 C 당시ch gyda'r ysgwrdd ar y panel, gallwch angen i'w gweithnu'r mowr hefyd, De Pita, gan phobl iawn iawn cael ei cy trop sydd yn cyflawn i'r lineil, yn ei wneud chi'n credu cyflawn i grwyddechrau. Rhaid i'r gweithio i gweithnu'n mowr hefyd, i angen i Wymol Lywodraeth liysteig ysgwrdd Argynledigol a Mat Davies, i'r ideaid o'r cydweithio gyda'r cyflawn i'w ffordd o'r codi cofnig o'r ysgwrdd angen i'w cefnig ar hyn. Wel, wrth gwrs, yng Nghymru yn ymgyrch, rydyn ni'n gweithio ar Nellodol, ac mae'n debyg yw'r ffyrdd i'r mod i ymddangos i'r ffyrdd? Fel ydych chi'n gweithio, eich gyrdd i'r ffyrdd i'r ffyrdd. Fel ydych chi'n gweithio, rydyn ni'n gweithio ar y mae'r berthynas yng nghymru, i ddim yn bwynt o'i mewn ymgyrch a'i ddweud, ac mae'r Roror rydyn ni'n gweithio i'r mewn ysbyt ac ydw i'n ddiwedd o'i hefyd. wedi bod i'n fath o ddau ymlaen yn ddechrau i chi i chi. Yn y gallwn, ddau'n gweithio'r arddurau i chi yn ysgol, mae eich sphysbeth ar ymlaen yng ngyfaint, a mae'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio i chi. Mae gweithio i chi'n sgwrt yn ymlaen, pe bwy hoffi'n mynd i gweithio'r sefydliadau i Rathryg a Isys. A bod hynny'n gweithio'r sefydliadau hwn o'n gweithio'r sefydliadau champions the Sunni cause in the Muslim world. ISIS magazines are filled with sectarian rhetoric focusing on both theological and political issues. The anti-shear rhetoric is prominent in ISIS publications and social media outlets. It forms a significant element of ISIS propaganda. So the group works on constructing legitimacy in the eyes of its supporters and sympathizers. So it is understandable for it to exploit Sunni grievances in the region for legitimisation purposes. So I'll be looking at sectarianism in ISIS propaganda will examine two areas, theology and politics, where ISIS tries to develop its reputation as the only formidable force against sheer actors in the region. So ISIS is a self-proclaimed Salafi movement, which means that the group aspires to emulate the pious ancestors, the first three generations of Muslims. So there are various trends within the Salafi thought throughout history. However, ISIS claims to follow the first Saudi state, which was established by Ibn Saud. A little bit of background here. Ibn Saud was endorsed by the founder of the Wahabi School of Thought. I'm sure we're all familiar with the idea of Wahabism. The founder is Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahab. He founded the school, you know, in the 16th century. However, they established the first Saudi state in 1744. So Wahabi is a derogatory identification of the followers of Imam Ibn Abdul Wahab. His followers don't call themselves as Wahabis. So they call themselves as Ahl al-Tawheed, which means people of monotheism. And later in the 70s, they adopted the term Salafis. And today, if you talk to the followers of Ibn Abdul Wahab, they identify themselves as Salafis and not Wahabis. So the first Saudi state was militant in containing the Shia, a lot of similarities with ISIS. They engage in violence against the Shia. So in 1801, for example, the Wahabi forces marched to Karbala in Iraq and sacked the city. They were responsible for killing 2,000 Shia believers. Some estimate the figure to be higher. So ISIS theological justifications for opposing the Shia is well articulated in the immediate war against the Shia. So ISIS utilizes three elaborate methods to formulate these theological attacks. So first, it relies on existing treatises by prominent theoreticians for legitimacy. So ISIS propaganda material incorporates Ibn Abdul Wahab's thoughts when referring to the Shia, especially his treatise Arab al-Arafadah. So Arafadah means the rejectionist. It is a derogatory identification of 12ishism, which is the majority of Shia today, including in Iran, in Lebanon, in the eastern part of Saudi Arabia, and even in Bahrain. So the promotion of absolute monotheism in Salafi theology means that Shia practices are viewed as removed from Islam. So these include Shrine visitations, and that's why you see them bombing shrines, intercession, and the beliefs in Shia imams. So the group dedicated an issue of its Dabiq magazine to discussing Shia theological corruption. So I've showed that earlier, the Rafadah from Ibn Sabah to the Jail. So in this issue, they argue that the Shia sect was invented by a Jewish man who aspired to destroy Islam from within. So this man converted to Islam, he diified Ali, who was the fourth caliph, and to them this violates the concept of monotheism reserved for Allah. ISIS also relies on the works of Ibn Taymiah, the 12th century jurist, who was prolific in condemning various Shia sects. So Ibn Taymiah was highly critical of all Shia sects declaring the adherents of these sects as completely removed from Islam, and basically declaring the infidelity. As full contemporary figures, ISIS propaganda consistently refers to Musaba Zarqawi. As we all know, Zarqawi deviated from Al Qaeda's central command by launching attacks against the Shia. This contributed to the sectarian civil war in Iraq. And despite the fact that Zarqawi was not a credible theologian, far from it, ISIS magazines and social media propagandists invoke his anti-Shia tirates. This is because unlike Sunni polymesists who mainly declared the infidelity and treachery of Shia, including other jihadi theoreticians, Zarqawi was the first to make massacring Shia an agenda for Al Qaeda in Iraq and an agenda continued by ISIS. Similarly, Shia practices highlighted as deviant by the three figures mentioned earlier, are also featured prominently in ISIS social media war against the Shia. So they include the marriage of Mutah, a Shia practice allowing temporary marriage where a man and a woman enter a marriage contract for a specified time period. Three hours, three months. Of course, Shia scholars have differing views on the subject. They have differing views. But Sunni polymesists, including ISIS, ignore the complexity of the matter and that's always the case. Second, it analyzes historical events by presenting Sunni historiography. That's another method to formulate its theological attacks in its presentation of Sunni historiography. ISIS propaganda refers to historical events within the framework of sectarianism. For example, the Safavid dynasty is featured in Dabiq where Shia ascendancy in 1501 was highlighted. So that's part of it. Who were the Safavid with a picture of Ayatollah Ali Khameneen? So the publication speaks of Shia practices formalized during this period, including the mandatory cursing of the Prophet's companions, which is a major sin in Sunni Islam. Why refer to the Safavid dynasty? This is because the Iranian theocracy today, as argued by ISIS, is a continuation of the Safavid dynasty and this is despite the fact that many of the practices of the Safavids are no longer practiced in Iran today. However, ISIS draws similarities between the Iranian government and the Safavid dynasty. It is a powerful tool to delegitimize the Iranian government as a Safavid dynasty was viewed as oppressive of Sunnis. It was seen as responsible for converting Iranians by force to Shia Islam. I mean, this is quite dominant in Sunni polemises in historical accounts. ISIS is aware that Muslims, which is quite interesting, are susceptible to look at historical events for reference. So in Muslim societies, history confirms faith. That's not my saying, by the way. It's saying of a great Professor based at the Centre, Professor James Fiskatori. But you look at history in many ways, history confirms faith. And third, it relies on Shia believers as far from mainstream Shizam as possible to solidify its claims of Shia deviance. So ISIS simplicity appeals to supporters. Its sectarian propaganda offers just that. Complexity is destabilizing and therefore is to be avoided. So it uses examples of Shia theologians on the fringes of Shia communities to delegitimize them. That's how it formulates its theological attacks as well. In its magazines and social media accounts run by sympathizers, ISIS uses Yasir al-Habib as the epitome of Shia deviance. So Yasir al-Habib is a Kuwaiti preacher who is known for insulting the prophet's wife Aisha. Aisha is not very popular among Shia believers because she did not support Ali's claim to the caliphate. However, Yasir al-Habib's denunciation of her is often crude and cruel, which angers Sunnis. He is not considered as part of mainstream Shizam as he has been denounced by Shia clerics for inciting hatred. However, he is prominently featured in ISIS propaganda magazines and also social media outlets. So the second aspect of the ISIS media war against Shia believers is highlighting Shia political activities and these activities are presented in a way to demonstrate the dangers of Shia actors in the region, and it's not very hard to do so for three reasons. Discussion of Shia treachery was common even before the emergence of ISIS, so they're just exploiting what's already there. The intensity and frequency of anti-Shia rhetoric is influenced by political circumstances of the region. So the first wave of anti-Shia rhetoric emerged after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The Saudis have been particularly active, endorsed by the Saudi state in denouncing the Iranian Revolution. The anti-Shia narratives re-emerge following the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and was especially intense following the 2005 elections in Iraq. The 2005 elections witnessed a Shia government coming to power for the first time in Iraq, so if anti-Shia rhetoric was contained in certain countries because not all Sunni majority countries were concerned with Shiaism in 2005, the Syrian uprising made anti-Shiaism global, permeating Sunni communities in various parts of the Muslim world. So ISIS exploits this sentiment in its propaganda material. So Shia actors, so exploiting existing rhetoric against the Shia, and second, it's easy for them because Shia actors are militarily active, which makes defending Sunnis a popular aspiration. So that's another way to recruit and mobilize support by talking about Shia actors who are active in the region. So Hezbollah's decision to fight alongside Bashar al-Assad, for example, was seen as the biggest structuring as many Sunnis supported Hezbollah in 2006 when Hezbollah fought against Israel. So Sunnis in the region argued to have been deceived by Hezbollah's demonstration of cross-sector and agenda in 2006, and now they're supporting the Alawaite regime. So Shia militias, another example, particularly those fighting in Iraq, are perceived as brutal towards Iraqi Sunnis. So you have all these Shia actors, and it's quite easy to mobilize support. And third, the need to contain Shia actors is shared by Sunni actors in the region. So it's not just ISIS, but other Sunni actors are equally concerned about the Shia ascendancy in the region. So this is especially in light of the Saudi Iranian rivalry in the region as well. And ISIS is doing just that. What it's doing is destabilizing Shia ascendancy. It is now clear that ISIS is fulfilling its obligation as a group committed to defending Sunnis, and that's what it's trying to present, particularly in its propaganda magazines and also in social media outlets. So it is evident that the rhetoric of Sunni polemesis, especially Salafi clerics, is almost identical to ISIS. I've looked at the Salafi clerics in Egypt, in Kuwait, in Bahrain, in Saudi Arabia, almost identical to ISIS. And the group builds on existing theological traditions of the radical trend of Salafism. So Sunni polemesis also speak of Shia theological deviance and political treachery. During the early stages of the Syrian uprising, images of victims of torture by the Assad regime were widely circulated, and some of the clerics actually cried on TV to demonstrate their frustration with what's happening in Assyria. So Salafi and non-Salafi clerics in the region would discuss the predicament of the wretched Sunnis and highlighting the evil nature of Shia believers. So the Syrian uprising witnessed the gradual process of othering in mainstream Muslim societies through traditional and social media outlets. So ISIS media jihad against the Shia utilizes and occupies the space. However, there is a difference between ISIS and other Sunni polemesis and also the Salafis. For other non-Jihadist Sunni actors, the Shia problems requires a different solution. So first, you identify the Shia problem. Second, you establish the position, your position. Therefore, Salafi clerics would argue it is legitimate for Syrians to defend themselves. And jihad is permissible, however, only for Syrians, but not others. And finally, they support state initiatives to fund Syrians to fight. So it's okay for us to support the state to fight and support Syrians to fight, but we should refrain from travelling to Syria to fight in support of Sunni co-religionist. ISIS militants, ISIS propaganda deals with the subject differently. So similarly, they identify the Shia problem. They establish their positions as well, theologically and politically in other social media outlets that they're theologically deviant, politically treacherous, but they urge Sunnis to fight. So that's the difference. ISIS militants provide a different alternative or a different solution. Their propaganda speaks of courage, empowerment, and reclaiming Sunnis superiority. In fact, non-Jihadi polemesis are often ridiculed for being weak. One prominent Syrian Salafi, which is featured there, Adnan Al-Araur, rose to fame after he became the most vocal Salafi against the Assad regime. In one of the television lectures, Al-Araur was asked about jihad in Syria by a caller. He reiterated that only Syrians in Syria should fight and others should not travel to Syria to fight. This is the position of non-Jihadi Sunni clerics. He was criticised by ISIS sympathisers for being ineffective, hiding in the comfort of his home in Riyadh. In one TV programme after the fall of Mosul to ISIS, Al-Araur, like other non-Jihadi clerics, condemned ISIS, and one woman called into the television programme and told the Sheikh to stop spreading lies about ISIS. It's part of their media jihad. She argued that ISIS militants were the only people who were committed to protecting Sunnis from the corrupt and repressive Shia, let government in Mosul. So the sentiment may have changed today, but it cannot be denied that ISIS propaganda and strategy in 2014 were appealing. So if you look at ISIS sectarian propaganda and its media jihad, the bills on Sunni grievances, whether real or imagined, allowed the group to recruit and launch itself as an effective force to confront Shia political actors in the region. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ryan. I would like to welcome up our next speaker, Harar Ranguram, who is a research fellow here at the Department of International Relations and who I've had the great pleasure of working with over the last two years as part of ICCT's counter-tersual strategic communications project. Before his career in academia, Harar Ranguram worked in national security, so he also brings very much a practitioner's on-the-ground perspective to his work. Well, thanks, Alasdair, and thanks also to Matt Davies and Michael Wesley for supporting this event and bringing our keynote speaker, Peter Grester, here today. When we met a couple of years ago in Brisbane, I intended, hopefully, that one day we'd be able to bring Peter here. It took two years in this conference, but we were able to do it, and we're really grateful that you made the time to be here. And also, obviously, thank you to our two international speakers, Dr Alasdair Reid and Dr Craig White, so I didn't hear you, and it's always good to speak on a panel with a friend like Ray Harn, so thank you too. Most importantly, however, I need to thank the CAP team up the back there, Kerry and Tabitha, and also Ashley, if she's here today. Thanks very much. This obviously would not have happened without you. So what I'm going to do today is build on what Ray Harn has been, Ray Harn spoke about, and focus my remarks on ISIS and its propaganda strategy, but from a broader strategic logic perspective. And so the picture that I hope to paint for you today is of a strategically minded group that benefits from the misguided response of its adversaries, us. It does not just benefit from our missteps in some abstract, secondary, inadvertent sense. ISIS appears to specifically calibrate its actions and words to leverage our predictable missteps and misinterpretations. Our tendency to be guided by interpretations, as Peter said earlier, that are far more intuitive than empirical. Self-soothing rather than being grounded in harsh reality, and why a more sophisticated understanding of this group is essential, especially now, as it weakens. But to understand ISIS propaganda, we must step back and understand two central pillars of ISIS's campaign strategy. This is a group that champions a doctrine of perpetual war, on the one hand, and defines survival as the criteria, its definition, for avoiding defeat on the other. As ISIS's late spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnan, he declared in 2015, and I quote, were you victorious when you killed Abu Masab, Abu Hamza, Abu Umar, or Osama? Would you be victorious if you were to kill Ashashani, Abu Bakr, Abu Zahir, or Abu Umar? No. Indeed, victory is the defeat of one's opponents. Were we defeated when we lost the cities in Iraq and were in the desert without any city or land? And would we be defeated and you'd be victorious if you were to take Mosul or Surat or Raqqa or even take all of the cities and we were to return to our initial condition? Certainly not. True defeat is the loss of willpower and desire to fight. Now think about this for a moment. To avoid defeat is merely to survive. Such a low bar for not failing, for not losing. Yet, on the other hand, a commitment to forever war. Now, the bridge connecting, indeed, enabling these two pillars is ISIS's phased campaign strategy that sees the group transition from terrorism to guerrilla warfare and unconventional political and military activities to more formal bureaucratised forms of government and even conventional military activities, as it establishes its pseudo state. Of course, reversing down these phases when it's weak for ISIS to survive is to avoid defeat and to survive it must transition up and down the phases of its campaign strategy. How else could it engage in forever war? How else could it satisfy its own definition of not being defeated? This is why ISIS insists that it's williots, its provinces, not only champion the rhetoric of forever war and its definition of defeat, but operationalise it. How? By applying that phased political and military strategy. ISIS's method. It's manhaj, whether in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan or the Philippines. This context helps us to understand why ISIS gives propaganda a central role in its campaign strategy. ISIS understand the power of words and images in transforming how human beings understand the world. The raison d'etre of ISIS propaganda is to shake the perceptions and polarise the support of its target audiences. Friends, foes and neutrals and it does this in two key ways. The first is through what we could call identity choice appeals that are designed to coax audiences into understanding and assessing the world through identity lenses. Narratives that portray a black and white world split between ISIS-aligned Sunnis and literally everyone else. Drawing on pertinent issues and events, ISIS propaganda leverages psychosocial and strategic factors with messaging that both increases perceptions of crisis and offers solutions to those crises. Supporting this effort, ISIS also deploys messages to show how its actions are perceived and how its actions are perceived and how the actions of its enemies are perceived. The purpose behind this type of messaging is to have a force-multiplying effect on ISIS's actions. To make itself seem omnipresent, bigger, more dangerous, more influential, while having a force nullifying effect on the actions of its adversaries that they are weaker and incompetent despite their material advantages. A key component of this type of messaging is to highlight that while ISIS does what it says, it has a narrow say-do gap. It's a say-do gap that is enforced with brutality if necessary. Its enemies, on the other hand, are hypocrites that do not do what they say, whether it's upholding red lines in Syria or the promises of democracy at home. Ultimately, ISIS's propaganda wants its supporters to see the world through its lens, through the glasses of its own design. What I have called a competitive system of meaning, a system of meaning because it shapes perceptions, competitive because it must confront the alternative systems of meanings, the messaging of opponents. Drawing on studies from the social and behavioural sciences, particularly of behavioural economists such as Amos Tversky, Daniel Kahneman and Richard Thaler, we analysed a whole range of violent extremist propaganda and found that it was strategically designed to cater to its audiences automatic rather than deliberative thinking. It manipulated social context and social cues and sought to trigger and drive cognitive biases in its audiences. But ISIS's messaging strategy is also designed to coax its enemies into seeing the world through ISIS's lens, through the prism of its system of meaning. After all, ISIS's strategy, both its actions and words, is dependent on eliciting responses from its stronger adversaries, which it then uses to launch secondary and tertiary waves of actions and words. Perhaps the best example of an ISIS propaganda trap is around how the group responds to so-called inspired attacks, where the perpetrator has had no support or even direct contact with the group. These types of attackers are an essential component of ISIS's strategy, which it encourages in an effort to stretch its enemies' battle fronts from Muslim lands to the streets of the west and create the perception of a global movement. ISIS explicitly states that this is the purpose, and propaganda is vital to achieving this. By calling for attacks in the west and disseminating instructional material, groups like ISIS are poised to lay claim to attackers who cite their communiques or mimic their prescribed methods. We call it preparatory offensive messaging, because it is designed to lay a trap for one's adversaries and facilitate future messaging. In the aftermath of inspired attacks, media reporting and political rhetoric further fuel the jihadist publicity boom by presenting ISIS's skilled propagandist with an opportunity to portray the attack as part of not only a larger political military struggle, but a global revolution. ISIS and others continue to use this strategy to inspire terrorists, because it has, by their calculations, worked to their advantage. All the upside of a terrorist attack being attributed to them and none of the downside of risks involved in planning, directing, resourcing and training. A recent ICC report found that fewer than one in 10 attacks in the west was carried out under direct orders of ISIS leadership. So there are many examples we could use, but let's take the April 2017 Westminster attack. Here are the raw facts. A man drove into pedestrians, disembarked and stabbed a policeman before being killed. Yet official statements from around the world painted a very different picture. Before ISIS officially acknowledged the attack, after all they were only just learning about this guy, one western leader described the events as quote, an attack on parliament's freedom and democracy everywhere. It did not take long for other politicians and government spokesmen to say the same thing amplified by wall to wall media coverage. So a coward killing innocence is instantly transformed into an agent of a global movement. The acts of a pathetic loner transformed into attacks on democracies and freedoms everywhere. Indeed our very way of life. When ISIS parasitically claimed the attack in a manner that suggested it had little prior knowledge of the plot or the plotter, all its propagandist really had to do was reinforce what was now the dominant narrative. During interviews with the Syrian opposition a couple of years ago these guys I was speaking to reflected on a time early on in the conflict where they were sharing an office building with the local ISIS media unit and they described walking past that office when it was open and looking into the office and they described it as ISIS mad men. Mad men being the American drama series on an advertising company in the 1950s and 60s that they were sitting around sipping tea and arguing about a word not that one this one not that picture this picture. When we kick off the dominant narrative we do the propaganda work for them so imagine what the ISIS mad men do. Imagine their logic imagine how difficult that discussion has to be for them what he said. That's what the media release ultimately comes down to and of course this is what ISIS requires most for its survival is well-meaning people who underestimate and misinterpret it. Politicians and journalists not to mention a few talking head experts in the media need to be far better educated about the strategic logic of ISIS propaganda even a rudimentary understanding like the one I just laid out today could help politicians to avoid stumbling into ISIS propaganda traps and enable journalists to keep them and the talking heads accountable. Ultimately a more sophisticated nuanced empirically based understanding of our adversaries is in fact the only way that we can generate more sophisticated nuanced and empirically based counterterrorism and counterviolent extremism strategic communications. Now all I have done today is highlight the most basic mechanics of ISIS propaganda. There are a litany of other strategies and levers ISIS uses in its propaganda efforts from hedging which is the tendency for ISIS to emphasise certain themes during boom periods and certain themes during bust periods to imbuw its propaganda strategy with elasticity over time and enabling it to pivot in the information theatre as those strategic conditions change to its use of responsibility to protect R2P messaging. Indeed my current research is examining jihadist R2P doctrine which actually beat Gareth Evans and the United Nations by a couple of decades and is a crucial way in which groups like ISIS appeal to its audiences. Now many of you may be thinking but ISIS are in big trouble and you're right ISIS are in big trouble but think back to the strategic logic I just described think back to the strategic logic of ISIS propaganda I just laid out for you. Propaganda is important for ISIS when it's strong during those boom periods like 2014-15 but it is even more important during its bust periods. It increases in strategic importance as ISIS weakens politically and militarily and this of course makes perfect strategic sense. ISIS propaganda machine will be essential for amplifying the effects of whatever actions it can manage in the field or claim as their actions. They will be even more reliant upon setting propaganda traps for its adversary so that we reinforce how ISIS want to be perceived by friends and enemies. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'd like to welcome up our last speaker Dr Craig Whiteside from the Naval War College in Monterey. Dr Whiteside teaches national security affairs to military officers and prior to his academic career served for a number of years in the US military including a tour of duty in Iraq in 2006 and 2007 so he speaks from a lot of personal experience. I'd like to thank the Department of International Relations for bringing me here. This is my third visit to Australia and each one's gotten better each time. Of course my first visit was training with the third Royal Australian Regiment which is known as the parachute well they're the equivalent of the British Paris and American paratroopers and compared to that visit I've only been called Bloody Yank once this visit so it's a success. Right. I'd like to talk about the virtual caliphate and the idea of media jihad as one of the topics of this conference. In the concept of the virtual caliphate it's an idea that as as Harorra mentioned as ISIS is defeated and loses its physical territory particularly in Mosul and Raqqa and in other places of course that they're going to retreat into this virtual caliphate and demonstrate the capabilities that that our speakers have talked about the power of the persuasive word their media apparatus etc and you can even find hashtag on Twitter the virtual caliphate if you're interested if you're a Twitter person and you're interested in looking at it and this idea has been accepted by no less the important actor that's sent com the US central command who is kind of shepherding or assisting the coalition this defeating these long stay at least in Syria and Iraq and certainly assisting in other places and their understanding is that as as the the caliphate is lost that the ISIS will transition into this virtual caliphate and that is going to be the power and of course the power of ideas and that ties in well with this conference. My colleague Harorra and I have written about this and we feel that this is this is wrong for two reasons for many reasons but two that I'll talk about one the idea of the virtual caliphate is almost an oxymoron in the sense that the caliphate itself is a physical governing systems it allows the people who belong to the caliphate to worship in the way that they want to worship and that is enforced and ensured by a governing system which happens in the physical world in the physical reality so the idea of a virtual caliphate itself is a bit off as as my friend Will McCann says there's already there's already a concept of that in Islam itself and that's the uma of this idea that the the identity is important in who you are not necessarily nationalities and then it can be all over the world and certainly as Rehan talked about the Salafis have their own identity and and their own networked identity that's global to be sure so that's the idea that I think is behind the virtual caliphate but it's got some problems and the second one is what Hurro talked about so well so I don't have to and that's the the differences and definitions of defeat the the Islamic State's definition as as articulated by Muhammad El Adnani is a very very high bar right to strip his religion away from him of course he's dead um but that is the idea that it's very hard. St. Com's idea is that victory happens once the the caliphate physically does not exist and that is problematic especially in the understanding as Hurro pointed out the different levels that they will operate in the future once their caliphate is physically reduced they will operate at a purely and and uniformly irregular warfare a guerrilla warfare across the spectrum in many different places Iraq and Syria to be sure but continuing in Libya and the Philippines more prominently um so those are the two reasons that we push back on this we think a better understanding comes from the idea that the political project politics and the information aspect of ISIS their media jihad if you will or their cyber jihad as Nica Prouca calls it is that they're symbiotically related as that they have to they feed each other in a in a particular way and not in that political project um this is not to say that people who use the term virtual caliphate if they're referring specifically uh as a as a cute term for media jihad that's understandable um and even possibly that the virtual caliphate might be an extension of geographic regions that aren't contiguous to Iraq and Syria as we understand the so-called caliphate today right so the we can understand that but we really like to focus on that symbiotic relationship between the political project or reality as you as you would understand it and operations that are happening in the information domain whether they be cyber whether they be real on the ground um information or propaganda so to some the way to kill this virtual shadow of the real caliphate uh is of course is to starve out the real one it's to reduce not just the physical governance of territory by an armed group like the islamic state specifically the islamic state but to prevent its return to do the the appropriate actions in order to prevent its return um that is what's going to affect this media jihad that is so fearful and so powerful according uh to our previous speakers how long is this going to take again my friend will mccanston's it could take as long as 10 years to to to physically to to reduce the attraction of the dream of a of this political project which is specifically the creation of a modern caliphate that's run according to the salafi method as Rehan alluded to um let's look at this so this is a very theoretical discussion to this point I'd like to look at empirically what has happened in the past that would lead uh haroro myself to this conclusion if you look back at this earlier stages of this group in 2007 when they're known as the islamic state of iraq um they were they were named that in 2006 by their uh the successors to zarkawi and during that year in 2007 if you look at their media department which is prolific at the time they're producing a over a thousand unique propaganda whether it's media releases pressure releases notices claims videos certainly they're not the the standard that they are today but they're very prolific in 2007 by 2010 that amount has reduced to about 10 to 15 percent of the output again not looking at quality so what what happened there what causes the reduction in the is movements propaganda during that time period and simply their lack of success uh due to various political and the strategic environment that that occurred in iraq from 2006 to 2009 tribal uprisings a removal of support from the suni community as Rehan mentioned the support for the is movement in its early days was was growing and became robust and then it eventually collapsed on them and so you see that is the way that we understand the virtual caliphate as reducing in potency in the future if you look at 2010 zarkawi successors abu omar and abu hamsar are killed by the iraqi soft and coalition with coalition support it takes until mid to late 2011 before abu bakr their successor makes his first statement so and this is this is instrumental or important because there was a lot of pressure within the community to say something what is this what is the state of this political project what is the future of this insurgency for the future and and the answer that was given by people like Muhammad al Adnan i who was the spokesman at the time was we need patience we need time we are not successful right now and there's no there's no point in coming out and and establishing a very powerful media campaign until we're ready um and the problem and so that was that was what we saw and what we understood was that the group was defeated at this time and there's there's large reasons to think that it's true but it also created an illusion for us that behind the scenes this group is reorganizing recruiting rebuilding creating new political conditions and taking advantage of what is happening near next door in syria but also and what is happening in iraq with some of the sectarian tensions that rehan mentioned of this syria government that is not seemingly uh perceptually giving the sunnis of iraq a fair shape and that's that is the the type of environment but certainly it is the military activities that drive the majority of the propaganda and the media jihad that's going on at this time and you see it as an upswing in reports in 2011 12 and 13 until they've reached the culmination uh and of note they're already controlling territory long before they're able to to seize mosel in 2014 um and again this is reflected all in their propaganda so to conclude i'd like to tie it into this idea of info wars in this fear of media and an actor that's out there manipulating the media and tie it in with some of peters ideas and concepts there's a parallel and that's the russian influence in in democratic campaigns as well this fear that they are able to manipulate us and that something must be done in order to uh to stop this this type of nefarious influence and certainly that happens on social media platforms like facebook and twitter to the point where we're demanding that those platforms do something to reduce this influence in the case of is you've seen a very active campaign that's been relatively successful in denying them these platforms to to communicate to their followers as compared to 2013 and 2014 when i could follow people like shami witness and and get um a prime supporter of the group who is pushing their propaganda non-stop on very mainstream platforms so it's quite a difference and it's somewhat of a success story as as some research has shown in pushing them almost entirely off of twitter but but certainly um impacting them in other areas of it now this is necessary but not sufficient and it can't be looked at as a silver bullet because again it's the political project that symbiotic relationship that the defeat of the political project is what will be the lasting uh lead to the lasting defeat of this particular group all right um the media is only a facilitator to their propaganda this is what isis says themselves uh in in our my icct media history it's i titled the the paper lighting the path they understand that the media is just illuminating a path for the political project to be successful they have no illusions themselves that the media is the power behind their success it is an enabler and that is what it's always been so so focusing on shutting that down is interesting but it leads to a serious policy question right and a policy perspective and should the anti media campaign or the media suppression campaign that's been used against is be used against other actors that are manipulating public opinion um in different areas um and i would i would warn strongly against that this is a strategy that's being used against what we can consider to be the exception to the rule um this is a this is a organization that as we can see from their own writings their own propaganda is dedicated to and celebrates violence in the achievement of their political goal and because of that they are treated differently than other actors maybe even like the muslim brotherhood or or or any political actors that are operating in our spheres of communication and i think that's an important an important thing to think about uh for the future and that's to treat them as the exception as we deal with the other aspects of the information wars that we're going to talk about today so thank you very much thank you very much and doctor i say we have got just a few minutes or a few questions is any questions from the audience question now please stand up the microphones are just coming i'm addressing the questions to dr harora ingram the questions is to what extent um isis can be described as a terrorist organizations is it more because of uh its violent approach or is it because uh it's anti status quo behavior thank you oh well thank you that's an excellent question i might get um rehan and craig to help out with dancing this as well um i think what's important for us to think about i'm someone who approaches this as a generalist you know i mean i adopted a strategic perspective on on on analysing these groups and i think what's what's important for us as both researchers as analysts but also potentially for the strategic policy makers sitting in the room here today and listening in is that we need to understand that isis that the isis spectrum that on one end of that spectrum is isis the terrorist organization the terrorist network and then um on the other end of that spectrum is uh isis the shudo state you know the so-called caliphate you know and so and then there's this transition point in the middle there um as i'd kind of described in the presentation um where it needs to use essentially guerrilla warfare to transition from um that terrorist state that terrorist network state um through to establishing a state so so that they transition through unconventional politico military activities and then as they they start to reach symmetry with their adversaries with their enemies in that location they then attempt to to um establish a state um and so they conventionalize those politico military activities now this is very very important for understanding this is very important when we look at trying to understand what's going on in southeast asia you know um in south asia in africa in other parts of the middle east and so um and there is a predictive uh kind of quality that comes with understanding that it's essential i mean i spend most of my time talking to to specialists to country specialists here to understand to try to understand those local nuances and i hope that perhaps the value that i might bring to those discussions is being out but to say well hey there there are really important strategic principles that this group takes from its central location and it demands of its provinces it demands of its williots so when we look at for example what happens in for example marawi what happened in the philippines there there are a lot of very important local reasons for that but a big part of what what isis was implementing in the field there were the strategic principles that manhage that methodology now when we look at it on on the furthest fringes of its reach in the west for example then yeah you know that that's very much a terrorist organization that terrorist network but we have to understand it from that spectrum i would just add the the illegal aspect of the violence of course that's a very subjective idea is that something is illegal but certainly from an international law perspective from the law of war the the law of war as well as national laws that that most of if not the predominance of their violence is not being done on conventional battlefields per se or even conventional battlefields against the Assad regime or even the Iraqi government but that is happening um also just outside of the conventional activities both in iraq and syria in the philippines and libia across the world and then as well in western countries as in the more um understandable version that we use terrorism but all of it can i think normatively be described as as terror um i don't like to use the the use of the word terror group because they're they really have a political project and and that's problematic to just calm a terror group they're a group or insurgency that uses terror as a tactic and that i think that helps me a lot of times understand the difference right we have time for just a couple more questions microphones are just coming down thank you very much for the presentation these questions uh addressed to all speakers but especially to dr raihan so uh do you think eyes is successful in spreading their propaganda using the rhetoric uh the sectarian rhetoric since its establishment in 1999 as we know that the way they spread the way they they use these propaganda is basically against their uh theological belief thank you we'll take a second question at the same time the differences in their english language publication as opposed to the arabic language publication do they how do they translate different words or concepts in the different languages and does that at all um impact the way that propaganda is spread or is there any sort of thoughtful diversity among even middle eastern states about the languages that they use um and does that have any implications do you think thank you you're very good questions thank you um when it comes to how answer your question first um whether or not successful i think eyes has played an important role in really propagating that shea um believers are removed from islam however we have to think about existing rhetoric um and they're only building from existing rhetoric i think the Saudis in particular um the Saudi Salafis in particular have been quite active in propagating that she is and is removed from Islam um of course there are various trends within the Salafi trend itself so you have the moderate Salafis you have the more radical Salafis but mainly um it is seen as in it's seen as um they agree that she is and is removed from islam with ISIS i think what they've done which is quite successful is that legitimize the killings of shea um in many ways that's the difference between ISIS rhetoric and Salafi rhetoric the Salafis would not legitimize the killings of shea um regardless of their political treachery or theological deviance they're quite careful and that's part of the Salafi propaganda but with ISIS is quite different so if you look at jihadi Salafis they're more vocal um in legitimizing um the killings of shea so i think in that way jihadi theoreticians and ISIS theoreticians have been quite successful in demonstrating that the shea they're deviant they're treacherous it is permissible to kill them so that's the difference i think between the Salafis um you know non jihadi Salafis and jihadi Salafis particularly with ISIS as well um so going to your question i think whether or not there's a difference between um English propaganda um magazines uh ISIS magazines in English or in Arabic and other languages i can only speak for Arabic and a little bit of Bahasa um i don't look at Bahasa so much um but in Arabic obviously they refer to local clerics a lot more um so that's part of their propaganda as well to look at local circumstances the English um publication would look at um other you know more global i think they wanted to reach out to the global audience but the Arabic especially looks at local um clerics and local circumstances they deal with that a lot more for example the ISIS manifesto on women um so it was translated into English but the Arabic version deals with local Saudi clerics and you can tell that there's a lot of appeal to Saudi women in particular so i think that's the difference when you look at you know the English version and also um the Arabic version but i do think that that's what they do as well to appeal to those who they think that they're speaking to. All I'd add is just you know when it comes to the English language um kind of propaganda um from ISIS what's been remarkable um for me is the way that they are able to leverage local and i mean very local i'm talking like at a suburb level um kind of issues um with their propaganda but still maintain its relevance for a broad audience and it's one of these things it's kind of like why we go into the field to do this research is because you can intellectually understand something but it's kind of when you feel it that you really realise and it was with um issue one of Ramir magazine um and the eulogy in there which kind of involved it featured a guy from Melbourne and that article could be read and a kid in London would understand it you know it it it'd resonate with them it would broadly resonate with them but as a someone who lived in Victoria for several years uh there were details in that that that a Victorian kid not just a Victorian kid a kid living in say Preston and Brunswick we're wow they understand what I'm talking about and to me that that's when the absurdity of slick production social media and gory violence as and doesn't explain for this stuff it just it's laughable the sophistication of the group really this is just one way I think that it's really highlighted just that that nuance you know so as I'm prone to do I'll go back into history of the of the movement and say they're very one of the very first attacks in 2003 was against the Imam Ali mosque and it was obvious it signalled their their agenda and they were criticized by that as Rehan pointed out in the famous letter Al Qaeda who was their their their figurehead or their their their parent organisation at the time affiliate although it was very loose told them to please stop doing that because it would it would disrupt the reputation within the UMA at large and that was never adhered to but what what I noticed in my research was that I asked just stopped claiming these attacks so so they manipulated that they just stopped claiming them until about 2007 during their losing period they actually start claiming these attacks maybe because they feel they have to but they've I think they've also normalized this sectarian attack and that the that certain elements both globally and locally were supportive of this due to the effects of the civil war so post 2006 Samar bombing which they did not claim as well they they denied it three times they they begin claiming it and and since then have obviously specialized in that kind of propaganda actually thank you to our three panellists for three excellent presentations