Jihadist sniper culture: propagandising the ‘caliphate’ through the crosshair

Abstract

ABSTRACT Snipers have gained increasing prominence in modern warfare and insurgencies, both in actual combat and in military propaganda. Research on snipers, however, has remained largely limited to their strategic role in Western professional armed forces. This article provides the first in-depth analysis of the strategic and cultural dimensions of sniper propaganda of non-state armed groups. Focusing on the prominent case of the Islamic State (IS), this study draws from military and cultural-historical research and a wide range of primary sources to examine how IS used the figure of the sniper in its audiovisual propaganda. The findings indicate that snipers, as represented by IS, combined the roles of heroic mujahidin, authentically Islamic warriors, and appealing game heroes. As such, they embodied some of IS’s core beliefs and values and served as a strategic propaganda asset during the period of the group’s decline in Syria and Iraq (2015–2017). The article concludes that through the figure of the sniper, IS attempted to present itself as an enduring power in a potentially enticing and empowering manner. These findings complement existing research on sniping and IS, while opening new avenues for investigating insurgency warfare and propaganda representations more broadly.