A Critical Analysis of the Jihadi Discourse through Online Magazines with Special Reference to ‘Wyeth’ Magazine

Abstract

‘Jihadism’ (also known as the jihadi movement) is a popular term that signifies the Islamic terror movement which thrives on extremist ideologies and violence. In addition to the conventional practices, the online medium is currently being employed for disseminating these extremist ideologies across the globe. Radicalisation and recruitment of geographically dispersed individuals as ‘jihadists’ for supporting Islamic terror activities tend to be the primary intent for using the digital platforms as the medium of communication in this context. One such initiative by the Lashkar-e-Taiba of Jammu and Kashmir was the release of the ‘Wyeth: The Resistance in Flow’, an e-magazine which was launched on April 2018. The first issue which was posted with an open access option was primarily designed to influence the Indian youth population through the radical interpretations of Islam. Hence, it is crucial to analyse and understand the jihadi discourse of the Wyeth magazine in order to curb and counter-attack such initiatives at its initial phase. For this purpose, the present study aims to examine the content of the Wyeth magazine and analyse the basic traits of the jihadi propaganda and its potential to aid in the self-radicalisation process.

Keywords

Lashkar-e-Taiba Jihadism online radicalisation Wyeth magazine terrorist propaganda kashmirjihad online magazine

Introduction

Terror groups or organisations thrive because of the active followers who are willing to indulge in any form of violence and even commit suicide for their cause. Hence, it is vital for any terror organisations to have a constant supply of a dedicated workforce in order to survive and fulfil their objective. For this purpose, these organisations tend to adopt the practice of radicalisation where vulnerable individuals are targeted and bombarded with extremist ideologies so that they transit towards radical thoughts, thereby accepting the act of violence. Spreading radical ideologies dealing with religious or political views and building support systems tend to be the prime objective of modern terror groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or the Al-Qaeda (Charvat, 2010).

In this connection, online radicalisation has progressed in a rapid fashion in recent years, and it has become the major concern of the societies and governments across the globe. The term ‘online radicalization’ refers to the act of promoting global terror via internet technologies (Putra & Ibrahim, 2017). Some of the major online radicalisation techniques include direct propaganda, dissemination of misinformation regarding government agencies, brainwashing and training vulnerable individuals, especially youth, in online chats or discussion forums and virtual interactive games that promote violence against their opposition. With a wide range of possibilities and features to reach and radicalise geographically dispersed individuals, the internet has been deemed by the Al-Qaeda as a great medium for dispersing Jihadism and to keep a tap on the news of the mujahideen-Islamic fighters (Rudner, 2017). As a matter of fact, according to Atayf (2012), prominent radical Islamists have actively endorsed and encouraged ‘Electronic Jihad’—a new addition to the radicalisation terminology, denoting the act of employing digital technologies to spread Jihadism.

The use of English language e-magazines to encourage its readers to join the cause of terror and violent extremism is one of the well-known online radicalisation tactics that has been prevalent among Islamic terror groups since 2009. Jihad Recollections by the Al-Qaeda is claimed to be the first successful initiative of this kind, utilising the open publication services of the online medium (Conway, Parker, & Looney, 2017). ‘Inspire’ by the Al-Qaeda, ‘Gaidi M’taani’ by Somali Al-Shabab and Dabiq by the ISIS are other noteworthy magazine series in this context. According to Lemieux, Brachman, Levitt, and Wood (2014), the suspects of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing attack learnt to create bombs from pressure cookers and trained themselves to execute the attack through the instructional series of the Inspire Magazine. Therefore, it is vital to understand the impact and extent to which these online jihadi magazine series are a threat to global peace and well-being.

Though these earlier publications were openly available for anyone who accessed them, they were primarily targeted to influence the Western audience belonging to the United States or European nations. The launch of the first online magazine directly targeting the Indian youth, especially those residing in Kashmir, was announced by the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) spokesperson Dr. Abdullah Ghaznavi in the initial days of the year 2018. Following its announcement, the first issue of the magazine—Wyeth: The Resistance in Flow—was launched with a theme of helping and voicing out the common man’s struggle in Kashmir (Deccan Chronicle, 2018). Considering the potential impact of jihadi e-magazines, the launch of Wyeth poses a grave threat to the nation, and hence it is vital to understand the jihadi discourse targeting the Indian youth to develop counter measures to curb its impact in the initial phase.

Literature Review

Terror operations are a resource-intensive process where terror groups are constantly in the requirement of new recruits in order to compensate for those lost in terror missions and to magnify their level of attacks (Bloom, 2012). Hence, the terror groups have started to lean towards the online medium for this purpose where social media outlets such as Facebook, Telegram or YouTube are being employed as tools of terror communication and recruitments. In addition to recruitment, the internet is also viewed to play a key role in other terror activities, including fundraising, networking information gathering and coordination (Conway, 2006). But the strongest link between terrorism and the internet is its role as a communication channel that facilitates the production and dissemination of terror propaganda, radical content and training materials such as manuals on ‘how to be a Jihadi’ or ‘manufacturing of bombs’.

As a matter of fact, Facebook—the world’s largest social networking site—is claimed to be one of the priceless tools used by the terror organisations to target vulnerable individuals and to make them virtually join like-minded individuals for their cause. Woolley, Limperos, and Oliver (2010) stated that Facebook has an added advantage of having a group application where once a considerable number of user base is developed, the messages or terror propaganda can be instantly disseminated to the targeted mass (group members) free of any charge. The ideal strategy followed by terror groups is to initially create Facebook groups under neutral names and try to attract users by posting moderate content. Once the member count increases to an optimal level, jihadist content that does not directly initiate jihadist actions slowly creep in, in such a way that it does not violate the Facebook policy. In later stages, links directing the users to the websites or forums of the terror groups are posted to seamlessly guide the group members to the cyber portals of extremist groups (Robyn, 2010).

Twitter is yet another popular social media platform which enjoys a large number of users dispersed across the globe. Analogous to Facebook, Twitter has the ability to disseminate brief and concise information or updates, instantaneously influencing a large number of people (Papic & Noonan, 2011). And Twitter hashtags can be paralleled with Facebook groups, as both of them enable the formation of dynamic communities where users (directly or indirectly linked to a specific incident) could follow the designated hashtags to get continuous updates. The use of Twitter during the Mumbai 26/11 terror attack can be cited as one classical example. Ajmal Kasab, the only surviving attacker, revealed that the terrorists constantly used Twitter to get up-to-date information, especially on the positioning and movements of the Indian defence and counter-terror units, by following public Twitter feeds and hashtags (Leggio, 2008; O’Rourke, 2010; Rabasa, Blackwill, & Chalk, 2009).

According to Archetti (2013), the online medium is primarily used by the terror groups like the ISIS or the Al-Qaeda for diffusing extremist content that is targeted to reach vulnerable and young individuals and radicalise them towards the path of terrorism, especially lone wolf terrorism (Weimann, 2012). A lone wolf terrorist is someone who individually indulges in violence as an act of supporting a particular ideology but does not belong to any organised terror groups or organisations. To foster such individuals, websites or sometimes even online magazines are launched to offer detailed theoretical and practical training that is aimed at persuading the readers to take immediate action on their own (Pantucci, 2011). Al-Qaeda’s first online presence through their website under the web address alneda.com that actively propagated Jihadism and violence to Al-Qaeda members in the late 1990s is one such pioneer example in this context. In fact, the site is also stated to contain visual and sound clips of Osama bin Laden justifying the 9/11 attack terror attack (Denning, 2010).

In addition to the website, the Al-Qaeda franchise was also noticed to be quite interested in the idea of producing and publishing online magazines to reinforce their message and to radicalise their readers towards their ideologies. The use of English language e-magazine for disseminating terror propaganda gained popularity with the launch of Jihad Recollections by the Al-Qaeda on April 2009. Running for a total of seven issues, the magazine was intended to provide quality jihadi content in the English language in comparison to its Arabic counterparts. According to Khan—the self-publisher of ‘Jihad Recollections’—the magazine was envisioned to tackle the issues concerning the global Muslim community particularly focussing on the West, and it was aimed at building a proper and clean reputation of the Mujahideen. The magazine was packed with high-quality political analysis, biographies of Al-Qaeda leaders and extremist discussions primarily targeting the elite jihadist community. The magazine was observed to attract its intended target, as its views and downloads skyrocketed rapidly upon the release of each issue (Rogan, 2016).

‘Jihad Recollections’ achieved its purpose by developing the guilt of inactiveness among the jihadist community, but the reader and supporters had no clue on how they could contribute towards the cause of the Al-Qaeda and get involved in the terror act. In order to fulfil this demand of information regarding the action needed form the jihadist community, Khan with the support of Al-Awlaki (a Yemeni-American radical Islamist under the Al-Qaeda) launched a new series of magazine—Inspire—in the year 2010. ‘Inspire’ aimed more on driving its readers towards actions in support of the Al-Qaeda ideologies rather than intellectually educating its audience on Jihadism. The inspire magazine predominantly fostered self-training and instructional content, including do-it-yourself kits, bomb-making using everyday ingredients found in the kitchen and Open Source Jihad. As a matter of fact, the enormous reach and success of ‘Inspire’ led to the launch of a gender-focussed e-magazine titled ‘Al-Shamika’ (the majestic woman) that focussed on fashion, lifestyle and jihadism targeting the Muslim women community by the Al-Qaeda (Al-Tabaa, 2013). The magazine contained an article that promotes the Al-Qaeda’s ideologies and Islamic radical content, written by women following the layout and style of Western beauty magazines.

Similar to the Al-Qaeda, the ISIS was also the avid publisher of the radical online magazines among which ‘Dabiq’ is considered to be the most noteworthy series. ‘Dabiq’ was launched by the Al-Hayat (‘Life’) Media Centre—the media house of the Islamic State—on receiving optimistic feedback for its initial e-magazine experimentation—Islamic State News (Milton, 2014). Named after a Syrian town near the Turkish border where the believers battle against the infidels, the magazine typically runs for 40–80 pages containing articles, speeches and commentaries, legitimising the political and religious views of the Islamic State members and supporters (Novenario, 2016). ‘Dabiq’ ran for almost 15 issues after which the first issue of ‘Rumiyah’ was released by the ISIS on 6 September 2016 (McKernan, 2016). Scholars analysing the difference and similarities of the content between the two magazines stated that though both followed similar design patterns—photographic Westernised layouts—‘Rumiyah’ tend to emphasise on current operations of the ISIS while ‘Dabiq’ focussed on disseminating ISIS ideologies and propaganda (Latif, 2017). Another important similarity between ‘Rumiyah’ and ‘Dabiq’ is the constant practice of using selective Islamic scripture for justifying their act of violence (Wignell, Tan, O’Halloran, & Lange, 2017). It is also vital to note that the narratives of both the magazines—‘Rumiyah’ and ‘Dabiq’—were primarily intended for three types of readers, namely the supporters of Islamic State, the Islamic State members and potential recruits, that is, Muslims across the world (Mahzam, 2017).

With online social technologies being useful only for personally targeting specific individuals, these magazines were the only option for the terror groups to reach a wider audience. With cyber magazines becoming the pivotal communication channels of global terror groups, many scholars (Colas, 2017; Gambhir, 2014; Kirke, 2015; Vergani & Bliuc, 2015) have examined them to comprehend the ways through which the content promotes self-radicalisation among its readers. For instance, Sivek (2013) conducted an extensive investigation of the nature of the content packed within the Inspire magazine series. The study used the Helfstein’s (2012) model of self-radicalisation that consists of four stages, namely awareness, interest, acceptance and implementation. It was found that style, content and creative design (that matched with the Western culture) in the digital pages of the Inspire magazine calibrated and aided its readers/potential jihadists to travel through all the four stages of the self-radicalisation process.

This is the brief outlook on the existing literature on e-magazine used for radicalising and disseminating terror propaganda. In a similar fashion, the current study aims to examine the first issue of the e-magazine—the ‘Wyeth: The Resistance Flow’—recently launched by LeT to understand the ways in which it might boost the self-radicalisation process of the Indian youth and how it might pose a threat to the nation.

Methodology

For the present study, the researchers were able to download the soft copy of the first issue of the online magazine—Wyeth: The Resistance in Flow—launched by LeT from the Internet Archive (https://archive.org/). The magazine was published in such a way that it was openly accessible to any mainstream internet users, irrespective of their interest towards jihadism. The content of the magazine was thoroughly analysed along with its aesthetic appeal through features such as physical appearance, pseudo advertisements, the quality of graphics and photographs used, to mention a few.

Physical Characteristics

The format and visual appeal of the Wyeth magazine were almost on par with any professional e-magazine that was available in the online market. Excluding a few flaws, in the area of graphic design (such as overload of content in a single page, legibility/readability of the fonts used, to name a few), the full magazine that runs up to eight pages was well packaged for the intended audience, that is, Kashmiri youth. From Figure 1 which displays the cover page of the Wyeth magazine, it is evident that the magazine is bilingual. The cover page that contains a collage of pictures with a shot of Kashmir towards the right and men with guns towards the left visually conveys the overall theme of the magazine, that is, Kashmir’s struggle (especially Kashmiri Muslims) and its restoration through violence.

Figure 1.

Source: The authors

According to the Editorial section of the magazine, the magazine is named after a Kashmiri rivulet ‘Wyeth’ which is claimed never to be stagnant. In addition to this symbolic association, the word ‘Wyeth’ is claimed to bear the meaning ‘war strength’ which signified its main objective of expressing and propagating Kashmir’s struggle and to fight for its freedom from India’s oppression and slavery as quoted in the following paragraph:

It flows till it reaches or meets its destination and ‘In Shaa Allah’ our struggle will reach to its destination when it breaks the shackles & barricades of Indian occupation and Kashmir will get its freedom from the oppression and slavery of Indian blood socked hands and claws. We will flow till we achieve our mission/objective.

–Wyeth (Editorial, Issue 1)

Type of Content

It is clear from Figure 2 that the Wyeth magazine is primarily encompassed of essay-style write-ups, interviews of prominent members of the LeT and fact sheets about the Kashmiri struggles (as claimed by the LeT). In addition, eye-catchy photographs and high-quality infographics as shown in Figure 3 were included for visually persuading the readers to read a magazine without getting bored or distracted.

Figure 2.

Source: The authors

Figure 3.

Source: The authors

One of the most crucial characteristics of the Wyeth is the use of verses and snippets taken from the holy Quran and misinterpreting it for justifying the act of violence and for encouraging the readers to fight for the cause of ‘Allah’. For instance, in the section of the magazine that contained an article on the interview with Dr. Abdullah Ghaznawi (LeT spokesperson), references to the spiritual text are made quite repeatedly to support his views towards righteousness of ‘Jihad e Kashmir’ (Kashmir Jihad). Some of the text from the Quran which was used in the article are listed below.

And why should ye not fight in the cause of Allah and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated (and oppressed)? Men, women, and children, whose cry is: ‘Our Lord! Rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from thee one who will protect; and raise for us from thee one who will help!’

(Al-Nisa: 75)

O Prophet! Urge on the faithful to fight: If there be twenty patient men among you, they shall overcome two hundred; and if there be a hundred of you, they shall overcome a thousand of the faithless, for they are a lot who do not understand.

(Al-Anfal: 65)

It is important to note that verses contained in the holy book of Quran when isolated from its contextual background—as given in the Wyeth magazine—leads to adverse distortion of its intended meaning and message. In reality, the words Jihad and Qitaal (fighting) are used frequently in the Islamic spiritual text often accompanied with the words fee sabeellillah (in the path of Allah). As a matter of fact, Quran and all the authentic books of Hadith contain exclusive chapters that deal with the concept of Jihad, detailing on how and when the religious war Jihadism is to be performed (Begg, 2008). For instance, the English version of Ma’ariful Qur’an—the most well-known tafsir (exegesis) of the Quran—clearly states that Muslims are strictly prohibited from harming categories of people like women, children, aged people, the physically handicapped and even the casual labourers who work under the attacker. Above all, Muslims are allowed to fight only when the disbelievers attack or fight them as quoted below:

Surah Al-Baqarah2: 189 - 191 483

The command in this verse is that Muslims should fight only those disbelievers who come to fight against them. It means that there are other people too who do not take part in fighting, such as, the women, the children, the very old, the priests and monks and others devoting themselves to quiet religious pursuits, and the physically handicapped, and those casual labourers who work for disbelievers and do not go to fight along with them; it is not permissible to kill such people in a Jihad. The reason is that the command in the verse is restricted to fighting those who come to fight Muslims. The kind of people mentioned above are not all fighters. That is why Muslim Jurists have also ruled that should a woman, an old man or religious person take part in actual fighting along with disbelievers or be helping them in any manner in their fight against the Muslims, then, killing them is permissible because they come under the purview of ‘those who fight you’. (Mazhari, Al-Qurtubi and Al-Jassas)

–Ma’ariful Qur’an

In the first issue of the Wyeth magazine, though pre-eminently filled with verses taken from the Quran and Hadith, was observed that it is never accompanied by its correct contextual reference. The verses used in the magazine were quoted only in the context of war and violence against the Indian government—Jihad devoid of any prerequisite as mentioned in the Quran—primarily to reduce the cognitive dissonance of its readers thereby pushing them towards extremism.

Analysis Based on Helfstein’s Model of Self-Radicalisation

The content of the magazine was further analysed using the Helfstein’s model of self-radicalisation (Helfstein, 2012) to identify the extent to which the magazine can aid in the development of prospective radicals or terrorists supporting the Kashmir Jihad propaganda. As the model depicts the four stages—awareness, interest, acceptance and implementation—of the self-radicalisation process, the entire content of the magazine was categorised based on these stages.

Awareness—the initial phase of self-radicalisation as stated by Helfstein (2012)—signifies the act of building the individual knowledge on extremist ideologies and the tactics of terrorism. For the present analysis, any content that informed the readers regarding the Kashmir struggle and Kashmir Jihad was classified under the Awareness tag. By analysing the entire content of the first issue of the Wyeth magazine, it was found that almost 90 per cent of the articles were intended to educate the readers on the LeT’s perspective of the Kashmiri struggles. For example, articles written by leaders and experts such as Prof. Gazi Adnan Hamza, Br. Ifthikhar Ahmad (Research scholar) and Ummi Saad titled ‘A Brief History of Kashmir Struggle’, ‘Chemical weaponry threat in Occupied Kashmir’ and ‘Overview of the Role of Women in the Kashmir Resistance’ extensively talk about the injustice caused by the Indian government and the Kashmiris’ continuous struggle against the oppression and injustice. Their articles were also observed to be supplemented with quotes from the Quran to further amplify the emotional appeal of the content.

Following awareness, interest is claimed to be the second step towards the self-radicalisation process as per the Helfstein’s model. Interest denotes one’s willingness to change his/her moderate belief system in order to accommodate new ideologies. The packaging techniques and the presentation layout designs used in the magazine constitute its prime attention-generating factor. The use of high-quality photographs highlighted scriptural literature given in the bilingual form, and the wide use of infographics are some of the techniques used in the first issue to give a more credible and professional outlook, thereby increasing the overall interest in the ideologies present inside.

Acceptance is the third component of the self-radicalisation process where one fully accepts the extremist ideologies without any mental dissonance. The present issue of the Wyeth magazine offers one article titled ‘Jihad: In the Shade of Quran and Hadith’ which discusses the various objectives of Jihadism, supported by holy verses extracted from the Quran and the Hadith, and it fits the acceptance category. This article points outs the primary purpose behind jihadism and promotes the act of violence against disbelievers or ‘the enemies of Islam’. The article also contains a large proportion of text taken from the Quran and the Hadith justifying violence with the intention of persuading the readers to accept the extreme Jihad principles without any hesitation. The following are a few of the spiritual quotes that were given in the article which glorifies and supports Jihadism:

Warfare is ordained for you, though you dislike it.

(Al-Baqarah: 216)

Allah ta’ala has said:

‘And fight them until persecution is not more, and religion is for Allah. But if they desist, then let there be no hostility except against wrong doers.’

(Al-Baqarah: 193)

Sanction is given unto those who fight because they have been wronged; and Allah is indeed able to give them victory.

(Al-Hajj: 39)

In all the above instances, Quranic verses are used extensively and they are again and again quoted out of the context. Hence, the propaganda is designed in such a way that the target readers are misled in the name of religion and God. Such a propaganda can be nullified by the counter propaganda that involves a clear rendering of the Quran and a perfect demonstration of how the religious text is purposefully misquoted.

The final phase of self-radicalisation according to the Helfstein’s model is the implementation stage where one transforms into a complete jihadi by involving himself/herself in an act of violence. In terms of the content of the Wyeth magazine, no article in the pilot issue deals with the implementation phase. But it is vital to note that prominent forerunners of the Wyeth magazine that have been run by global terror groups in the past such as ‘Inspire’ have provided volumes of ideas to induce violence in their later issues (Lemieux, Brachman, Levitt, & Wood, 2014). Hence, there is a high possibility for the Wyeth magazine to provide guides on gunfire training or bomb-making or attacks that can be planned and executed by the self-radicalised individuals in its following issues, even though this area is not focussed in its current issue.

Analysis Based on the Galtung’s Model of Peace Journalism

Finally, in order to examine the nature of the content published in the first issue of the Wyeth magazine, the Galtung’s model of peace journalism was adopted. The Galtung’s model of peace journalism is a dichotomous technique of analysing content on war reporting and war coverage. The model contains four key elements of two contrasting approaches, namely war and peace journalism. War journalism contains violence-orientated, propaganda-orientated, elite-orientated and victory-orientated as four elements of interest. While conflict-orientated, truth-orientated, people-orientated and solution-orientated fall under the clan of peace journalism. The significance of each element in the war and the peace journalism category is outlined in Table 1.

Table 1.

Elements of the Galtung’s Model of Peace Journalism

War Journalism	Peace Journalism
Violence-orientated: Clear distinction of the two parties involved as ‘us’ and ‘them’. Dehumanisation and seeing ‘them’ as the problem.	Conflict-orientated: The focus moves beyond the two parties that are involved in the conflict. Explore the formation of the conflict, treat it like a problem and find a solutions to solve it.
Propaganda-orientated: Keen in exposing the so-called lies (untruths) of the ‘them’—opposing party and in safeguarding their ‘own’ story as a cover-up strategy.	Truth-orientated: Efforts are made to expose lies and cover-up stories regarding both the parties involved.
Elite-orientated: Placing the focus on elite peacemakers and the suffering of our ‘own’.	People-orientated: Equal focus is given to suffering of all and is given to grass-roots peace-makers.
Victory-orientated: Peace is shown to be achieved only through victory and ceasefire by keeping all other options hidden and out of discussion.	Solution-orientated: Concentrates on creative conflict resolutions and peace initiatives. Also, it prevents future wars.

Source: Ottosen (2010).

The Galtung’s model of peace journalism has been extensively employed by media researchers (Hällgren, 2012; Lynch, 2007; Ottosen, 2010) for analysing news content on conflict and war coverage. In this context, the content taken from the Wyeth magazine was examined to identify its fit towards the Galtung’s model of peace journalism. The model was applied to every article that was present in the magazine, and it was found that the first issue of the Wyeth magazine predominantly sported characteristics that fell under the category of war journalism. Violence-oriented content with the clear distinction of the two parties involved—LeT (Our) and the Indian army/government—has been stressed in multiple places within the magazine text. The quote below taken from the interview of the LeT spokesperson Dr Abdullah Gaznawi can be cited as one such instance:

First of all, I am happy to see a lot of changes in my home land, our youth is our capital. Alhamdulillah, Majority of young guys are coming voluntarily to join armed struggle against terrorist Indian army who are accused of killing 3 lakh innocent peoples in Kashmir.

–Wyeth (Issue 1)

Next, to violence, propaganda-oriented content can be witnessed to be given in an explicit manner targeting the Indian government throughout the magazine. Starting from the Editorial section where the magazine claims to expose the Indian government in the final article titled ‘Freedom Struggle’ constantly points out the operations undertaken by the Indian government to eradicate Islamism and techniques used by the government to spread anti-Islamic propaganda. Some of the statements relevant to the above claim taken from the magazine is quoted below:

This Wyeth is just an initiative to expose the Indian claims which it tries to propagate through media and tries to show to the world and ‘In Shaa Allah’ we will expose the India and its stooges at every stage possible.

–Wyeth (Editorial, Issue 1)

India has not only occupied our land but also has been trying to occupy our minds by introducing and propagating anti-Islam and anti-Kashmir things in such a way that most of the people think good of it but the reality is something else.

–Wyeth (Issue 1)

Lastly, the war journalism attribute that was spotted the most was the presence of victory-oriented text. As quoted in the statements given below, the one message that keeps repeating throughout the magazine text is that readers should become a ‘jihadi’ (more specially ‘Kashmiri Jihadi’) and fight hard to free the Jammu and Kashmir region from India’s control.

They will fight and fight till sacred goal is achieved . I salute the people of J&K for their determination, dedication and conviction.

–Wyeth (Issue 1)

Our Freedom struggle is heading towards conclusion. India has already lost the war and is breathing its last.

–Wyeth (Issue 1)

Discussion

From the above analysis, it is evident that the first issue of the Wyeth magazine is quite similar to other earlier and global initiatives in the e-magazine genre in terms of physical outlook and characteristics. The use of Westernised packaging techniques and the professional layout design as seen in the LeT’s Wyeth magazine were already documented in the e-terror magazine such as the ‘Inspire’ by the Al-Qaeda (Ryan, 2013 ) or the ‘Dabiq’ by the ISIS (Mahood & Rane, 2017). Another similarity that can be spotted in radical magazines including Wyeth is the use of spiritual literature and snippets taken from holy books to justify the act of violence and extremism followed by its publisher—terror groups across the globe (Wignell et al., 2017). In terms of the Helfstein’s model of self-radicalisation, it was found that the first issue of the Wyeth magazine focus more on the initial phases of the self-radicalisation process—awareness and interest—and does not provide much content or information on the actual implementation of jihadi acts. But when the ‘Inspire’ magazine was analysed using the same framework, it was identified that it provided an equal level of importance to all the four phases of the self-radicalisation process, including implementation (Sivek, 2013). As a matter of fact, many articles in the Inspire magazine concentrated on the implementation including jihadi training materials and do-it-yourself (DIYs) section under the title ‘Open Source Jihad’ for its readers.

Conclusion

Information warfare is the norm of today’s wars and conflicts. The terrorist organisations too have decided to go with the trend and to persuade the youngsters towards their ideologies through the manipulation of information. The digital medium is their most preferred medium as it enables them to reach the youngsters at a minimal cost. The anti-terror organisations, including the governments, need to study the digital communication strategies employed by the terrorists in-depth in all forms, including the magazines. Such an in-depth analysis would help them understand the various strategies employed in magazine journalism and would go a long way in countering their designs and also in making the world a peaceful place to live in.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) as a part of a major research project titled ‘Online Media and Youth Radicalization: An In-Depth Analysis of its origin, nature and preventive measures’.

References

Al-Tabaa

E. S.

(2013). Targeting a female audience: American Muslim women’s perceptions of Al-Qaida propaganda. Journal of Strategic Security, 6(5), 4.

Archetti

(2013). (Mis) Communication wars: Terrorism, counterterrorism and the media. London and New York City: IB Tauris.

Atayf

(2012). Scholars speak out in favour of ‘electronic Jihad’ against the enemy. Al-Arabiya online. Retrieved from https://2010-14.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm?blog_id=40284&Scholars%2Dspeak%2Dout%2Din%2Dfavor%2Dof%2Delectronic%2DJihad%2Dagainst%2Dthe%2Denemy

Begg

(2008). Jihad and terrorism: A war of the words. Global Alliance against Terrorism for a Just Peace, 49. https://www.cage.ngo/jihad-and-terrorism-war-words

Bloom

(2012). Bombshell: Women and terrorism. Pennsylvania, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Charvat

(2010). Radicalization on the Internet. Iklódy, Gábor, JaakAaviksoo, Alan Brill E., Marco Gercke, Anna-Maria Talihärm and Julian Charvat, ‘Defence Against Terrorism Review’, Defence Against Terrorism, 3(2), 75–86.

Colas

(2017). What does Dabiq do? ISIS hermeneutics and organizational fractures within Dabiq magazine. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 40(3), 173–190.

Conway

(2006). Terrorism and the Internet: New media—New threat? Parliamentary Affairs, 59(2), 283–298.

Conway

, Parker

, & Looney

(2017). Online jihadi instructional content: The role of magazines. Terrorists’ Use of the Internet: Assessment and Response, 136, 182–193. doi: 10.3233/978-1-61499-765-8-182

10.

Deccan Chronicle (2018, June 23). In launch edition of online magazine, LeT warns Army in J&K of ‘tough 2018’. Retrieved from https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/current-affairs/230618/launch-edition-online-magazine-let-warns-indian-army-jk-of-tough-2018.html

11.

Denning

D. E.

(2010). Terror’s web: How the internet is transforming terrorism. In Jewkes

& Yar

(Eds.), Handbook of internet crime (pp. 194–213). UK: Willan Publishing.

12.

Gambhir

H. K.

(2014). Dabiq: The strategic messaging of the Islamic state (p. 15). Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of War.

13.

Hällgren

(2012). Peace-and war journalism: A critical discourse analysis of newspaper editorials on the topic of Iran’s nuclear program. Retrieved from http://umu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A746987&dswid=-9421

14.

Helfstein

(2012). Edges of radicalization: Ideas, individuals and networks in violent extremism. West Point, NY: Military academy west point NY combating terrorism center.

15.

Kirke

(2015). Violence and political myth: Radicalizing believers in the pages of Inspire magazine. International Political Sociology, 9(4), 283–298.

16.

Latif

D. A.

(2017). What do they say? Mapping the propaganda discourse of Islamic State publications: An analysis of Dabiq and Rumiyah (Doctoral dissertation). Central European University.

17.

Leggio

(2008). Mumbai attack coverage demonstrates (good and bad) maturation point of social media. CBS Interactive, 28. https://www.zdnet.com/article/mumbai-attack-coverage-demonstrates-good-and-bad-maturation-point-of-social-media

18.

Lemieux

A. F.

, Brachman

J. M.

, Levitt

, & Wood

(2014). Inspire magazine: A critical analysis of its significance and potential impact through the lens of the information, motivation, and behavioral skills model. Terrorism and Political Violence, 26(2), 354–371.

19.

Lynch

(2007). A course in peace journalism. Conflict and Communication Online, 6(1), 1–20.

20.

Mahzam

(2017). Rumiyah–Jihadist propaganda & information warfare in cyberspace. Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses, 9(3), 8–14.

21.

Mahood

, & Rane

(2017). Islamist narratives in ISIS recruitment propaganda. The Journal of International Communication, 23(1), 15–35.

22.

McKernan

(2016). Isis’ new magazine Rumiyah shows the terror group is ‘struggling to adjust to losses’. The Independent. Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-propaganda-terror-group-losses-syria-iraq-a7228286.html

23.

Milton

(2014). The Islamic state: An adaptive organization facing increasing challenges. The group that calls itself a state: Understanding the evolution and challenges of the Islamic state. US: The Combating Terrorism Center.

24.

Novenario

C. M. I.

(2016). Differentiating Al Qaeda and the Islamic State through strategies publicized in Jihadist magazines. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 39(11), 953–967.

25.

O’Rourke

(2010). The emergent challenges for policing terrorism: Lessons from Mumbai. Retrieved from http://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=act

26.

Ottosen

(2010). The war in Afghanistan and peace journalism in practice. Media, War and Conflict, 3(3), 261–278.

27.

Pantucci

(2011). A typology of lone wolves: Preliminary analysis of lone Islamist terrorists. London, England: International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence.

28.

Papic

, & Noonan

(2011). Social media as a tool for protest. Stratfor Global Intelligence, 3. https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/social-media-tool-protest

29.

Putra

N. F. A.

, & Ibrahim

(2017). Online radicalization and violent extremism. Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research, 3(11).

30.

Rabasa

, Blackwill

R. D.

, & Chalk

(2009). The lessons of Mumbai (Vol. 249). India: Rand Corporation.

31.

Robyn

(2010). Make a bomb in your Mums kitchen: Cyber recruiting and socialisation of ‘white moors’ and home grown jihadist. Australian Counter Terrorism Conference School of Computer and Information Science, Edith Cowan University Perth, Western Australia (pp. 54–61).

32.

Rogan

(2016). Inspiring hate: AQAP’s inspire publication. In Impact of communication and the media on ethnic conflict (pp. 1–22). USA: IGI Global.

33.

Rudner

(2017). ‘Electronic Jihad’: The internet as Al Qaeda’s catalyst for global terror. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 40(1), 10–23.

34.

Ryan

M. W.

(2013). Decoding Al-Qaeda’s strategy: The deep battle against America. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

35.

Sivek

S. C.

(2013). Packaging inspiration: Al Qaeda’s digital magazine in the self-radicalization process. International Journal of Communication, 7, 23.

36.

Vergani

, & Bliuc

A. M.

(2015). The evolution of the ISIS’ language: A quantitative analysis of the language of the first year of Dabiq magazine. Sicurezza, Terrorismo e Società (Security, Terrorism and Society), 2(2), 7–20.

37.

Weimann

(2012). Lone wolves in cyberspace. Journal of Terrorism Research, 3(2).

38.

Wignell

, Tan

, O’Halloran

K. L.

, & Lange

(2017). A mixed methods empirical examination of changes in emphasis and style in the extremist magazines Dabiq and Rumiyah. Perspectives on Terrorism, 11(2), 2–20.

39.

Woolley

J. K.

, Limperos

A. M.

, & Oliver

M. B.

(2010). The 2008 presidential election, 2.0: A content analysis of user-generated political Facebook groups. Mass Communication and Society, 13(5), 631–652.