clashes between Boko Haram and security forces that marked the group as a serious threat to Nigerian security pre-dated the Jonathan administration. It was a Northerner, Umaru Yar’Adua, who was president of the country at that time. Moreover, given the opportunity, Boko Haram will go after the elites as ferociously as it has gone after ordinary Nigerians. Its January 2013 attempt to assassinate the former Emir of Kano, Ado Bayero, during which the Emir’s driver and some of his loyal bodyguards were killed, is a testament to its loathing and disdain of the elites. This was also attested to when the group warned the elites in Sokoto to avert the replication of the Kano attack by releasing its members who had been detained in that state. In a January 2012 letter, its leader, Shekau, said:

This is an open letter to the Emir of Sokoto (Sultan of Sokoto) Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar 111, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Alhaji Aminu Tambuwal and the Acting Governor of Sokoto State. Before we visited Kano, we wrote open letter [ sic ] to senior citizens on the imperative of releasing our members but nobody cares [ sic ] to talk. Indeed, we sent three warnings to Kano before strike” [ sic ]. What happened in Kano will be inevitable in Sokoto unless you (Sultan and others) intervene and ensure the immediate and unconditional release of our members who were specifically arrested in the city of Sokoto… 10

Former President Goodluck Jonathan belatedly recognized the dangers that Boko Haram poses not just to security in Nigeria but also to the territorial integrity of the country. He vowed in March 2012 that the insurgency would be defeated by June that year, but this did not happen. By August 2014, Boko Haram was operating with impunity, seizing many towns and villages. It intensified its attacks, and it increased the frequency of such attacks. Its ability to strike well beyond the geography of its home base was expanded with its attacks on Kano, Kaduna, Abuja and other cities several hundred miles from its home base. By the end of 2014, its ability to strike terror into the hearts of many Nigerians and its ability to seize swathes of territories at will made the north-eastern region and several other parts of northern Nigeria virtually ungovernable. As the group’s mayhem intensified in 2013, a Nigerian national daily newspaper, The Nation , in its editorial commentary on January 8, 2013 aptly noted that:

The scourge of Boko Haram has inflicted dislocations on our country on a number of levels. Some point to its psychological damage, others to the physical and geographical fissures and a few others to the decimation of families. We experience these instances almost daily, showing that the Nigerian government is grasping with futile energy to curb this modern day spasms of savagery.

Although, Boko Haram claims that it was motivated to take up arms against Nigeria because it was incensed by corruption, moral decadence and immorality, it has waged much of its war against ordinary and innocent Nigerians who themselves are victims of the corruption and misgovernance that characterizes the country. Moreover, its tactics of kidnapping schoolchildren, bombing churches, public buildings and schools, and cutting the throats of children and their teachers cannot build a better society than the one that Boko Haram is purportedly seeking to replace. Its latest strategy of abducting women and children and holding them hostage as well as forcefully taking women, even under-age girls as wives for its members is as repulsive as its other dastardly acts. There is also much arrogance in Boko Haram’s utterances and ultimate objectives. For instance, it aims to cleanse the north-eastern region of Nigeria, if not the entire country, of Christians and Christianity. It wants southern Nigerians living in the north to leave the region. Even if Boko Haram was truly fighting for Islam, it should embrace the southerners who are themselves Muslims.

Literature Review

Propaganda, which we define in this chapter as communication used by individuals, groups, institutions or organizations to inform, persuade or scare others to adopt their beliefs, ideas and creed or to mobilize attitudes in order to win minds or to convert them to a cause, is as old as human history. As Gambrill and Reiman ( 2011 ) have noted, propaganda aims to promote ideas and actions that would serve the interests and benefits of those promoting the ideas and actions. The word, propaganda, was derived from Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith), a Vatican organization, created in Rome on June 22, 1622 by Pope Gregory XV (Bernays, 1928 ; Jackall, 1995 ; Pratkanis & Aronson, 2001 ). The organization’s duty was to spread the faith and to regulate church affairs in heathen lands. Therefore, the Roman Catholic Church used the term first (Black, 2001 ). Combs and Nimmo ( 1993 ) pointed out that this early form of propaganda was considered as “a moral endeavor by the church” (p. 201), but interest in the subject today has expanded owing to its importance in international politics (Chapman, 2000 ). According to Lasswell ( 1927a , 1927b ), propaganda refers solely to the control of opinion by using pictures and other forms of social communication; it is concerned with the “management of opinions and attitudes.” Qualter ( 1962 ) argues that propaganda is the deliberate attempt by an individual or group of persons to form, control or alter attitudes of other individuals or groups. He suggests that propaganda is any form of persuasion aimed to change attitudes.

Jowett and O’Donnell ( 2006 ) point out that “Propaganda is a form of communication that attempts to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist” (p. 7). They argue that the use of the terms propaganda and persuasion interchangeably is inappropriate—hence they propose that, in as much as propaganda makes use of persuasive strategies, it differs from persuasion in its purpose. Thus, they categorize propaganda as a specific class of communication that is a “subcategory of persuasion, as well as information” (pp. 6–7). British historian and scholar, Taylor ( 1979 ), identifies three main reasons why propaganda gained prominence in international relations. These are:

• (i) A general increase in the level of popular interest and involvement in political and foreign affairs as a direct consequence of World War I
• (ii) Technological developments in the field of mass communication which provided the basis for a rapid growth in propaganda as well as contributing towards the increased level of popular involvement in politics, and
• (iii) The ideological context of the inter-war period, sometimes known as the ‘European Civil War’ in which an increased employment of international propaganda could profitably flourish. (pp. 19–20)

Taylor strongly suggests that an increase in the use of propaganda to influence opinions is due to advances in mass communication technologies. This is to say that media play a vital role in propaganda. Analyzing the use of propaganda to manipulate opinions or attitudes, Ellul ( 1965 , 1981 ) argues that propaganda is the inevitable result of the various components of the technological society, and plays so central a role in the life of that society that no economic or political development can take place without its influence. This suggests that a society, organization or group that seeks development or change of any sort uses propaganda to achieve its goals.

Baines and O’Shaughnessy ( 2014 ) argue that political leaders manipulate myth, symbolism and rhetoric in influencing opinions and ideologies. Ogden and Wilson ( 2015 ) describe what they termed “propaganda techniques” as:

• Name Calling : This involves giving an idea a label, either good or bad, to encourage the public to accept and praise or reject and condemn the idea without examining evidence.
• Glittering Generality : This technique associates something with a “virtue word” designed to encourage the public to accept and approve the idea without examining the evidence.
• Plain Folks : Transferring the aura of authority and prestige of a celebrity or opinion leader to a product, person or idea in order to persuade the public to accept or reject it.
• Testimonial : A technique used to endorse a product by a celebrity or opinion leader who uses the product.
• Plain Folks : This is a technique used to convince the public that a speaker’s (often politician’s) ideas are good because s(he) is “of the people” or “one of us.”
• Card Stacking : Selective use of facts to tell only one side of the story, often obscuring the other side(s).
• Bandwagon : This is an appeal to line up with the opinion of the majority on an issue—a method that tries to persuade by encouraging people to join their friends and neighbors because “everybody’s doing it.”
• Emotional Stereotypes : Evoking an emotional image such as the “ugly American.”
• Illicit Silence : Withholding information that would verify a situation or correct a false impression or assumption.
• Subversive Rhetoric : As a strategy used in political campaigns, this appeal involves attacking the spokesperson rather than an idea.

Propagandists employ all these techniques to achieve their goals. Propaganda goals generally aim to shape public opinion in the particular direction that is desired by the propagandist. Adolf Hitler was one of the best-known persons to use propaganda, with his shaping of public opinion in Germany during the Second World War having been documented by many scholars, including Welch ( 1983 , 1993 ), George ( 1973 ), Steinert ( 1977 ) and Kershaw ( 1983 ).

Published material on Boko Haram has examined various aspects about the group and its reign of terror. They include the following: (1) the origins and objectives of the insurgency; (2) Boko Haram’s tactics and strategies; (3) Nigerian military campaigns against Boko Haram; (4) threats that Boko Haram poses to Nigeria’s unity and stability; and (5) the place of Boko Haram within the context of ethnic and religious violence in Nigeria. Other published materials on the group further examined the following: (6) The character of Boko Haram as a terrorist group; (7) the Nigerian government’s response to the insurgency; (8) links between Boko Haram and other Islamic terrorist groups; (9) Boko Haram as a reflection of the weaknesses and failure of the state in Nigeria; and (10) the impact of the insurgency on civil–military relations, including human rights violations committed by Nigerian security forces as they countered Boko Haram attacks. Some studies have attempted to situate Boko Haram within the overall ambit of other security issues, such as kidnapping for ransom, armed robbery and militancy in the oil-producing Niger Delta region.

One of the best-known books about Boko Haram is Boko Haram: Islamism, Politics, Security and the State in Nigeria , an edited volume by Marc-Antoine Perouse de Montclos. 11 Kyari Mohammed’s chapter in the book examines Boko Haram’s message and the methods used by the group for disseminating it. 12 Another notable chapter, written by Manuel Reinert and Lou Garcon, chronicles the Islamic sect. 13 It highlights Boko Haram’s evolution from a relatively peaceful and little-known group to its manifestation as a violent and dreaded organization. In this same volume, Rafael Serrano and Zacharias Pieri analyze how the Nigerian government has responded to the insurgency. 14 The chapter highlights the inadequacy of the government’s responses and notes how the successes recorded by Boko Haram in its military attacks against Nigerian security forces are largely a reflection of the weaknesses and failures of governmental responses.

A myth about Boko Haram that seems to endure is that Nigeria’s Muslim population has not vigorously condemned the group, and that they tacitly support its insurgency. Johannes Harnischfeger in an analysis of this claim clearly shows that Boko Haram has many Muslim critics. 15 His chapter in Montclos’ ( 2014 ) volume draws on criticisms of Boko Haram from Islamic clerics in Yobe State. In the same volume, Henry Gyang Mang examines how Christians in Nigeria view the insurgency, providing a detailed examination of Nigerian Christians’ attitudes towards and perceptions of Boko Haram. 16 Mang maintains that Nigerian Christians consider Boko Haram as Islamic radical fanatics who are intent on imposing Islam on the entire country.

Another collection of analyses appears in Boko Haram Ioannes Mantzikos’ edited volume Boko Haram: Anatomy of a Crisis . 17 In his chapter Jideofor Adibe examines what is actually known of Boko Haram. 18 He deftly separates facts from fiction and mythologies. The volume also contains a chapter by Osumah Oarhe that analyzes the challenges that the Boko Haram insurgency has posed to the Nigerian military and security establishments. 19 It details the growing inability of the Nigerian military services, including its intelligence services, to suppress the insurgency. While Oarhe’s chapter specifically looks at the responses of the Nigerian defense and intelligence establishment to Boko Haram, Hakeem Onapajo’s chapter in the same volume provides a general overview on the failure of Nigeria to defeat the insurgents. 20 Focusing specifically on the handling of the insurgency by Nigerian security forces, A. Abolurin highlights the challenges that Boko Haram poses for the Nigerian armed forces. 21

Boko Haram’s choice of targets for its attacks has been a major source of debate in the media. Focusing specifically on the targeting of telecommunications infrastructure by Boko Haram, Freedom Onuoha outlines the motivations behind Boko Haram’s choice of targets. 22 Onuoha argues that by targeting telecommunications infrastructure, Boko Haram seeks to isolate the geographical areas of its attacks from the rest of the country. He also contends that the choice of telecommunications infrastructure as a target is to frustrate the ability of Nigerian security forces to monitor the movement of its members.

The response of the rest of the world, particularly the United States, to Boko Haram, has equally been a subject of scholarly analyses. Caitlin C. Poling, for instance, has examined how the US Congress has reacted to Boko Haram. 23 Poling argues that US responses to terrorism in the aftermath of 9/11 are framed within the context of those attacks. She posits that the American Congress, alarmed by Boko Haram, views the group as a dangerous Islamic terrorist organization in the tradition and mold of Al Qaeda.

Other publications have analyzed Boko Haram within the context of Islamic terrorism in other parts of the world. Freedom Onuoha, for instance, has examined Boko Haram in light of the ideology of an Islamic sect, the Salafists. Onuoha contends that the Salafists’ Jihadist ideology provides an important window for understanding the threat that Boko Haram poses to Nigerian security. 24 Sean M. Gourley has shown that the ideology, rhetoric and strategies of Boko Haram are similar to those of Al Qaeda. 25 He cautions that this should raise serious concerns by those pursuing the war on terrorism. Shannon Connell has also explored the linkage between Boko Haram and other Islamic terrorist groups. 26 Similarly, Ely Karmon has explored the international dimensions of Boko Haram. 27 Karmon notes that Boko Haram’s attack on the United Nations offices in Abuja, Nigeria, in 2011 marked its transformation from a purely Nigerian and localized terrorist outfit to an international one. Pinpointing connections between Boko Haram and other Islamic terrorist groups is also the subject of Machael Tanebam’s long piece in the Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs . 28 Tanebam sees a direct link between Boko Haram and Al Qaeda, and argues that Islamic terrorism in both Mali and Nigeria represents the expansion of Al Qaeda to Africa.

The role of primordial identities such as religion, ethnicity and regionalism in framing the discourse on Boko Haram is the subject of Hussein Solomon’s chapter “Boko Haram, identity and the limits of counter-terrorism.” 29 Solomon examines how ethnic, religious and regional identities have shaped the Nigerian war against Boko Haram. He notes that those identities have made the struggle more challenging. For Abimbola Adesoji, Islamic revivalism in Nigeria provides the best prism for analyzing and understanding Boko Haram. 30 To some Nigerian scholars, the biggest challenge posed by Boko Haram is its potential to disrupt the country’s delicate ethnic and religious balance. Some even fear that the insurgency could lead to the break-up of Nigeria. Daniel Egiegba Agbiboa has analyzed Boko Haram from the perspective of religious identities in Nigeria. 31 He also uses the relative deprivation theory to examine Boko Haram’s origins. 32

Jideofor Adibe, in his book Nigeria without Nigerians? Boko Haram and the Crisis in Nigeria’s Nation-Building , 33 warns that an inability to suppress the insurgency could lead to the demise of Nigeria as a single political entity. He views Boko Haram as a frontal challenge to the desire of many Nigerians for a strong, viable and united country. Boko Haram’s threat to national unity is also the subject of another volume by two Nigerians, Adeyemi Ademowo and Matthew Olusola. 34 Ademowo and Olusola analyze Boko Haram against the backdrop of Nigeria’s fragile national unity. Similarly, Oluwaseun Bamidele has examined Boko Haram against the backdrop of the threats that it poses to Nigeria’s peace and stability. He cautions that failure to rein in the insurgency could threaten peace, security and economic development in Nigeria.

Boko Haram’s Social Media Messaging

Boko Haram has made several propaganda videos that it has distributed through YouTube, Twitter, news wire services, etc. The group uses its propaganda videos to scare Nigerians as well as to, radicalize and persuade potential recruits, many of them young boys and under-age girls, to adopt its creed and ideas, and to enlist as suicide bombers and fighters and believe in the group’s mission to carve out an Islamic caliphate in Nigeria.

Themes of Boko Haram’s Videos

In our analysis of the messages embedded in Boko Haram’s propaganda videos we found that they contained the following themes:

• Boko Haram is strong and powerful;
• Boko Haram is rich and wealthy;
• Boko Haram is a professional military outfit (and not a rag-tag army of insurgents);
• Boko Haram is honest, sincere and truthful;
• Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, is invincible and unpredictable;
• Boko Haram is contemptuous of Nigerian and Western European leaders, especially Presidents Barack Obama, François Hollande, Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Prime Minister David Cameron;
• Nigerian government is weak and feeble;
• Nigerian government is untruthful and untrustworthy;
• Nigerian soldiers are cowardly and bumbling incompetents.

Unlike IS, which uses deftly produced videos and magazines as part of its social media messaging to inspire disaffected Muslim youths in Europe and North America to join its cause, Boko Haram’s videos are crude and poorly produced. However, the crudity of the production is itself part of its messaging technique: the rawness is intended to instill fear and dread of the terrorist organization in the Nigerian viewers. Boko Haram’s social media messaging is not directed specifically at potential recruits. In fact, members of the Nigerian armed forces are the target audience, the aim being to convince them of the futility of fighting against a superior force. Boko Haram’s leader also frequently speaks in these videos directly to Nigerian, Cameroonian, and Nigerien leaders, warning them or calling them liars.

Boko Haram does not use its social media messaging to galvanize populist support for its ideology but rather to discredit the Nigerian state by demonstrating that it could not offer security to its citizens. The Jihadist group presents itself as a fearful and marauding force that cannot be stopped by the incompetent, corrupt and visionless Nigerian state. Its leader, Shekau, in his propaganda videos intends to contrast the weak, inept and vacillating persona of then President Goodluck Jonathan with his bold and vigorous persona. Boko Haram recognizes the barbarity of its actions but uses social media to justify such actions in the name of Islam. It tries to convey the notion of the righteousness of its interpretations of Islam, and hence the legitimacy in the eyes of Islam of any of its atrocities.

Boko Haram is Strong and Nigeria is Weak

In one of his propaganda videos, Shekau displays Boko Haram’s formidable stock of sophisticated weapons as a way to persuade his followers to believe that the sect is militarily well equipped—in fact, so richly equipped that it is stronger than the Nigerian government. In the video, he states that Boko Haram began its insurgency with sticks and knives but has grown strong with its acquisition of armored personnel carriers, multi-purpose vans, AK47 and Pump Action riffles, heavy machine guns (HMGs), mortars, artillery shells, anti-aircraft guns, heat-seeking missiles, bombs, rocket-propelled grenades, hundreds of motorbikes, pick-up trucks and so on. As an evidence of Boko Haram’s military strength, Shekau displays the groups’s sophisticated assault weapons in some of his propaganda videos. The aim is to illustrate the sect’s strength as well as persuade his followers to believe that Boko Haram is rich and wealthy—hence it can afford to purchase all these weapons. Ironically, Boko Haram leaders claim that the group does not condone Western civilization, but they make use of Western technological gadgets such as cellular phones and video recorders to disseminate their propaganda (Maiangwa, 2013 ). An added dramatic effect when they display these sophisticated weapons is the fact that some of them were seized from fleeing Nigerian soldiers.

At the height of its power in January 2015, Boko Haram had taken over swathes of Nigerian territories amounting to over 70,000 square miles—about the size of Belgium, and six times more land than IS at the time; about 20 % of Nigerian territory (Schmitt, December 31, 2014 ). Nigerian territories under Boko Haram’s control by January 2015 included Michika, Konduga, Munguno, Gambaru, Mafa, Mallam Fatori, Abadam, and Marte. The group made videos of its control of those territories, an indication to its members that Boko Haram was militarily stronger than the Nigerian state.

In one of his propaganda videos, Shekau prominently shows Boko Haram’s black and white Islamic caliphate flag flying over the above-mentioned Nigerian territories. The video, with an Islamic Caliphate song in the background, shows Boko Haram fighters confidently roaming around the seized territories without any challenges from Nigerian soldiers. The aim is to persuade and convince his audiences that Boko Haram has grown so strong and powerful that it was able to capture these territories from the “weak” Nigerian government. Shekau also used the video to inform his followers that Boko Haram’s successes in capturing those swathes of territories was an unquestionable demonstration of the superiority of the sect’s military might and strength. The video’s purpose was to portray the weakness of the Nigerian government as well as the cowardice of its fleeing soldiers.

In one thirty-six-minute YouTube video that the authors accessed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgdKblgzggQ , Shekau boasts that the avalanche of weapons that Boko Haram captured from fleeing Nigerian soldiers including those seized during its attack on Baga in Borno State would be enough for the Jihadists to successfully prosecute the entire war. An account of Boko Haram’s military invasion of Baga town was provided in a BBC news report on January 8, 2015. The report can be accessed at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30728158 . Shekau appears in the video, standing in front of three patrol jeeps mounted with an anti-aircraft gun, dressed in his usual expensive-looking military khaki with an AK47 hanging from his shoulder across his chest. In the video, he warns that Boko Haram will bring Nigeria to its knees following which he will unleash a punitive attack on the neighboring countries of Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. The Boko Haram leader ends his speech in that video by burning the Nigerian flag, part of his propaganda to show the group’s contempt for the Nigerian nation.

The video showing Shekau and Boko Haram officers wearing expensive-looking military khaki and three-color desert camouflage pattern of dark brown, mint green and beige desert fatigue uniforms was used to send a direct message to the group’s members. It was used to subliminally persuade his audience to believe that Boko Haram is a rich and wealthy professional military organization and not a rag-tag army of poor criminals in search of relevance. Yet in another video, posted on YouTube on April 29, 2013 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El-O37TNIm4 ), Shekau shows off Boko Haram’s assorted military weapons, including those that it claimed to have seized during its raids on Nigerian military barracks, one of them, the Munguno Barracks. This is another propaganda video that Shekau used to persuade his followers to believe that the organization and its fighters were stronger than the Nigerian nation and its soldiers.

Shekau appeared in several other propaganda videos that were made after a series of the group’s successful attacks in various parts of north-eastern Nigeria. The subliminal message in those videos was that Boko Haram had the capability to successfully attack government facilities time and again. One of these attacks was carried out at the United Nations Headquarters in Abuja on August 26, 2011. According to a BBC news report of the incident, eighteen people were killed in that attack ( http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14677957 ). Another attack was on the 79 Composite Group Air Force Base at the Maiduguri International Airport on December 2, 2013. In the video of this, Shekau shows how Boko Haram fighters set five Nigerian Air Force aircraft ablaze as well as the sect’s destruction of the airport. A BBC report of the attack said that “the large-scale, coordinated attack was a big setback for the Nigerian military” ( http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-25187142 ). The airport remained closed to civilian aviation from December 2, 2013 until June 9, 2015. The objective of the video was to convince Boko Haram fighters and its followers that the sect is stronger than the Nigerian state, and that the Islamic sect was so strong that it would prevail over Nigeria in the long run.

Earlier, on November 25, 2012, Boko Haram suicide bombers penetrated the Armed Forces Command and Staff College (AFCSC) at Jaji, a security hub of the Nigerian military. It successfully attacked St Andrew’s Military Protestant Church inside the college. On November 26, 2012, members of the sect attacked the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) police headquarters in Abuja, where they killed several Nigerian police officers before freeing scores of suspected criminals, including their own members who were detained in the facility. A BBC report of the incident titled “Nigeria gunmen attack Abuja Sars police HQ” may be found at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20493739 . Then, on December 28, 2012, Boko Haram fighters attacked and burned down the divisional police station, the prison, customs area office and the presidential lodge in Maiha, Adamawa State. They killed dozens of people in the attack, and freed scores of prison inmates. The Vanguard newspaper, one of the Nigerian dailies, reported the attack in its edition of December 28, 2012.

On January 15, 2014, Boko Haram fighters attacked and sacked the police station in Banki, Borno state. In January 2014 alone, the jihadist group sacked thirty-seven communities in Kwaljiri, Kaya, Ngawo Fate, Limanti, Njaba, Yahuri, Mude, Wala, and Alau, among others in Damboa, Konduga and Gwoza council areas in the north-eastern part of Nigeria. In those attacks, members of the group killed thousands of people and many more were forced to take refuge in neighboring villages in the Republic of Cameroon and other Nigerian towns. An editorial in the November 13, 2014 issue of the Guardian , one of Nigeria’s leading newspapers, pointed out that “there were in Cameroun alone, 33,000 Nigerians that fled Gwoza, a town in Borno State….” In January 2015, the jihadist group attacked Baga and killed hundreds of its residents. Amnesty International has published aerial photographs of Baga town before and after the attack to illustrate the mayhem Boko Haram unleashed on the town. The “before” images taken on January 2, 2015 were part of its report on the atrocities, while the aftermath was documented in pictures taken on January 7. The aerial photos may be found at http://www.dw.de/amnesty-publishes-before-and-after-satellite-images-of-boko-haram-nigeria-attacks/a-18192546 .

Boko Haram made a propaganda video of these violent attacks. Its leader intended to use this on one hand to scare Nigerians and on the other to convince its own members that the Islamist group is strong, that Nigerian soldiers were cowards and that the establishment of a caliphate rule in Nigeria was a matter of when rather than whether. In the video, Shekau said: “We killed the people of Baga. We indeed killed them, as our Lord instructed us in His Book … We will not stop. This is not much. You’ll see” (Anon, 2015 ). Another video it utilized to scare Nigerians was made in November 2014, following its successful attack and destruction of Vintim, hometown of the then Chief of Defence Staff, of the Nigerian military, Air Vice Marshal Alex Badeh. The insurgent group burned down Badeh’s country home as an illustration of its contempt for the Chief of Defence Staff and the Nigerian military that he represented. The video also showed the group’s successful attack on Mubi, the commercial nerve center of Adamawa state and in particular its destruction of the 234 Army Battalion of the Nigerian army that had been based in the city. As Lasswell ( 1927a , 1927b ) noted, propaganda refers to the control of opinion by using picture and other forms of social control. This was indeed what Shekau intended to achieve with these videos.

Nigerian Government Lies and Boko Haram is Truthful

Boko Haram produced another propaganda video after its brazen abduction of 278 female students from the Government Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State on November 14, 2014. The group intended to use this video to serve two purposes. First, it aimed to persuade his audiences to believe that the jihadist sect was stronger than the Nigerian government. Secondly, the video aimed to show that the Nigerian government was untruthful and could not be trusted. When Boko Haram abducted the girls, the Nigerian government at first denied that the group had successfully done so. The wife of the president at the time, Patience Jonathan, as well as some government supporters, denied Boko Haram’s claim that it had abducted the girls. Mrs Jonathan said that members of the opposition political party had fabricated the abduction story as a smear campaign against her husband, who was getting ready to run in the 2015 presidential election. Kema Chikwe, a prominent leader of the then ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), added her voice to President Jonathan’s wife’s denial. As Chikwe contended that Boko Haram did not abduct any girls in the school, on April 30, 2014 she challenged the authorities of the school to release the names and pictures of the girls as a proof of the abduction. Chikwe’s comments were published in the May 1, 2014 issue of National Leadership , one of Nigeria’s dailies. According to the paper, Chikwe said: “There are many questions to be asked and many more to be answered. How did it happen? Who saw it happen? Who did not see it happen?”

Another supporter of the then president, also the founder of the militant Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force, Asari Dokubo, described Boko Haram’s claim of the abduction of the Chibok girls as fake news. According to a report of the Daily Post of May 8, 2014, in a terse message posted on his Facebook page after the abduction of the girls, Dokubo urged his friends to help disseminate the message that no girls at the school were abducted (Ameh, May 8, 2014 ).

Following all these denials by the federal government and its supporters, Shekau then posted propaganda videos of the girls on YouTube as proof to his audiences that his group had successfully abducted them, and that the Nigerian government was not telling the truth about the abduction. To prove the veracity of his group’s successful abduction of the Chibok girls, he released a video showing the girls squatting on the ground, wearing black veils over their heads and reciting the Quran. In the video, Shekau spoke in Hausa, Arabic and English. For the first fourteen minutes of the fifty-seven-minute video, he took a swipe at the concept of democracy, Western education and efforts by Muslims and Christians to live in peace. To persuade his audiences that Boko Haram was strong and that Nigerian government lied about the abduction, he said: “I abducted a girl at a Western education school and you are disturbed. I said Western education should end. Western education should end. Girls, you should go and get married.” Shekau further said: “I will repeat this: Western education should fold up. I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market by Allah. I will marry off a woman at the age of twelve. I will marry off a girl at the age of nine.” The video can be viewed at http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/may/06/boko-haram-sell-girls-market-video . Another video in which Shekau boasted that he had the girls can be seen at http://search.tb.ask.com/search/video.jhtml?searchfor=video+of+Boko+Haram+leader+warning+Obama+and+western+leaders&cb=UX&p2=%5EUX%5Exdm297%5EYYA%5Eus&n=780bb3a2&qid=c8d89541b7ba4d8fbce02e89388c6bfd&ptb=EA9E0994-1131-4ABE-93A6-C018E0796C80&ct=SS&si=245051&pg=GGmain&pn=1&ss=sub&st=tab&tpr=tabsbsug&vidOrd=3&vidId=umkj50SUzck .

Boko Haram further utilized a video of its downing of a Nigerian air force jet on September 11, 2014 to instill fear into Nigerian air force pilots and persuade its members and the public to believe that the Nigerian government was untruthful, whereas Boko Haram was sincere and truthful in its claims. The Nigerian government at first claimed that it never lost any air force jet planes. The former Director of Defence Information of the army at the time, Major-General Chris Olukolade, said: “We are definitely searching for the jet, it is too early to either talk of a crash or attack by the insurgents.” (Alli, March 10, 2014 ). Following the government’s denial, Shekau released a video that showed the wreckage of the jet plane and the captured pilot. In the video, he shows the pilot’s own confession in the English language. The video also shows burned parts of a Nigerian air force plane in the bush, with the pilot in a camouflage vest kneeling on the ground, as well as a member of the Islamist sect hovering over him with an axe. Boko Haram later claimed that it would behead the pilot. In the video, the pilot identifies himself as a Wing Commander in the Nigerian Air Force, and says he was undertaking a mission in the Kauri area of Borno State on September 11, when his plane was shot down by Boko Haram fighters. He says: “We were shot down and our aircraft crashed. To this day I don’t know the whereabouts of my second pilot.” Shekau used the video of the downed plane to persuade his followers and audiences to believe that the Nigerian government was being untruthful.

The government of Nigeria betrayed its soldiers by not rescuing the pilot, whose name was Chimda Hedima. Notably enough, the Nigerian government has remained silent about his whereabouts. It did not take any known action to seek how the pilot could be rescued or brought back alive. This was utterly in contrast to the Jordanian government’s reaction when IS downed and captured a Jordanian pilot, Lieutenant Moaz al-Kasasbeh, in December 2014 during a mission to support the US-led anti-IS military coalition. The Jordanian government sought the release of its pilot, perhaps in return for the release of IS prisoners. When IS burned the Jordanian pilot alive, the government decided to fly military missions into Syria to punish Jihadists.

In September 2014, the Nigerian government claimed that it had killed Shekau during its offensive against Boko Karam in Konduga. The Nigerian press published photographs of the severed head of a person whom the government claimed was Shekau. For example, the Vanguard reported in its September 22, 2015—to the jubilation of Nigerians—that:

Nigeria and Cameroon were, yesterday, locked in an argument over who killed Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau and where he was killed. In a rare public show by the Cameroonian army (Armée Camerounaise), photos of Shekau were made public alongside a statement claiming he was killed during a cross-border raid deep inside Nigeria by its military. A Cameroon military source, according to Cameroon Concord , said on Sunday night that Shekau was killed following an aerial bombardment of his hideout inside Nigeria. (Daniel et al. September 22, 2014 )

The Vanguard further reported: “The Nigerian Army said its soldiers might have killed Shekau in Konduga, a town some kilometres away from Maiduguri, the Borno State capital” (ibid). Many Nigerians took to the streets in jubilation of the news.

The euphoria that greeted the government’s claim had hardly died down when Shekau appeared in a two-minute video which was released to the French news agency (AFP), debunking the government’s claim as false. In the video Shekau assures his audiences that he is alive and that only the Allah (God Almighty) could take his life, not the Nigerian government. In the video, he says: “I am alive. I will only die the day Allah takes my breath.” The video can be seen at ( http://search.tb.ask.com/search/video.jhtml?searchfor=Boko+Haram+in+camouflage+outfits&p2=%5EUX%5Exdm297%5EYYA%5Eus&n=780bb3a2&ss=sub&st=tab&ptb=EA9E0994-1131-4ABE-93A6-C018E0796C80&si=245051&tpr=sbt ). Shekau also used this propaganda video to subliminally persuade his followers and audiences that he is invincible and unpredictable. In the video, he lashes out at the then Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan and other world leaders, including Barack Obama, François Hollande, Benjamin Nethanyahu, Angela Merkel and David Cameron. These authors accessed the video at http://search.tb.ask.com/search/video.jhtml?searchfor=Boko+Haram+in+camouflage+outfits&p2=%5EUX%5Exdm297%5EYYA%5Eus&n=780bb3a2&ss=sub&st=tab&ptb=EA9E0994-1131-4ABE-93A6-C018E0796C80&si=245051&tpr=sbt . In a different video, Shekau warns Western leaders that the Jihadist group will “enslave” all supporters of Hollande and Obama: “Whoever supports Hollande and Obama, as they supported Bush and Clinton before, and supported the state of Jewish Israel, he is an enemy and a target to us and we will enslave him and sell him in the markets.” He says that Boko Haram will unleash deadly attacks on those who believe in the democratic system of government. The video can be accessed at http://universalfreepress.com/boko-haram-leader-threatens-enslave-supporters-obama/ .

Baines and O’Shaughnessy ( 2014 ), Qualter ( 1962 ), Ellul ( 1965 , 1981 ), Taylor ( 1979 ), Jowett and O’Donnell ( 2006 ) and others have pointed out that propaganda is a form of communication that attempts to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist. This is what Shekau intended to achieve with his propaganda videos. He distributed them to the powerful European news wire services as well as via different social media platforms, so they would receive maximum global attention.

Boko Haram utilized social media to disseminate its messages. Unlike other terrorist organizations, Boko Haram did not use social media as a primary tool to recruit followers but primarily to convey a message about its ruthlessness vicuousness and its total disdain for the Nigerian government. It utilized its messaging to showcase its military prowess and the invincibility and nine lives of its leader, Shekau. Boko Haram employed social media to excoriate the Nigerian government for its ineptness, corruption, deceitfulness and incompetency. So long as Boko Haram achieved military successes against the Nigerian armed forces, its ability to use the social media to its advantage was immense. Each spectacular military victory enhanced Boko Haram’s social media messaging of brutality and military efficiency.

However, as the tide of the war turned against it, and Shekau was on the run, it became less effective in using social media to advance its cause. Moreover, while its astute use of brutality achieved its aim of scaring soldiers and civilians, it undercut its larger message that it was fighting on behalf of Islam, since the vast majority of the victims of its brutality were Muslims.

Shekau is able to turn his lack of fluency in English to his advantage by seemingly speaking a smattering of English in a disdainful manner in order to signal Boko Haram’s rejection of Western-style education. He frequently speaks in Hausa and Arabic and tries to convey an air of expertise, but he is not able to pull this off as his rambling speaking style betrays his shallow understanding of Islam. Ironically, the urge to convince his viewers and listeners of his brutality undercuts the air of intellectualism that he seeks to portray.

Boko Haram initially succeeded in utilizing social media to its advantage because of a poor response by the Nigerian government. Claiming to have killed Shekau so many times provided fodder for Boko Haram’s claim that the Nigerian government lied to its citizens. Moreover, the inability of the armed forces to crush Boko Haram under deadlines imposed by the government itself ended up reinforcing Boko Haram’s claim that it could not be defeated. Boko Haram’s ability to infiltrate the army, and the enormous corruption involving the purchase of arms to fight the terrorist group, all aided Boko Haram’s success in depicting the Nigerian government as an inept and clueless entity.

Boko Haram’s social media messaging lived by the sword and is apparently dying by the sword. The jihadist’s fundamental message of its sheer brutality and invisibility was credible so long as Nigerian soldiers were fleeing in disarray from the terrorist group. However, as new military commanders, including Lieutenant-General Yusuf Buratai, the Chief of Army Staff, took over and began to take the fight to Boko Haram, the tables were turned against it. For over a year, Shekau was not heard from. He has begun to speak again but his threats now sound hollow. Although Boko Haram continues to launch deadly attacks, it has been uprooted from all the towns and villages which it had captured from Nigerian forces. In addition, it has been driven out of Sambisa Forest, which for many years served as its operational base for attacks. Shekau is now on the run and even his leadership of the group has been threatened from within. Boko Haram’s serious military setbacks have not totally silenced its social media propaganda but its loud and boastful braggadocio has been reduced to an occasional whimper. As has been the case of IS, military defeats blunt the allure of terrorist propaganda. They demystify terrorists and their seeming ruthless efficiency and invisibility. Initially, Nigeria did not have a credible means to counter Boko Haram’s social media messaging but militarily routing of Boko Haram has proven to be the most effective response to the group’s reign of terror both on the battlefield and on social media.

In June 2016, the largest social media platforms, Facebook, YouTube, Microsoft, and Twitter, agreed to set up a common database to identify terrorist propaganda in order to check the distribution of extremist ideology. This step was a recognition of the increasing use of social media by terrorist organizations and the dangers inherent in such usage. Terrorism cannot be curbed unless terrorists and their organizations are well understood. Social media messaging by extremist groups provide an important avenue for understanding terrorist groups’ world views, goals and objectives. We have utilized the analysis of Boko Haram’s social media messaging to demonstrate how this vicious and ruthless terrorist group has used social media to illuminate itself and what it stands for.

1 The most deadly and widely reported of these ethnoreligious conflicts involved: Ezza and Ezillo in Ebonyi state; Offa and Erinle in Kwara State; Aguleri and Umuleri in Anambra state; Enugu-I Aguleri in Anambra and Ashonwo/Odeke in Kogi State; Christian Ibos and Muslim Hausas in Abia state; Christian and Muslim youths in Kachia, Kaduna State; Jukun and Kuteb and Junkun and Hausa in Taraba state; Eggon and Alago and Eggon and Migili in Nasarawa state; Hausa and Yoruba in Ogun, Oyo and Kano states; Zangon-Kataf in Kaduna state; Hausa-Tiv-Jukun in Taraba and Benue states as well as Ologba and Egba communities of Agatu Local Government Area of Benue State. Others are the Fulani and Gwari in the Federal Capital Territory; Fulani and Tarok in Plateau state; Jukun and Fulani in Taraba state; Fulani and Southern Kaduna in Kaduna state; Ife and Modakeke and Ipetumodu and Ashipa in Osun state; Ijaw and Urhobo-Itsekiri in Delta state; Ijaw and Ilaje in Ondo state; Iva Egbe and Iva Egba of Ofodua Adun community as well as Ajasor and Efraya in Etung Local Government Area in Cross River state; Okrika and Ogoni in Rivers state; Okrika and Eleme in Rivers state; Ogoni and Andoni in Rivers state; Kalabari (Rivers state); Nembe Bayelsa state), Adadama in Cross River state and Ndiagu Amagu in Ebonyi state and indigenous communities and cattle rustlers (otherwise known as Fulani herdsmen).

2 For an understanding of scholarly analyses of the Maitatsene riots see, for example, Isichei, E. (1987). The Maitatsene risings in Nigeria, 1980–85: A revolt of the disinherited, Journal of Religion in Africa , 17 (3), pp. 194–208; Marvy Hiskett, M. (1987). The Maitatsene riots in Kano, 1980: An assessment, Journal of Religion in Africa , 17 (3), pp. 209–223.

3 For further understanding of the clashes between Shi’ites Islamic sect members and the Nigerian army see, for example, BBC world news report on May 16, 2016, retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36941986 on January 3, 2017. See also the report of the New York Times of August 1, 2016 and August 15, 2015 as well as The Wall Street Journal , April 12, 2016. For accounts of Nigerian newspapers report on the conflict see, for example, the Vanguard , April 11, 2016 and December 23, 2015; ThisDay , December 14, 2015; Daily Trust , December 23, 2015 and Premium Times , December 15, 2015 and December 23, 2015.

4 For an understanding of some of the violent attacks of members of the Niger Delta Avengers on Nigeria’s oil and gas infrastructure see, for example, the report of Al Jazeera report of November 13, 2016, retrieved from, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/11/nigerian-army-presence-prompts-niger-delta-attacks-161113173124064.html on January 3, 2017; Premium Times, November 14, 2016 retrieved from, http://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/215296-renewed-attacks-oil-facilities-niger-delta-avengers.html on January 3, 2017.

5 Eric, S. (December 31, 2014). With Schoolgirls Taken by Boko Haram Still Missing, U.S.-Nigeria Ties Falter, New York Times . http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/01/world/with-schoolgirls-still-missing-fragile-us-nigeria-ties-falter.html . Accessed 6 March 2015).

6 See ANON. “Amnesty publishes before and after satellite images of Boko Haram Nigeria attacks,” http://www.dw.de/amnesty-publishes-before-and-after-satellite-images-of-boko-haram-nigeria-attacks/a-18192546 . Accessed March 9, 2015 .

7 Dionne, S., and Santora, M. (November 18, 2015). Boko Haram ahead of ISIS for deadliest terror group, New York Times . See also https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/19/world/africa/boko-haram-ranked-ahead-of-isis-for-deadliest-terror-group.html?_r=0 . Accessed January 22, 2017.

8 For details of the mission of the group as stated by it leader, see, for example, Daily Trust , April 25, 2011. See also Agbese, P.O. Internal military deployment and civil-military relations: The Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria, In Dhirendra K. Vajpayi and Glen Segell (Eds.), Civil military relationships in developing countries (pp. 103–136). New York: Lexington Books, 2014.

9 For an understanding of media reports of Boko Haram’s downing of an Alpha Jet (NAF 466) belonging to the Nigerian Air Force that was involved in a counter-insurgency operation against the extremist Islamic sect see, for example, a Premium Times news report titled, “Nigeria military aircraft bombing Boko Haram missing,” published on September 12, 2014. See also Chris Ogbondah, (2015). U.S. media coverage of Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria, paper presented at the panel on “Reporting Crises in Africa: From Arab Spring to the Deadly Ebola Virus, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) conference, San Francisco, California, 5–10 August, 2015.

10 See Vanguard , January 29, 2012. See also https://www.channelstv.com/2012/01/29/boko-haram-threatens-attacks-on-sokoto/ ; https://www.thenigerianvoice.com/news/81275/1/boko-haram-issues-attack-warning-for-sokoto.html . Accessed January 29, 2017.

11 Montclos, P. and Antonie M. (Eds.), Boko Haram: Islamism, Politics, Security and the State in Nigeria , Enschede, Netherlands, Institut Francais de Recherche en Afrique, 2014.

12 Mohammed, K. “The Message and Methods of Boko Haram,” in Boko Haram: Islamism, Politics, Security and the State in Nigeria , op. cit., pp. 9–32.

13 Reinert, M. and Garcon, L. Boko Haram Crisis: A chronology. in Boko Haram: Islamism, Politics, Security and the State in Nigeria , op. cit., pp. 237–245.

14 Serrano, R. and Pieri, Z. “By the Numbers: The Nigeria State’s Efforts to Counter Boko Haram,” in Boko Haram: Islamism, Politics, Security and the State in Nigeria , op. cit., pp. 192–212.

15 Harnischfeger, J. Boko Haram and its Muslim Critics: Observations from Yobe State, In Boko Haram: Islamism, Politics, Security and the State in Nigeria , op. cit., pp. 33–62.

16 Gyang, M. Christian Perceptions of Islam and Society in Relation to Boko Haram and Recent Events in Jos and Northern Nigeria, in Boko Haram: Islamism, Politics, Security and the State in Nigeria , op. cit., pp. 85–109.

17 Mantzikos, I. (Ed.), Boko Haram: Anatomy of a Crisis, Bristol, e-international Relations, 2013 .

18 Adibe, J. What do we really Know about Boko Haram? in Ioannes Mantzikos (ed.), Boko Haram: Anatomy of a Crisis , op. cit., pp. 9–15.

19 Oarhe, O. Responses of the Nigerian Defense and Intelligence Establishments to the Challenge of Boko Hara, in Boko Haram: Anatomy of a Crisis , op. cit., pp. 60–72.

20 Onapajo, H. Why Nigeria is Not Winning the Anti-Boko Haram War, in Boko Haram: Anatomy of a Crisis , op. cit., pp. 53–59.

21 Abolurin, A. An Assessment of Roles of Security Agencies in Checkmating Insurgent Movements in Nigeria (1999–2012), African Journal for the Psychological Study of Social Issues , 15, No. 2, 2012 .

22 Onuoha, F. Understanding Boko Haram’s Attacks on Telecommunications Infrastructure, in Boko Haram: Anatomy of a Crisis , op. cit., pp. 151–191.

23 Poling, C. U.S. Congress and Boko Haram, in Boko Haram: Anatomy of a Crisis , op. cit., pp. 73–84.

24 Onuoha, F. Boko Haram and the Evolving Salafi Jihadist Threat in Nigeria, in Islamism, Politics, Security and the State in Nigeria , op. cit., pp. 151–191.

25 Gourley, S. ( 2012 ). Linkages between Boko Haram and Al Qaeda: A Potential Deadly Synergy, Global Security Studies, 3 (3), pp. 1–14. Connell, S. (2012). To Be or Not to Be: Is Boko Haram a Foreign Terrorist Organization? Global Security Studies , 3 (3), pp. 87–93.

26 Karmon, E. ( 2014 ). Boko Haram’s International Reach, Perspectives on Terrorism , 8 (1), pp. 74–83.

27 Tanebam, M. ( 2012 ). Al-Qa’ida’s West Africa Advance: Nigeria’s Boko Haram, Mali’s Touareg, and the Spread of Salafi Jihadism, Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs , 6 (2), pp. 75–90.

28 Solomon, H. “Boko Haram, Identity and the Limits of Terrorism,” in Boko Haram: Anatomy of a Crisis , op. cit., pp. 27–34.

29 Adesoji, A. (2010). The Boko Haram Uprising and Islamic Revivalism in Nigeria, Africa Spectrum, pp. 95-108.

30 Agbiboa, D. ( 2013a ). The Nigerian Burden: Religious Identity, Conflict and the Current Terrorism of Boko Haram, Conflict, Security and Development, 13 (1), pp. 1–29.

31 Agbiboa, D. ( 2013b ). Why Boko Haram Exists: The Relative Deprivation Perspective, African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review , 3 (1), pp. 144–157.

32 Adibe, J. ( 2012 ). Nigeria without Nigerians? Boko Haram and the Crisis in Nigeria’s Nation-Building, London: Adonis & Abbey, 2012.

33 Ademowo A. and Olusola, M. ( 2012 ). Boko Haram: Peace Culture and the Quest for a United Nations, Mokola, Ibadan: Muffy Prints Concepts.

34 Bamidele, O. ( 2012 ). Boko Haram Catastrophic Terrorism: An Albatross to National Peace, Security and Sustainable Development in Nigeria, Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa , 14 (1), pp. 32–44.

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9/11: how politicians and the media turned terrorism into an Islamic issue

Lecturer in Journalism, Politics and Communication , University of Sheffield

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Jared Ahmad does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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As we mark the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, it is important to reflect on the legacy that event – and the “war on terror” more broadly – has had for the way news media cover terrorism. Though we should be clear that terrorism as we define it now predates the attacks by well over a century, what is significant about the events of 9/11 is the way they turned terrorism into a near-constant feature of the daily news cycle.

Scholars have long-argued that there is a symbiotic relationship between the news media and terrorism. For journalists, terrorist violence fulfils core news values that help attract and secure large audiences. For terrorists, news coverage provides a sense of legitimacy and the oxygen of publicity vital to their cause. No event illustrates this relationship more than 9/11.

Timed to coincide with morning news schedules across America, the attacks on the World Trade Center factored in a 17-minute delay between the two aircraft hitting the buildings to help maximise drama and ensure that network camera crews had time to focus on events. In some cases, news networks reported non-stop for nearly 100 hours to millions around the world.

In interviews for my book on the BBC’s portrayal of the al-Qaida threat during this time, one journalist recalls how monumental that day was:

It’s hard to emphasise now the way it made the world stop. And it did that in a way that hardly any other event had ever done before in my lifetime. It was staggering … watching the horror of what had happened, the number of people killed, and then watching the collapse of those iconic towers.

In the years since, the number of newspaper articles featuring the words “terrorism” or “terrorist”, both in the United States and Britain , have increased exponentially. This was despite the fact that terrorist attacks in Europe and North America were much more common during the 1970s and 1980s. These were typically carried out by left- or right-wing nationalist organisations.

Whose views make the news?

Aside from the drama and newsworthiness of the 9/11 attacks, a major reason why terrorism dominated headlines was because politicians and other “elite” figures began talking about terrorism. A lot.

Political communications scholarship has long noted the influence of powerful sources over the news agenda. Yet studies reveal how, in the days, weeks and months after 9/11, politicians and security sources (often anonymous and unnamed) dominated the news of the terror threat during this period and helped encourage an atmosphere of patriotic fervour. It has also been claimed that politicians adopt more emotive language when talking about terror threats, further increasing the news value of such information.

As the “war on terror” expanded, terrorists themselves emerged as a key source of news. The rise of the internet and the emergence of social media, meant that terrorist groups had far greater access to the news media than ever before. Over time, grainy, homespun propaganda images transformed into spectacular, Hollywood-style exercises in terror PR which could be instantly shared with a global audience of supporters.

But despite the presence of such imagery in western news coverage, media reports often failed to include detailed explanations for why terrorists sought to adopt violent tactics. Findings indicate that western media typically omit the political dimension of terrorist propaganda videos, but retain the more threatening, often exotic, aspects.

The Islamisation of terrorism

Perhaps the most damaging legacy of 9/11, however, has been the homogenisation and Islamisation of the terror threat. This has resulted in the conflation of Islam and Muslims with terrorism in much news coverage.

In the UK, for instance, research shows that news audiences saw a dramatic increase in news about Islam and Muslims in the years after the 9/11 attacks, with peaks in 2001 and 2006 . While not always negative in tone, media reports indicate a thematic focus on terrorism, violent extremism and the cultural difference of Muslims .

In America, moreover, scholars have shown how terrorist attacks involving Muslim perpetrators tend to receive around 375% more attention than when the culprit is a non-Muslim.

But despite a fascination with Islamic terrorism, the Global Terrorism Index reminds us that only 2.6% of attacks and 0.51% of deaths by terrorism occur in western nations. The vast majority of such attacks tend to be motivated by ethno-nationalist causes, rather than Islamist. What is more, the five countries most affected by terrorist violence (Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Syria and Somalia) are countries which are predominantly made up of people who identify as “Muslim”.

Lessons learned?

The 9/11 attacks ushered in a new age of terrorism. Those events, and the resulting “war on terror”, profoundly increased the value of terrorism as a newsworthy topic. The attacks also made sure that the groups who have a vested interest in exaggerating terror threat levels, such as politicians or members of the security services, remain the major voices shaping news coverage. And, for those groups, only one type of “terrorism” was deemed important.

Recent comments by the former UK prime minister Tony Blair about the existential threat posed by what he refers to as “Islamism” to western nations shows that reductive rhetoric about “good” and “bad” Muslims still captures the attention of news media. This is the case even when campaigners warn of more localised dangers.

If the media are to learn anything from two decades of the “war on terror”, therefore, it is to better understand the lessons that where so powerfully demonstrated on 9/11. That means finding ways of reporting terrorist events that do not sensationalise or overstate terrorist violence. It means challenging the simplistic way politicians tend to frame the issue and contextualising events as they happen. And, finally, it involves recognising and combating the entrenched stereotypes that demarcate “us” from “them”.

If not, the news media will continue to be “hijacked” by terrorism.

• 9/11 20th Anniversary

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