BEYOND SYRIA IRAQ

SOCIAL MEDIA
tors. This warning did little to curb the flood of defections. On December 24,
more than thirty militants, including three senior officials, declared they
would no longer obey the Yemen wali, and several days later, a former IS
sharia official in Yemen released a thirty-minute video outlining numerous
transgressions committed by the group, comparing IS’s operations in Yemen
to the “work of children who have not reached puberty and who have not
participated in any jihadist work.” Days after that, another twenty-four
militants announced they were breaking away from IS’s Yemen leadership. In
all, since mid-December 2015, more than one hundred fighters have defected
from the Yemen affiliate—a striking number, considering the Islamic State is
believed to have fewer than a thousand fighters in the country. 21
DARNAH, LIBYA
The case of IS in Darnah is a cautionary tale, revealing how the group’s outsized
propaganda apparatus can be used to inflate perceptions of its strength.
This is one reason for the approach advocated here of examining multiple
metrics to assess local support for IS.
In the spring of 2014, several hundred members of the Libyan-led al-Battar
Brigade, which had been fighting on IS’s side in the Syria-Iraq theater,
redeployed to Darnah, long a hotbed of jihadist activity. There, they set up
a group known as the Islamic Youth Shura Council (IYSC). At the time of
IYSC’s arrival in Darnah, several other jihadist factions, including Ansar al-
Sharia and the Abu Salim Martyrs Brigade, already had firm roots in the city,
and some perceived IYSC as an unwelcome newcomer.
IYSC immediately sought to demonstrate it was superior to other jihadist
groups, militarily and religiously. The group introduced itself to Darnah
residents in April 2014 by holding an ostentatious military parade in which
militants toting rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons drove through
the city’s streets. 22 Pictures of the parade were soon uploaded to IYSC’s Facebook
page, illustrating how the group integrated social media into its early
messaging efforts in Darnah.
After announcing its presence in the city, IYSC took advantage of its messaging
apparatus to draw attention to its growing influence. One tactic it
used was to highlight individuals who had joined the group. From July to
September 2014, IYSC posted lists of repentance statements on its Twitter
and Facebook pages from former members of the Libyan security services
who had “come voluntarily” to IYSC to atone for their sins. 23 These repentance
statements were widely circulated on social media, receiving as many
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