A conference in Baghdad describes Iraq’s use of information warfare to defeat terrorism
UNIPATH STAFF
As coalition forces achieve battlefield victories against Daesh in Iraq and Syria, attention has turned increasingly to attacking the misinformation that Daesh has used to twist the minds of its supporters. The Second International Conference on Psychological and Media Operations to Counter Daesh, hosted by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in Baghdad in August 2016, treated violent extremism as a global problem requiring unity from the 35 nations in attendance.
“It is essential to combat Daesh on social media and defeat their efforts to ignite sectarian violence among citizens,” the Iraqi prime minister said. “The Iraqi government doesn’t discriminate among its citizens based on sect or ethnicity, and our citizens have confidence in their Armed Forces. Despite their repeated defeats, Daesh still poses a threat to Iraq and the world; therefore, we must work closely with our friends and partners.”
Yet it’s not just government that plays an important role in the ideological fight against extremism. In a speech at the conference, Gyorgy Busztin, United Nations representative in Iraq, listed Daesh among takfiri groups like Nigeria’s Boko Haram and Syria’s Jabhat al-Nusrah that behave with inhumanity and pathological hatred. To ultimately destroy these terrorist groups, parents and community leaders must play an even bigger role.
“Sheikhs and parents can affect many of the children and young adults who are inclined to implement extremist activity; the government should not be the sole party involved in debates refuting radicalism,” Busztin said. “When a person has the kind of cognitive opening that can be filled by violent extremism, someone needs to be there to provide alternative narratives and ideas. This program should be an all-of-community model.”
Broadcasting victories
Battlefield successes have been one important way to shift the narrative. As British strategic communications expert Adam Rutland noted at the conference, news of Iraqi Armed Forces victories dominated social media to the detriment of the terrorists.
“Through a week of viewing videos showing the Iraqi Armed Forces advancing toward Mosul, the social media users were very engaged and reached 550,000 views and 18,000 comments,” Rutland said. “We focused on the most important things and strategic messaging to show Daesh defeated and emphasized civilians welcoming the Iraqi forces and joyfully celebrating their freedom.”
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Brig. Gen. Shawkat Abd Albaqi, the director of media in the Iraqi Ground Troop Command, expressed appreciation to coalition forces for helping to improve the Iraqi Army media capabilities by providing cameras, loudspeakers, radio equipment and multimedia transmitters. “This significant improvement allowed us to capture images from the battlefield and transmit them swiftly to the media to deny the terrorist propaganda,” Brig. Gen. Albaqi said.
Such effective communications allowed Iraqi forces to build bridges with the population in Daesh-occupied territories, Maj. Gen. Najim Al-Jabouri noted. As an example, he mentioned the use of loudspeaker technology to give instructions to civilians trapped in war zones, boost the morale of Iraqi Soldiers and demoralize the terrorists.
That positive media campaign played an important part in the expulsion of Daesh from Fallujah in 2016. Iraqi Counterterrorism Service spokesman Sabah Nouri recalled how social media images of special forces raising the Iraqi flag over Fallujah’s hospital and other landmarks helped speed the defeat of Daesh.
Equally important to counterterrorism operations is building trust between troops and civilians to counter the sectarian divisions incited by Daesh. “The most critical way to make civilians support the Armed Forces is [images] of Soldiers who share their food and water with children and elderly,” said Staff Brig. Gen. Haider Razouqi, an Iraqi special operations unit commander.
The general recounted a now-famous story about a boy who refused to evacuate from his home because he didn’t want to leave his pet birds behind. The child’s mother screamed at him to leave, afraid of the bombs falling nearby, but the boy would not budge. To solve the problem, Brig. Gen. Haider ordered his Soldiers to carry the boy’s bird cage into the military truck and drive the family to safety.
Unifying messaging
In another presentation at the conference, Maj. Gen. Douglas Chalmers, deputy commander of coalition forces, listed the impressive accomplishments of the Iraqi military’s media operations. Gen. Chalmers estimated that the terrorists lost 65 percent of their media operations with the Iraqi liberation of Ramadi and Fallujah. Meanwhile, the social media page of the Iraqi Ministry of Defence has emerged as a popular site, with nearly 1.5 million followers.
“Daesh used to control a large [portion]of Iraq, and had an aggressive propaganda machine that dominated the social media platform. However, the situation has changed now,” Chalmers said.
To reduce distrust, Chalmers urged Iraqis to unify their media messaging during the liberation of Mosul, a point seconded by Qassim Mohamad, director of media in the Iraqi prime minister’s office. Mohamad said Daesh would use any disunity in messaging to create friction among Iraqis. He also urged Iraq to create more English-language broadcasts to inform Western audiences about progress in the country.
Nofil Al-Sultan, governor of Ninawa province in northern Iraq, noted that discontent among young men in Mosul helped create sleeper cells that aided Daesh’s takeover in 2014. He called for the creation of a counterterrorism program in liberated Mosul to protect young people from the toxic ideology of violent extremism.
Psychological warfare expert Dr. Saad Aloubaidi agreed with the governor’s diagnosis. People in Mosul were so upset about how they were treated by the central government in Baghdad that they “psychologically collapsed” years before Daesh’s arrival. Dr. Aloubaidi and others recommended that Iraq promote national unity and reconciliation as a substitute for sectarianism.
Another speaker, Sheikh Abdul Allah Al-Jarba of Iraq’s Shamari tribe, estimated that only 1 percent of Mosul’s population supported Daesh and that most residents are best viewed as hostages of the terrorists.
The future fight
Daesh’s failure to create a stable state, combined with its large loss of territory, has forced the terrorists to change their narratives, said Dan Jank of the Daesh counterpropaganda office. “They are now saying it is not necessary to hold territory, but encourage terrorists who want to join them to carry out individual attacks in their towns instead of travel,” Jank told conference attendees. “This means Daesh is unable to hold ground, and their next phase will be single attacks on public places, only to make it to the headline news.”
In the future struggle against terrorism, it is wise to remember the sacrifice of heroes conducting the information campaign against Daesh, said Kadhem Al-Wailie, the special advisor to Combined Joint Task Force in Iraq.
Al-Wailie told the story of Maj. Alaa Al-Edani, a war reporter who filed popular daily media reports with his microphone during the anti-Daesh campaign. Maj. Alaa was traveling to the front lines near Fallujah to deliver news to the people of Iraq when his car was destroyed by an improvised explosive device. He was badly burned and lost his eyes in the explosion. Thousands of his viewers took to social media like Facebook to express their shock. Happily, Maj. Alaa survived and vows to return to reporting the news from the battlefront.
“A nation that forgets its heroes is a nation that is going to diminish,” Al-Wailie announced to the conference. “Therefore we must remember the men who fight to defend their land and defeat Daesh.”
Recommendations from the Second International Conference on Psychological and Media Operations to Counter Daesh
- The international community should support Iraq in its fight against Daesh.
- Iraq must unify its media narrative and social media to combat terror ideology.
- The United Nations must emphasize that Daesh is a terrorist group that hates humanity, whereas Islam as a religion advocates peace and tolerance.
- The world must focus on human rights and expose Daesh’s crimes against humanity.
- Nations should work together to support and improve official media campaigns.
- Iraqis must use the lessons from Ramadi and Fallujah to gain the trust of Mosul residents during and after liberation.