Terrorist groups such as the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda are increasingly moving away from terror strikes. Looking at the emerging pattern, both these groups have completely moved towards the propaganda and radicalisation model
NEW DELHI — Terrorist groups such as the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda are increasingly moving away from terror strikes. Looking at the emerging pattern, both these groups have completely moved towards the propaganda and radicalisation model. The worrying part is that Artificial Intelligence is being used by Islamic State and Al-Qaeda to draw women, children into a larger, radicalised ecosystem globally and in India.
The idea is to completely radicalise people and set up an Islamic State in every part of the world. This agenda is being helped following the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The United Nation’s (UN) Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) in its latest report has detailed the manner in which terror groups such as the Islamic State are extensively using AI to spread propaganda and radicalise the youth.
An interesting point that the report makes is how AI could amplify the role of gender in terrorist propaganda.
Generative AI enables the rapid production and localisation of gendered propaganda tailored to men, women, girls and boys. This allows terror groups to adapt narratives to specific audiences at a greater scale and also disseminate them at an accelerated pace, the report notes.
An Intelligence Bureau official says that this is the model that these terror groups have adopted when it comes to dealing with various countries including India.
In India, the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda are using AI extensively to target men, women and children, both boys and girls.
Content is tailor-made for every gender and every age, the official said. An official said that the worrying trend is the extensive targeting of women and children. The intention is to target children of a very young age and exploit their vulnerabilities.
Groups such as the Islamic State are actively scouting for women and children in India. While many men have fallen prey to the Islamic State, the outfit wants to radicalise more women and children. The children are being radicalised to make them future ready, the official said.
Girls and young women are often targeted through narratives that exploit vulnerabilities related to belonging, protection, identity, and relationships, while boys and young men may be exposed to hyper masculine messaging that frames violence as a source of status, purpose, and power, the CTED report said.
By targeting across genders with the help of AI, the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda are looking to create a society across the globe that is highly radicalised and would only want the Sharia law to govern them, the official added.
The CTED report says that children and young people are increasingly among those exposed to and targeted by terrorist and violent extremist propaganda and recruitment efforts.
While the drivers of this trend are varied and context-specific, the convergence of digital environments, algorithmic amplification, tailored outreach strategies, and the social and developmental vulnerabilities of younger users have created conditions in which violent extremist content reaches children and young people at scale.
This is reflected in the widespread exposure of children to such content globally, as well as in developments throughout the European Union, where the number of children and young people involved in terrorist and violent extremist activities continued to grow, the report also said.
Another official said that although the Islamic State’s reach is expanding across the country, its biggest audience is still in South India. The AI-driven propaganda and radicalisation model has been put to good use in these states and the outfit has managed to achieve a lot of success.
Such persons do not come under the radar as their brief is to quietly spread the ideology rather than carry out an attack, the official added.
Adding women and children to their networks has added a completely new dimension. Earlier women and children were not extensively targeted. By targeting them, the Islamic State aims at creating a much bigger eco-system of radicalised elements, the official added.
To target children and young people, terrorist actors leverage social media, gaming platforms, and online communities frequented by these persons.
This is used to disseminate propaganda and progressively guide them from mainstream platforms into more closed and immersive environments, where exposure to increasingly violent propaganda content, including graphic imagery, may facilitate socialisation into violent extremist ecosystems, the UN report noted.
With the advent of AI and the decision to challenge a much larger audience with the focus only being radicalisation, more terror groups are likely to adopt this strategy in the days to come.
Outfits such as the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad already have women wings. In the days to come these groups, too, are likely to move towards a bigger radicalisation model with the intention of targeting the men, women, youth and children in India, an official said.