Strategic Assessment

Cyber jihad plays a key role in ISIS strategy, and hence the urgent need to contend with the challenge that it poses to the international coalition fighting the terrorist organization. The use of cyberspace by ISIS has helped the organization brand itself in the global discourse as an entity that evokes terror, deters its enemies, and lures new supporters and operatives to its ranks. The centrality of cyber jihad as a tool for recruitment, radicalization, and dissemination of propaganda makes the struggle against ISIS’s use of cyberspace no less important than the physical engagement with its forces and the prevention of its geographic expansion. In order to confront the phenomenon of cyber jihad and stem the flow of foreign recruits to ISIS, closer collaboration should be formed with technology companies with the aim of curbing the cyber dimensions, while concurrently continuing the military campaign against ISIS.