Mona Alami

ISIS has carefully crafted its media campaign and branding strategy using terror to appeal to its international audience and creating revulsion among its enemies. Its brutal messaging has been effective so far, but will escalatory measures on its part, namely mass killings, beheadings and more recently the execution of a Jordanian pilot, Moaz Kassasbeh, who was burned alive, create a backlash in its core constituency?

ISIS success has been built on its ability to state a message loudly and clearly – one based on an ideology of hate built on military successes. This has sown terror among its enemies and facilitated the recruitment of foreign fighters, estimated at 20,000 in a study by the International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence. The center has written that no conflict since 1945 has attracted as many foreign fighters. The ISIS ideology has translated into a claim on territory in Syria and Iraq, and the execution, forced conversion and slavery of Shiites, Sunnis, Yazidis, Christians and others.

Beheading has been a central part of the ISIS communication and branding strategy. The broadcasting of these horrific scenes is part of a larger propaganda war between ISIS and the world. For security expert Robert Bunker, the benefits to ISIS exist on several levels, affecting recruitment and group cohesion, and aim to push the West into making mistakes. These beheadings have also taken on a symbolic meaning for the cult-like ISIS, with their sacrifice of “Crusader” and Muslim apostates.

One immediate consequence appears to have been the decision of the United Arab Emirates to suspend its airstrikes against ISIS in December, after the Jordanian plane was shot down. The UAE cited its fear for its pilots’ safety in taking its decision.

ISIS branding entails the use of an easy and recognizable message combined with a choice of powerful “gang colors.” The group has hijacked the Islamic Shahada (the Islamic profession of faith), known to Muslims around the world, and has placed it on a black flag – similarly to the one used under the Abbasid Caliphate. Black is the color of choice for ISIS. It is a backdrop for the Shahada in the group’s many official statements and is the color of the ninja-like costumes used by ISIS fighters.

Black also presents a powerful contrast with the orange jumpsuits worn by ISIS prisoners. Orange and saffron are traditionally viewed as colors of nonbelievers in Islam. They are also associated with the uniforms worn by Guantanamo prisoners, displaying the contempt of ISIS for its Western prisoners. ISIS branding and identity has made use of icons and images, strengthening the commitment of its jihadi affiliates.

ISIS has marketed internationally its terror narrative by diffusing violent images through social media, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr. In this way it has appealed to ordinary users and mainstream news organizations, making of media outlets unintentional but very effective partners.

The most powerful documentary released by ISIS is “Flames of War,” featuring heroic jihadis as well as gruesome footage of bombings, cold blooded executions, roadside explosions, gunbattles and dead bodies. Thanks to color saturation, the combatants often appear angel-like and glowing. The video, which aims to sow fear among ISIS enemies, has similarities with Leni Riefenstahl’s “Triumph of the Will,” a propaganda film on the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg.

In its videos, Al-Qaeda showed for the most part speeches by Osama ben Laden and scenes filmed in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan. ISIS, in turn, has glamorized violence through better-produced films and beheadings and execution scenes that are, essentially, the group’s “commercials.”

However, another part of ISIS communications is based on more upbeat videos, made by none other than its hostages and mujahedeen. James Foley, Stephen Sotloff and other hostages have been forced to condemn the U.S. government’s “criminal ways” in lengthy videos that lay out clear analytical arguments designed to appeal to the Western audiences of ISIS.

The group has also produced documentaries boasting of the “happy life of Jihadis” in the Islamic state and issuing “Eid Greetings from the Land of the Caliphate.” A documentary filmed in Syria features ISIS fighters from Europe and Asia describing how ecstatic they are at being in a place where Islamic law rules and in being away from the “lands of unbelief” and “humiliation.” The documentary ends with a man carrying children calling for jihadis to “come to Al-Sham” where it is “a grace to live,” while another militant from South Africa adds that “there is no safer place to live when Allah is with you.”

This week’s execution of Kassasbeh contradicts the narrative adopted in the more upbeat ISIS videos. Images of the young man on fire in a cage have led to an outcry in the Arab world, more particularly in Jordan, home to a large Salafist community mostly allied with the Nusra Front. The release of the horrifying images might possibly lead to a backlash among more moderate Salafists and fresh recruits who are looking to join the organization to fight President Bashar Assad’s oppression, as well as undecided Syrian groups jockeying for positions.

However, it won’t affect hard-core jihadis or Iraqi groups affiliated with the terror organization for political reasons. In various chat rooms and on extremist websites such as Manbar al-Tawheed wa al-Jihad, jihadis have underlined that the Jordanian pilot was involved in the “Crusader” bombings in Syria and Iraq. Others hoped that their dead (in reference to Rishawi) would go to heaven while Kassasbeh goes to hell.

These messages underline the growing divide between the followers of ISIS, who share the organization’s Manichean view and who will be emboldened by its most recent “feat,” and the rest of the world. While this divide might put more obstacles in the realization of the ISIS project, it will also reinforce its members’ isolation and, with it, their radical views.