jihadist A Jihadist Magazine is Trying Its Hand at Science Fiction

[Reefa]

 

The propaganda of jihadist groups, whether the hijacking of popular Twitter hashtags or the production of slick, professional quality movies, is some of the most pervasive and sophisticated around. Now some jihadists are moving that propaganda in a new direction: sci-fi.

 

“The surveillance cameras and spring guns alone require their own power plant,” the first piece of jihadi sci-fi fiction reads, entitled “The Unit.” “After the huge explosion, construction went really fast. The Nato powers put a lot of pressure on the Anatolia's new laicistic government. They are very aware that we will eventually break through to Constantinople like a fire through dry grass.”

 

This story is included in “Kybernetiq,” a German-language magazine with a particular focus on technology and cybersecurity that's produced by people claiming to be jihadists, although their affiliation is unclear. Kybernetiq was shared by jihadi Twitter accounts, according to for-profit terrorism monitoring company SITE Intelligence.

 

Penned by someone calling themselves “Prof. Dr. Yuito Abdillah,” commander of the “3rd Cyborg Regiment," the piece was written as futuristic propaganda that “should offer Muslims worldwide motivation and something to think about."

 

“The authors of Kybernetic made it their job to publish a fictitious short story in each issue,” a preface to the story reads. “The protagonists are varied, but the stories always take place in the same location.”

 

That location is the “Socialist Republic of Kurdistan,” which as part of the work of fiction encompasses 270,000km². “It has grown enormously over the last decades, especially due to foreign aid,” the authors write, although it’s not clear when the story takes place.

 

The Kurds’ “utopia became reality. But something tremendous is brewing at the moment in the region that could disturb the peace,” it continues.

 

As Kurdistan has ballooned, Turkey has shrunk, and is separated by a huge manmade moat, which is littered with “complex locks and is dotted with sea mines,” the story reads, creating “a kind of no-man's land between West Turkey and the Kurdish areas.”

 

The Kurds, an ethnic group partly based in Turkey and an autonomous region of northern Iraq, continue to fight for their independence, particularly in recent years as the so-called Islamic State has taken over large swaths of Iraq and Syria.

 

This piece of sci-fi portrays the Kurds as having succeeded in gaining independence. Meanwhile, “regarding us, the mujahideen,” the story continues, “we control large parts of the Levant down to Damascus.” That is, this group envisions their particular brand of jihad as controlling Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and parts of Syria (however the “Levant” is a general, often disputed term, so it’s not totally clear the exact geography implied in this short story).

 

Despite claiming that this story is a work of propaganda, what exactly the author is advocating for is cloudy at best. The group’s affiliations are not totally clear, but a representative told Radio Free Europe that they “aren’t from ISIS.”

 

For a piece of science fiction, the story is lacking in detail around technological or forward-facing ethical issues, instead focusing on political developments. The artwork is impressive, showing a small convoy of horses and a pickup truck driving into what looks like an outpost, with large, industrial towers looming among the mist. (Reverse image searches on Google and TinEye did not return any matches.)

 

Whether the sci-fi section of Kybernetiq really will become a regular thing remains to be seen, but its existence certainly is a bizarre new turn in the world of jihadi propaganda.

http://motherboard.vice.com/en_uk/read/a-jihadist-magazine-is-trying-its-hand-at-science-fiction