(Washington Post) Joby Warrick - Internet posts have been purporting to show Islamic State operatives casing landmarks in Western cities and urging followers to carry out attacks wherever they are. "It is time to harvest the heads," the narrator in one such video states. The Islamic State's propaganda machine remains very much alive three months after the fall of its capital in Raqqa, Syria. While the caliphate has been reduced to a handful of villages in the Syrian desert, the "virtual caliphate" fights on, a diminished but still formidable presence. Last week, the Islamic State's Amaq news agency issued its first English-language communiques since mid-September, just before the fall of Raqqa. The first weeks of 2018 have also seen a sharp rise in traffic on pro-Islamic State social media accounts compared with previous months. "The Islamic State is now showing the first signs of a regrouping media operation," said Rita Katz, executive director of the SITE Intelligence Group that monitors jihadist content.
2018-01-25 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive