<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/48364007.cms" style="width: 800px; height: 600px;" /><br /> The Islamic State is trying to lure wannabe jihadists by bizarre offers. It has come out with a online 'holiday brochure' offering travelers swimming, sunshine and beekeeping in war-torn <keyword id="6355112" type="COUNTRY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Iraq">Iraq</keyword>. <br /><br />

	The new holiday brochure offers tourists sunshine, swimming and the opportunity to sample local delicacies in an exotic locale. But to enjoy the facilities one will have to travel to war-torn lands under the control of the Islamic State. 
<br /><br />

	The jihadi spin doctors released the new brochure showing men diving in the Tigris River in Iraq, enjoying swimming at a picturesque pool and even beekeepers and the honey they produce, the Mirror reported. 
<br /><br /> The pool pictures showing men enjoying a swim come after a recent Islamic State of Iraq and <keyword id="6354913" type="COUNTRY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Syria">Syria</keyword> (<keyword id="174501" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="ISIS">ISIS</keyword>) video showed the execution of four men by drowning as they were put in a cage and lowered into a pool. <br /><br />

	The terror group has been running a sophisticated propaganda operation that extols the virtues of their new regime. 
<br /><br />

	Last month, ISIS posted pictures of tempting choc bars, a bridal boutique and a shopping mall to lure British jihadists to Mosul in Iraq. 
<br /><br />

	They have also boasted of the five-star Nineveh hotel on the river Tigris that has been reopened. 
<br /><br /> The ISIS led by <keyword id="2321866" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Abu-Bakr-al-Baghdadi">Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi</keyword>, a former <keyword id="44984" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Al-Qaeda">al-Qaeda</keyword> commander in Iraq, has gone on to build a global network of affiliates and branches that now stretches from Afghanistan to West Africa. <br /><br />

	Meanwhile, ISIS supporters have reportedly also launched an Android app, allowing others to keep up with news and videos as they are released. 
<br /><br /> The app allows supporters to see new releases from the group, giving them live feeds sorted into categories like "photos reports, daily <keyword id="2684271" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Al-Bayan-radio">al-Bayan Radio</keyword> news bulletins, and video productions", according to SITE Intelligence Group, an American for-profit consultancy that tracks terrorist activity. <br />
	<br />
	(Image credits: Indiatimes)


ISIS lures wannabe jihadists with bizarre holiday offers

<p>A news broadcaster affiliated with the terrorist group ISIS has released an Android app that teaches children the Arabic alphabet - and it's full of references to weapons and jihad.</p><p>Al Bayan Radio, which broadcasts ISIS propaganda on radio waves in the Middle East and through its Android apps, made the app available to supporters on the encrypted messaging app Telegram and other platforms ISIS commonly uses. The app isn't available on the Google Play store, but can be accessed through files shared online.</p><p>This app is the latest step in Al Bayan's expansion - the radio network broadcasts on FM frequencies in the Middle East, but has also recently released <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/isis-releases-android-app-broadcast-al-bayan-radio-2016-2?r=UK&amp;IR=T">other Android apps</a> and Telegram channels that distribute its propaganda to a wider audience.</p><p>The Long War Journal <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2016/05/islamic-state-launches-mobile-app-for-children.php">explained how the kids' app works</a>:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">The app has games for memorizing and how to write the Arabic letters in addition to including a nasheed (a cappella Islamic songs) designed to help teach the alphabet. The lyrics in the nasheed are littered with jihadist terminology, while other games within the app also include militaristic vocabulary with more common, basic words. Words like 'tank,' 'gun,' and 'rocket' are among the first few taught within the application.</p><p>The site took posted these screenshots from the app:</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5734e8809105841d008c289c-281-500/isis app.png" alt="ISIS Al Bayan app" data-mce-source="Al Bayan" /><p class="source"><span>Al Bayan</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5734e8809105844d018c2969-281-500/isis app 2.png" alt="ISIS Al Bayan app" data-mce-source="Al Bayan" /><p class="source"><span>Al Bayan</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5734e880910584145c8c26d3-281-500/isis app 3.png" alt="ISIS Al Bayan app" data-mce-source="Al Bayan" /><p class="source"><span>Al Bayan</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The website noted that this is ISIS' first app, however, aimed exclusively at children.</p><p>But it's far from the only example of ISIS (which is also known as the Islamic State, ISIL, or Daesh) trying to indoctrinate children under the pretense of educating them.</p><p>The group has also released textbooks that teach various subjects using weapons and other terrorist motifs.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/567c3fb3e6183e1c008b4e2d-869-616/isis math problem.png" alt="ISIS textbook math problem" data-mce-source="ISIS" /><p class="source"><span>ISIS</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Children have also featured prominently in photos and videos that ISIS has distributed through its various propaganda networks. They are shown at training camps and in schools, leading experts to worry that children living in ISIS territory are being indoctrinated with terrorist ideology at a young age, which could be difficult to reverse whenever ISIS is defeated.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/carly-falls-trump-jokes-politics-rally-cruz-2016-5">'Even I would've helped her': Trump criticizes Cruz for not helping Fiorina after she fell off stage</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="ZmeXQ5MzE6QT-UWM8nieTnuLWEs7q4vp" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'ZmeXQ5MzE6QT-UWM8nieTnuLWEs7q4vp',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

ISIS has released a new Android app aimed at children

<p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/56fa906bdd08955d6a8b475e-1663-1248/inside the caliphate _mill (5).jpg" alt="ISIS Islamic State" data-mce-source="Militant website / AP" data-mce-caption="In this photo released on May 14, 2015 by a militant website, which has been verified and is consistent with other AP reporting, a member of the Islamic State group's vice police known as &amp;quotHisba,&quot; right, reads a verdict handed down by an Islamic court sentencing many they accused of adultery to lashing, in Raqqa City, Syria." /><p class="source"><span>Militant website / AP</span></p><p class="caption">In this photo released on May 14, 2015 by a militant website, which has been verified and is consistent with other AP reporting, a member of the Islamic State group's vice police known as "Hisba," right, reads a verdict handed down by an Islamic court sentencing many they accused of adultery to lashing, in Raqqa City, Syria.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>The resistance facing Islamic State's online propaganda machine is well-documented, but away from the internet the terror group's media project is organised, far-reaching, and showing no signs of dwindling. </span></p><p>In an <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/totalitarianism-101-islamic-states-offline-propaganda-strategy" target="_blank">article published on Sunday on the Lawfare blog</a>, senior communications researcher Charlie Winter says the West's fixation with the Islamic State's online presence has meant the success of the group's offline propaganda project has gone almost unnoticed. </p><p>Winter, a senior research associate at Georgia State University who specialises in the <span>strategies of international jihadist movements, explained how ISIS, also referred to as IS, ISIL, and Daesh, uses radio and the printed press to disseminate messages across its territories on a daily basis. Business Insider's <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/isis-propaganda-strategy-2015-11" target="_blank">Pamela Engel has previously written</a> about how ISIS' brainwashes those living under its rule.</span></p><p><span>Speaking about the extremist group's "formidable" offline communications effort, Winter said: </span></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span><span>Night and day, the </span>al-Bayan Radio<span> station broadcasts its programs on shortwave frequencies from central Libya to eastern Iraq, with programs ranging from news bulletins and 'history lessons' to on-air </span>fatwas<span> and call-in medical clinics. The formerly-annual </span>al-Naba'<em> </em><span>newsletter has metamorphosed into a weekly newspaper issued on Saturdays, complete with exclusive interviews, opinion pieces, and infographics. </span></span></p><p>According to Winter, recent reports of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/05/islamic-state-losing-recruits-to-casualties-and-desertions-says-washington" target="_blank">fighters dropping in number</a> plus indications that the <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/military-setbacks-financial-strains-pressure-islamic-state-in-home-territory-1458680727" target="_blank">group's finances are being strained </a>have created the popular idea that IS is in a process of regression, but in its heartlands the group's media machine is flourishing and showing no signs of decline. </p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span>Now, for the most part, the common conception is not that the caliphate is in ascendancy, but that it is on a downward - albeit dangerous - trajectory. <span>In the territories that the Islamic State holds dear, though, the story is very different. In these places - its propaganda narrative more pervasive - the situation is borne of an offline media strategy that has, for a long time, been almost totally obscured by the world's fixation on its online equivalent.</span></span></p><p>In provinces controlled by the Islamic fundamentalists, a network of "media points" have been created where IS-approved content can be seen or even downloaded - such as literature, images of "paradise" and video clips showing the gore of warfare. </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/56fa906bdd08955d6a8b475f-800-509/isis movie theater 2.jpg" alt="isis movie theater 2" data-mce-source="MEMRI" data-mce-caption="Children are often shown in the front row of these outdoor theatres." /><p class="source"><span>MEMRI</span></p><p class="caption">Children are often shown in the front row of these outdoor theatres.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>In a recent edition of the group's official Al-Naba newsletter, it is claimed the media point experiment began as a lowly shack in northern Syria, but now accounts for over 60 booths in the <span>Nineveh Province, with at least 25 in the city of Mosul alone. </span></p><p><span>Islamic State has lost several key personnel in recent months, including its <span>"minister of war," Omar al-Shishani and Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, who was described as <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/isis-leader-killed-second-in-command-2016-3" target="_blank">ISIS' No. 2 leader</a>.</span></span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/porsche-911-car-race-ice-driving-lake-2016-3">Watch car fanatics race souped-up Porsche 911s on a frozen lake in Sweden</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="trcWYzMjE62ND-4_9ZALQv45dGJg4J-k" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'trcWYzMjE62ND-4_9ZALQv45dGJg4J-k',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

ISIS' online propaganda may face resistance but offline its media project is thriving

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/575ee29652bcd029008c8ba9-2400/rtx2fukl.jpg" alt="Orlando shooting" data-mce-source="REUTERS/Jim Young" data-mce-caption="Police forensic investigators work at the crime scene of a mass shooting at the Pulse gay night club in Orlando, Florida, U.S. June 12, 2016." /><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Jim Young</span></p><p class="caption">Police forensic investigators work at the crime scene of a mass shooting at the Pulse gay night club in Orlando, Florida, U.S. June 12, 2016.</p></div><p></p></div></div>The terrorist group ISIS on Monday <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/isis-albayan-radio-statement-on-orlando-nightclub-shooting-2016-6">released a second statement</a> on the terror attack in Orlando, providing a more detailed account of the massacre carried out by a 29-year-old US citizen armed with an AR-15 assault-style rifle.</p><p>ISIS (also known as the Islamic State, ISIL, or Daesh) claimed credit for the attack Sunday afternoon. The gunman, Omar Mateen, pledged allegiance to ISIS in a 911 call during the shooting, FBI Director James Comey said.</p><p>Mateen killed 49 people at an LGBTQ nightclub in the massacre.</p><p>The <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/isis-statement-orlando-shooting-attack-2016-6">first statement from ISIS' propaganda channels was brief</a>. The ISIS-affiliated Amaq news agency attributed Mateen's ISIS link to a "source," and the statement did not describe or provide any details about the attack.</p><p>But the second statement, released in an official broadcast on the group's Al Bayan Radio on Monday, was slightly more in-depth.</p><p>"One of the caliphate's soldiers in America carried out a security invasion where he was able to enter a crusader gathering at a nightclub for homosexuals in Orlando, Florida ... where he killed and injured more than a hundred of them before he was killed," the group said in its broadcast, according to Reuters.</p><p>"It is not completely unusual for ISIS to release an expanded version of an al-[Amaq] statement," Michael Horowitz, a geopolitical and security analyst at the Levantine Group, a Middle East-based risk-consultancy organization, told Business Insider in an email. </p><p>He added:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">While it is an open secret that al-Amaq is linked to ISIS, it still attempts to present itself as a neutral 'news source.' This means that al-Amaq often use a softer language than the one found in ISIS official statements, hence the need for a new statement.</p><p>Still, the fact that even the second statement doesn't allude to any inside knowledge of the attacks suggests that the shooting might have been inspired by ISIS rather than directly ordered by the terror group.</p><p>"The information in the Al Bayan thing is, I mean, there's nothing new in it," Charlie Winter, an expert on jihadist propaganda and a senior research associate at Georgia State University's Transcultural and Violence Initiative, told Business Insider.</p><p>"It compounds my suspicions that it was not connected to the organization itself, but was carried out in its name," he added.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/57336c405124c9b1461b0734-800/fbis-comey-expects-more-litigation-over-access-to-electronic-devices-2016-5.jpg" alt="FBI Director James Comey delivers a speech at the Master of Science in Foreign Service CyberProject's sixth annual conference at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., U.S. April 26, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Barria" data-mce-source="Thomson Reuters" data-mce-caption="Comey delivers a speech at Georgetown University in Washington D.C." /><p class="source"><span>Thomson Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">James Comey.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p><span>FBI Director James Comey said Monday that Mateen mentioned links to Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and the Islamic State - all within a three-year span. <span>But Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a counterterrorism analyst and senior fellow at the Foundation for <keyword id="6354810" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Defense">Defense</keyword> of Democracies, told Business Insider that it's not all that unusual for a jihadist at Mateen's level to have conflicting sympathies for different terror groups.</span></span></p><p>Winter noted that if the shooting was inspired rather than carried out on direct orders from ISIS leadership, "it does change somewhat the implications of the attack."</p><p>Other experts have agreed.</p><p>Michael Vickers, a former US undersecretary of defense for intelligence, said on an Atlantic Council conference call Monday that the Orlando shooting "certainly looks far more like an inspired attack."</p><p>"This is a key element of ISIL's strategy," Vickers said.</p><p>Rukmini Callimachi <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/13/us/orlando-omar-mateen-isis.html?smid=tw-share">pointed out the implications of the strategy in The New York Times </a>on Monday.</p><p>"Influencing distant attackers to pledge allegiance to the Islamic State and then carry out mass murder has become a core part of the group's propaganda over the past two years," Callimachi wrote.</p><p>"It is a purposeful blurring of the line between operations that are planned and carried out by the terror group's core fighters and those carried out by its sympathizers," she added.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/575e829452bcd05b008c89fd-1800/pulse nighclub orlando shooting.jpg" alt="Pulse Nighclub Orlando Shooting" data-mce-source="REUTERS/Kevin Kolczynski" data-mce-caption="Police lock down Orange Avenue around Pulse nightclub, where people were killed by a gunman in a shooting rampage in Orlando, Florida June 12, 2016." /><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Kevin Kolczynski</span></p><p class="caption">Police lock down Orange Avenue around Pulse nightclub, where people were killed by a gunman in a shooting rampage in Orlando, Florida June 12, 2016.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Even if Mateen wasn't acting on direct orders from ISIS leadership, he might have been in contact with some ISIS members. And it's likely that, at the very least, he was familiar with the group's ideology and messaging.</p><p>"The fact that Mateen swore allegiance to ISIS on the phone suggest both that he did know the codes of ISIS-inspired attacks, and that he wasn't an ISIS member in the same way that the Paris attackers for instance were," Horowitz said.</p><p>"It suggests that Mateen may have been in contact with ISIS members, possibly during his radicalization, and even during the planning of the attack."</p><p>Several terrorists who carried out the Paris and Brussels attacks, in contrast, had trained in Syria and were in contact with high-level ISIS leaders. They traveled back to Europe with the express purpose of forming a terror cell to carry out attacks on Western European countries.</p><p>And ISIS' statement after the Paris attack, which left 130 people dead in a series of bombings and shooting across the city, was much more extensive.</p><p>The terror group also rolled out a social-media campaign after both the Paris and Brussels attacks, with ISIS' online channels <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/isis-telegram-twitter-brussels-attacks-2016-3">encouraging supporters to blast out canned messages on their social-media accounts</a>. Channels on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, which ISIS uses to send out information to supporters, asked followers to post canned messages celebrating the attacks and threatening more violence.</p><p>With the Orlando attack, there was no similar campaign.</p><p>Recently, ISIS has ramped up calls for attacks from supporters in Western countries.</p><p>Horowitz noted Sunday that these messages could be effective as calls to action for radicalized people.</p><p>"These messages by ISIS's leadership are meant to maximize the psychological impact of these attacks among the Western public," he said.</p><p>He added: "They create the perception that ISIS does control these attacks from within the 'safety' of its Caliphate in Iraq and Syria. In general, however, ISIS has little control over these radicalized individuals, other than pushing them to act within a specific timeframe."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/secret-service-protect-sanders-protesters-2016-5">Watch the Secret Service jump to protect Sanders after 5 protesters rushed the stage</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="Q4eDh1MzE6xEPWzaTHIVgwUW8gfpYfdN" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'Q4eDh1MzE6xEPWzaTHIVgwUW8gfpYfdN',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

You Searched For "Al Bayan radio" and got 4 results

ISIS lures wannabe jihadists with bizarre holiday offers

BI India Bureau

ISIS has released a new Android app aimed at children

Pamela Engel

ISIS' online propaganda may face resistance but offline its media project is thriving

Adam Payne,Adam Payne

ISIS' new statement on the Orlando terror attack indicates a 'key element' of its strategy

Pamela Engel