BEYOND SYRIA IRAQ

DAVEED GARTENSTEIN-ROSS
as five hundred retweets in some instances. They left the impression that city
residents were flocking to the group in droves.
IYSC also showcased its implementation of hudud punishments. The
most prominent example came in August 2014, when the group released
photos and video of an execution it had carried out in a Darnah stadium. 24
Other pictures posted to IYSC’s social media accounts showed militants lashing
residents of the city for consuming alcohol. 25 By circulating them, IYSC
projected an image of power.
IYSC’s messaging in the summer of 2014 set the stage for the group’s pledge
of allegiance to IS. In early October, IYSC posted videos and photos on social
media of armed militants parading down the streets of Darnah, waving IS flags
and chanting IS slogans. 26 In late October, Darnah residents gathered in public
and pledged allegiance to IS, with IS online supporters circulating pictures
and video of the event. 27 In this way, IS propagated claims of local control (see
metric number 1), designed to foster the perception it had seized control of the
city. The reporting by mainstream press outlets of IS’s control of Darnah as
fact demonstrates the danger of overreliance on social media reports. 28 In fact,
an examination of Darnah’s history (metric number 7) would reveal the city
as divided among a variety of militant factions, including an umbrella group
known as the Mujahedin Shura Council of Darnah and Its Suburbs, and the
Abu Salim Martyrs Brigade, which was a major player in MSCDS.
These other militant groups would ultimately be IS’s undoing in Darnah.
Even before it pledged allegiance to IS, IYSC began launching attacks
against fighters from the other factions and mounted a messaging campaign
against them. 29 Tensions between IYSC and MSCDS escalated early in 2015
and came to a head in May, when an IYSC-affiliated preacher in a Darnah
mosque said in a sermon that IS was the only legitimate force in the city. In
response, MSCDS issued a “final warning” to IYSC, 30 which answered by
killing a key MSCDS leader, triggering a bout of intense conflict. But IYSC’s
bark was more potent than its bite: just two weeks after the clashes erupted,
IYSC militants were forced to withdraw from Darnah to the suburbs. The
fact that MSCDS did not need to call in reinforcements to drive out IYSC
shows the media had vastly overestimated the IS-affiliated group’s control
over Darnah. Social media now provided some indication of true levels of
local support for IS, as Twitter was flooded with photos of locals replacing
IS flags with the Libyan national flag and burning down the building where
IYSC had housed its sharia court. 31 In April 2016, the remaining IS forces in
and around Darnah withdrew from the city. 32
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