1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY-NC-SA 4.0 © 2019, V&R unipress GmbH, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783847109389 – ISBN E-Lib: 9783737009386 1 Religion and Transformation 2 in Contemporary European Society 3 4 5 Studying Jihadism 6 7 8 9 10 Band 14 11 12 13 14 15 Herausgegeben von Kurt Appel, Christian Danz, 16 Jakob Helmut Deibl, Rüdiger Lohlker, Richard Potz 17 18 und Sieglinde Rosenberger 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 Die Bände dieser Reihe sind peer-reviewed. 41 Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY-NC-SA 4.0 © 2019, V&R unipress GmbH, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783847109389 – ISBN E-Lib: 9783737009386 1 Rüdiger Lohlker (ed.) 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 World Wide Warriors 9 10 11 How Jihadis Operate Online 12 13 14 15 With 61 figures 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 & 37 V R unipress 38 39 Vienna University Press 40 41 Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY-NC-SA 4.0 © 2019, V&R unipress GmbH, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783847109389 – ISBN E-Lib: 9783737009386 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen 20 Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über 21 http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar. 22 Veröffentlichungen der Vienna University Press 23 erscheinen im Verlag V&R unipress GmbH. 24 25 An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working 26 with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access for the public good. The Open Access ISBN of this book is 978-3-7370-0938-6. 27 More information about the initiative and links to the Open Access version can be found at 28 www.knowledgeunlatched.org. 29 © 2019, V&R unipress GmbH, Robert-Bosch-Breite 6, D-37079 Göttingen 30 Dieses Werk ist als Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der Creative-Commons-Lizenz BY-NC-ND 31 International 4.0 („Namensnennung – Nicht kommerziell – Keine Bearbeitungen“) unter dem 32 DOI 10.14220/9783737009386 abzurufen. Um eine Kopie dieser Lizenz zu sehen, besuchen Sie https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. 33 Jede Verwertung in anderen als den gesetzlich zugelassenen Fällen bedarf der vorherigen 34 schriftlichen Einwilligung des Verlages. 35 36 Umschlagabbildung: RaT-Logo (Gerfried Kabas, Wien). Redaktion: Marlene Deibl 37 38 Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlage | www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com 39 ISSN 2198-5235 40 ISBN 978-3-7370-0938-6 41 Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY-NC-SA 4.0 © 2019, V&R unipress GmbH, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783847109389 – ISBN E-Lib: 9783737009386 Inhalt Rüdiger Lohlker Introduction:Confusionmeets Confusion................. 7 Rüdiger Lohlker Collective Organizers:Lone Wolves, Remote Control, and Virtual Guidance ................................... 9 Ali Fisher Interrogating the electronic ribat: Data Science in the study of the Jihadist movement.............................. 43 Ali Fisher /Nico Prucha AMilestone for “Islamic State” Propaganda: “The Clangingofthe Swords, part4”................................ 71 Clemens Holzgruber “Now Yo uSee Me –Now Yo uDon’t”: Analysing Jihadists’ Online Privacy-Enhancing and Counter-Surveillance Strategies..........157 Contributors .................................193 Index .....................................195 Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY-NC-SA 4.0 © 2019, V&R unipress GmbH, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783847109389 – ISBN E-Lib: 9783737009386 Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY-NC-SA 4.0 © 2019, V&R unipress GmbH, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783847109389 – ISBN E-Lib: 9783737009386 Rüdiger Lohlker Introduction:Confusion meets Confusion As confusing as the role of religion in jihadism1 seems to be for those not familiar with Arab cultureand Islam, almost as confusingisthe role of the Internet in invigorating jihadism for manyresearchers. The chapters of this book will tryto reduce the level of confusion, based on an understanding of theologyand history of Islam and based on insightsfrom Data Science, therebygoing beyond the state of playofmuch Westernconventional research on jihadism. In 1991 in the aftermath of the first war of the USA (and allies) against Iraq an referring to the American Civil WarManuel De Landa stated: “Thedevelopmentofthe metallic cartridge and breech-loading firearms caused a revolution in tactics that took militarycommanders over ahundredyears to digest.”2 Things did not change,another technologyisapplied today. As in former times the impact of these new technologies is still not understood. We are living in aperiodofmilitaryinnovations in which terrorists have weaponized the Internet3 and Jihadi technicians demostrate their abilitytoadopt to new technological developments The chapters of this volume seek to bring together developments in social media, the innovations of jihadists with devel- opments in the strategic thinkingofjihadists, based mainly on evidence based research into Arabic languagesources and documents fromthe jihadists themselves. This volume seeks to remedy adeficiencyofmuchWesternresearch on ji- hadist terrorism, namely its disregard for religion and the Internet. We will leave aside that the surprising factthat terrorism research at least at 9/11 tends to ignore the role of thea coherenttheologyand religion underlying jihadism. The 1Jihadism means atransnationalmovementwith aspecific Islamic theologyand the use of violence as the main distinction from other contemporaryIslamic movements. 2Manuel De Landa, Warinthe AgeofIntelligentMachines,New Yo rk:Swerve Editions1991, p. 29. 3See the remarks on the consumerization of warfareinthe chapter by Lohlker. Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY-NC-SA 4.0 © 2019, V&R unipress GmbH, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783847109389 – ISBN E-Lib: 9783737009386 8 Rüdiger Lohlker authors rely mainly on evidence produced by the jihadis themselves, not ig- noring it as much of conventional research does.4 Rüdiger Lohlker describes the technical aspects of recentjihadist dis- semimation of operational ressources. The chapterincludes further remarks on jihadists online strategies. Ali Fisher criticizes the technical deficienties of current research on jihadism, not understandingthe real operations of jihadistsonline. Ali Fisher and Nico Prucha presentacase study on the dissemination of jihadist videos online. Clemens Holzgruberanalyzes the jihadist discussion on secure communi- cation online giving insides into the tools used by jihadists. All the chapters introduce ressources that are ignored in conventional re- search because they are in Arabic and religiously contextualized. This makes it necessarytodoaclose reading of the sources to enable the research community to leave the mainstream discourses. Stressing acoherenttheologyofjihadism does not mean jihadism is understoodbyreferring to Islam, the Qur’an etc. We subscribetothe idea recently written down by Ould Mohamedou: “In time the problememerged thus:tounderstand Westernterrorists of the 1970s such as the German RedArmyFaction or the Italian RedBrigades, one is invited to examine the societal condition of post-war GermanyItaly,the ambientmalaise in these countries 25 years after Nazism and fascism, and their relationship with their rebellious youth;to makesense of al-Qaeda or IS, one is asked to read the Qur’an.”5 The presentvolume tries to give insightsthat mayremedy this approach turning to the practice of jihadists, not focussing on the speculations about what they think and what is Islam or not.6 We have to thank our reviewer for helping us to clarifysome ideas in this volume. 4Byway of exception, in the case of the attackers of the WTCin2001, the role of the “Spiritual Manual” and its religious contenthas been recognised (HansG.Kippenberg/Tilmann Sei- densticker (eds.), The 9/11 Handbook,London/Oakville, CT:Equinox 2006). 5Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou, ATheory of ISIS:Political Violence and the Transformation of the Global Order,London: Pluto Press 2018,pp. 8–9. 6Shahab Ahmed, What is Islam?The ImportanceofBeing Islamic,Princeton/Oxford:Princeton University Press 2016. Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY-NC-SA 4.0 © 2019, V&R unipress GmbH, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783847109389 – ISBN E-Lib: 9783737009386 Rüdiger Lohlker Collective Organizers:Lone Wolves, Remote Control, and Virtual Guidance Intro Terrorism ‘research’ is dominated by media-induced vocabulary, which tries to demonize and hype the imminentthreatofterrorist violence:lone wolves or remote control terrorism are two of the most prominentphenomena.1 What is neglected, however,isanattempt to understand what is happening on the ground in jihadist practice.2 Thechapter is organizedinarhizomatic waymirroring theswarm-like movement of jihadi online communication (see below); thechapter is notfol- lowing alinearstory line.Itisbased on acareful selectionofjihadionlinecom- munication duringthe last yearsand uses Arabic language sourcestoclose thegap of knowledgethatisevidentincurrentmainstreamresearchonjihadism. Sincethe knowledgeofArabicsources inthisresearchisnegligeable we feel forced to offeras much informationaspossible. Anyattempt of synthesis wouldbepremature and standinthe wayofathorough understandingofjihadicommunition. Discussing jihadi swarms means analyzing collective