The call came on June 23.
Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, the spokesman for the Islamic State, in June urged ISIS followers to go on a month-long killing spree. “Muslims, embark and hasten toward jihad,” said al-Adnani in an audio statement released last month. “O mujahedeen everywhere, rush and go to make Ramadan a month of disasters for the infidels.”
Two days later, on June 25, ISIS-linked militants conducted three near-simultaneous attacks on three different continents. The group claimed credit for the attacks in Kuwait and Tunisia, and the perpetrator of the assault in France tweeted a picture of his victim’s decapitated head to ISIS followers.
The tactics and targets of the attacks were all too familiar: a suicide bombing at a Shia mosque, a shooting at a tourist hotspot, and the beheading of a Western infidel. The organizing principle behind these attacks, however, suggests a new trend in terror—crowdsourced jihad.
Wired Magazine editors Jeff Howe and Mark Robinson coined the term "crowdsourcing" to describe how businesses were using the Internet to outsource work to individuals. This is what ISIS is doing—taking work traditionally performed by “employees” (aka card-carrying members of ISIS) and issuing an open call for individuals outside the organization to carry it out. The State Department in June released its Country Reports on Terrorism, which discusses this new phenomenon but struggles to find nomenclature to describe it:
“In many cases it was difficult to assess whether attacks were directed or inspired by ISIL or by al-Qa’ida and its affiliates. These attacks may presage a new era in which centralized leadership of a terrorist organization matters less; group identity is more fluid; and violent extremist narratives focus on a wider range of alleged grievances and enemies with which lone actors may identify and seek to carry out self-directed attacks...”
The Emergence of a New Trend
For years, al-Qa’ida and other terrorist groups have urged their followers to conduct lone wolf attacks. This latest terrorist call to arms isn’t new. What’s new is how this message is transmitted—and retransmitted—through the echo chamber of social media.
In the old days, the leadership of a terrorist organization controlled the group’s communications. Statements and videos came from the top down, disseminated from leader to follower. Today, communication comes from both foot soldiers and the senior leadership of an organization. Terrorist leaders no longer have the monopoly on the message. A call to arms can come from anyone associated with the group.
ISIS’ embrace of crowdsourced jihad began in September of 2014 when the group released a video calling for its followers to kill civilians in the West on their own. Adnani, the ISIS spokesman, was specific in his instructions:
“Rig the roads with explosives for them. Attack their bases. Raid their homes. Cut off their heads. Do not let them feel secure. Hunt them wherever they may be. Turn their worldly life into fear and fire. Remove their families from their homes and thereafter blow up their homes…”
That message—which came three months after ISIS established its caliphate—was directed at the group’s supporters outside of Syria and Iraq. Over the next nine months, a string of crowdsourced attacks followed: Quebec and Ottawa (October 20 and October 22, 2014), New York (October 23, 2014), Sydney (December 15, 2014), Paris (January 11, 2015), Garland (May 3, 2015) and Lyon (June 25, 2015).
The shooting attack in Garland, Texas is an example of the new trend. The attack can be traced to the Twitter account of Mujahid Miski, the handle allegedly linked to a Somali-American who is now believed to be in Syria or Iraq. According to an account by the New York Times, Miski shared a link on Twitter to a “Draw Muhammad” contest in Texas, urging his followers to attack. He wrote, “The brothers from the Charlie Hebdo attack did their part. It’s time for brothers in the #US to do their part.”
According to SITE, one of the would-be attackers, Elton Simpson, retweeted Miski’s call to violence. Three days after the tweet, Simpson contacted Miski on Twitter. One week later, Simpson and his co-conspirator launched their ill-fated terrorist assault. Both men were fatally shot by a local cop.
While there’s no conclusive evidence ISIS planned or directed the attack, Simpson appears to have been part of a network of ISIS "fanboys" or followers with links to the group's members in Syria who have called for attacks against a number of targets, including the Draw Muhammad contest in Texas.
The case shows how terrorism is evolving—or more accurately, devolving—from the al-Qa’ida model. Counterterrorism analysts have long distinguished between attacks directed and inspired by a group, but FBI Director James Comey is quoted in the New York Times in May acknowledging this thinking may be outdated. “It’s not a useful framework,” Comey said.
Crowdsourced jihad may be a more useful way of framing the problem moving forward.
Mitchell D. Silber is the Executive Managing Director at K2 Intelligence, former Director of Intelligence Analysis at the NYPD, and the author of “The Al Qaeda Factor: Plots Against the West,” University of Pennsylvania, 2012.
