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The Islamic State has lost thousands of fighters to death or prison and suffered the demise of its self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria. But the global reach of the group, also known as ISIS, is still vast, in part because of its sophisticated media output and the people around the world who consume it.
On New Year’s Day, a man with an Islamic State flag killed at least 14 people when he drove into a crowd in New Orleans. Authorities say there was no evidence that the man, Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, had active connections to the terrorist group. But the F.B.I. said “he was 100 percent inspired by ISIS.”
It is not yet clear which specific online content Mr. Jabbar may have seen or how else he may have been radicalized. Experts noted that the placement of the flag on the truck resembled one depicted by ISIS in a media campaign urging followers to “run them over without mercy.” And, authorities said, he posted several videos to his Facebook account before his attack in which he pledged allegiance to ISIS.
“Terrorism is essentially communications,” said Hans-Jakob Schindler, a former United Nations diplomat who is the senior director of the Counter Extremism Project, a think tank with offices in New York and Berlin. “It is not warfare, because obviously, ISIS cannot militarily defeat the West, right? They tried and it didn’t exactly end well.”
The group also puts out an online weekly newsletter called Al Naba, or The News, which contains details of the group’s latest exploits, implicitly encouraging followers to commit acts of violence.
The most recent edition of the newsletter, published on Jan. 2, did not mention the New Orleans attack, and the Islamic State has not claimed responsibility for it.
Terrorism analysts say that it has been easy for extremists to connect with potential supporters on social media because of the lack of effort both by some of the companies that operate the platforms and by governments to force a crackdown.
Mr. Schindler said that in light of the New Orleans attack both political parties should ask: “Why is this massive industry with these profits not helping our security services to prevent such attacks? Why do we not get a tip, as we do from the banks and every financial institution in North America and worldwide, that there is a terrorist here, or a tip that there’s a radicalization process going on?”
In January, 2024, the extremist group revived a campaign directed at its global adherents: “kill them wherever you find them,” a reference to a verse in the Quran.
The idea, which first surfaced in 2015, was to encourage would-be followers to commit acts of jihad at home rather than traveling to Iraq and Syria. That notion became even more important once the caliphate was defeated.
During the period when the Islamic State held ground in Syria and then Iraq (2013-2017) and was eager to gain adherents in the West, it was notorious for posting grisly depictions of violence, such as the beheading of the photojournalist James Wright Foley.
Now, experts say an increasingly daunting challenge is that social media platforms are doing much of the work of spreading the Islamic State’s message, as algorithms that seek to boost engagement take some users deeper and deeper into the extremist worldview.
The situation is still fluid, but some analysts fear that the Islamic State could regain ground amid the chaos. The group’s newsletter has spoken dismissively of Hayat Tahrir al Sham as “jihadists turned politicians,” but has not called for attacks on them.
The Islamic State recently renewed its “Breaking the Walls” media campaign, which encourages the imprisoned fighters to break out of the jails in eastern Syria and free their families.
If that succeeds, Mr. Zelin said, it would be a “disaster.”
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