The first dataset consists of what the Islamic State said it did in the Badia in 2020, while the second dataset consists of what local pro-regime sources said the Islamic State did there in 2020. This report explores this phenomenon by cross-analyzing two datasets. Based on the fact that Islamic State reporting appears to be mainly accurate in other regions of Syria, 3 the discrepancies in its Badia claims seem to be the product of either a deliberate, systematic, and sustained campaign of misdirection, an inability on the part of its Central Media Diwan to keep abreast of what is going on, or a combination of both. Rather, reporting discrepancies like this have been occurring for years now. However, counter-intuitively, amidst the hundreds of reports, photo-essays, video clips, and articles that it has published in the weeks since, the Islamic State’s Central Media Diwan did not once mention or allude to the incident.
#JUST PASTE IT ISIS FULL#
After all, it has been known to publish full write-ups about attacks that were much smaller, and much less successful, than this one. Given the scale and success of April’s Hama kidnapping, it might have been expected that the Islamic State would have leaped at the opportunity to trumpet the raid in its global propaganda output. In this often-overlooked part of the country, its network is clearly capable of mounting complex ambushes on large targets and, an even greater concern, going back to ground in areas beyond the reach of its enemies.
This brief episode demonstrated with alarming clarity that the Islamic State is alive and well in central Syria - specifically in the parts of rural Homs, eastern Hama, southern Aleppo, southern Raqqa, and western and southern Deir ez-Zor that are collectively known as the Badia. After back-channel negotiations, the majority were freed later that same day, with local news sources reporting that around 50 of them had been released in exchange for detained family members of the Islamic State fighters. That evening, details emerged about exactly what had happened: a group of some 60 civilians and NDF fighters had been ambushed by Islamic State militants near the Tuwaynan Dam, along the Homs-Hama border, and most if not all of them had been captured alive. Soon after, others began posting that several members of the pro-regime National Defense Forces (NDF) had been admitted into Salamiyah’s central hospital. This suggests that its covert network in Syria may be attempting to surreptitiously establish a strategic hub in this remote central region, something that could act as a rear base for a resurgence in the rest of the country and Iraq in years to come.Ī little after 2:30 PM Damascus time on April 6, 2021, Facebook users in the Syrian city of Salamiyah began posting about an Islamic State attack in rural Hama in which a large number of residents from the village of Sa’an had been captured. Based on the dynamics that characterize this data, which is supported by fieldwork inside Syria, it appears that this under-reporting on the part of the Islamic State, which has continued unabated into 2021, is at least partially intentional. This is starkly evident in the fact that the vast majority of attacks that pro-regime sources attributed to the Islamic State in the Badia, Syria’s expansive central desert region, in 2020 went entirely unclaimed by the group, according to data collected and cross-analyzed by the authors. Indeed, there is a significant disconnect between what the Islamic State is saying its cells in central Syria are doing versus what its adversaries are saying they are doing. Rather than exaggerating their capabilities, something that it is conventionally assumed to be doing all the time, 1 its Central Media Diwan appears either to be deliberately under-playing them, or, less likely, to be unaware of their full extent, possibly due to communication issues. The central media apparatus of the Islamic State group is mis-reporting on the activities of its cells in central Syria.
0 kommentar(er)
