Al-Qaeda’s Activities on the Internet: Forms, Types and Tools

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the media content of one of the largest international terrorist organizations - Al-Qaeda in the context of the strengthening of media terrorism in the modern globalized world. Researchers state that, like the Islamic State (IS), Al-Qaeda relied on the effective use of social media in its activities: recruitment of terrorist supporters, calls for terrorist attacks, propaganda of brutality and violence. Al-Qaeda has developed a successful media strategy directed against the countries of the Western world, mainly against the United States. At the same time, al-Qaeda’s information operations against the West, organized in the digital space, have not achieved the same resonance as IS. They were mainly aimed at highlighting the weaknesses of the states of the Western world. The main areas of use of social media by Al-Qaeda are: propaganda of terrorism, intimidation, operational planning and coordination of terrorist acts, recruitment and training of supporters, collection of intelligence data and targets, financing of maintenance.