Vocativ
by Gilad Shiloach
A slew of Islamic State propaganda videos broadcast robust calls for militants to attack governments across North Africa.
The Islamic State has launched a massive propaganda campaign against North African nations that denounces their “westernized regimes,” calls on al-Qaeda fighters to join ISIS and threatens terror attacks across the northern part of the African continent.
The campaign, called “The Islamic Maghrib,” is playing out across Twitter and Telegramand includes at least six official videos in which ISIS militants rail against “secular” regimes in Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Tunisia, Vocativ deep web analysts discovered. The videos feature mostly North African militants who fight with ISIS in Syria, Iraq and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. They attack leaders of North African countries and criticize the outcomes of the Arab Spring, which toppled longtime leaders five years ago and led to sweeping unrest across the region.
ISIS’ campaign could be seen as a response to al-Qaeda’s renewed assertion of dominance. Al-Qaeda, has started to show signs of resurgence in North Africa of late, claiming responsibility for deadly terror attacks in Mali and Burkina Faso. Its affiliate in North Africa, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghrib, or AQIM, reportedly partnered with the noted Algerian jihadist Al-Mourabitoun group last year.
In one video released as part of the ongoing media blitz, a Tunisian who joined the Islamic State’s Deir al-Zor Province in Syria urges the terror group’s supporters in his home country to “follow the way of your brothers in France.” He appears to suggest that the militants who killed more than 100 people in Paris last year were able to strike in spite of heavy security, so it would be even easier to carry out an attack in Tunisia, where security is not as tight. In the same video, a Libyan fighter calls on “the lions of the Islamic State to send suicide attackers and car bombs” to target regimes across North Africa.
One Moroccan fighter from the Islamic State’s Raqqa Province, a branch of the group in its stronghold in Syria, denounces Moroccan leaders who “implemented the Crusader project”—meaning, working for the West and established “a civil, secular and democratic state” that he says is against Sharia law. He also slams the spread of “licentiousness, prostitution, alcohol and corruption” fueled by tourism in Morocco.
In another video, a Tunisian fighter from the same branch criticizes the democratic governments elected in Tunisia after the Arab Spring, accusing them of fighting Islam by implementing secular policies. “Explode their ways, don’t let them live,” he urges the group’s supporters in Tunisia.
Alongside the official campaign, Islamic State loyalists distributed unofficial videos, posts and infographics with the hashtag “The_Islamic_Maghrib,” which is also being used to circulate the official videos.
