Local Editor

Daesh [Arabic acronym for "ISIS" / "ISIL"], recruiting tens of thousands of insurgents from around the world to join its bloody war in Iraq and Syria, using social media and Western discontent to fuel its atrocities, now appears to be losing its propaganda grip, a new study by West Point's Combating Terrorism Center shows.

According to a report, the amount of media content posted by the violent extremist group per month had plunged from a 700-product peak in August 2015, to below 200 products in August 2016.

To arrive at their conclusions, researchers monitored over 8,000 propaganda pieces issued by Daesh since its inception.

Along with overall materials, the number of posts promoting Daesh as a governed caliphate had markedly decreased, the report noted. At the same time, video posts depicting the execution of traitors had seen a sharp rise.

"The caliphate was their big selling point. Now there's an inability to say we're doing the things that make us a state. And that was behind their broad appeal," report author Daniel Milton commented in an interview with the New York Times.

Daesh is "struggling to maintain the outward appearance of a functioning state" amid bombing campaigns by the US-led alliance and Russia, researchers noted.

It was earlier confirmed that Daesh official spokesperson and strategist Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani was killed in an air strike near the Syrian city of Al Bab.

The report also suggested that a decrease in propaganda activities can be related to social media platforms, such as Twitter, diligently removing any Daesh-related posts and accounts.

The report noted that, despite an overall decrease in posts by Daesh, applications such as Telegram can still be used to spread their increasingly desperate message.

"These challenges are not insurmountable, but require that nations and companies engaged in the fight against ‘ISIS' continue to learn and evolve in their counterterrorism methodologies as well."

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team