00:00foreign
00:12foreign
00:14foreign
00:18foreign
00:22foreign
00:28We are trying to catch them, fake news and propaganda, which we are trying to attract.
00:38This sphere, we have seen that technology has a lot of use.
00:44AI has a lot of use, artificial intelligence,
00:48various platforms, content block, algorithms change,
00:54what we have to do,
00:56and particularly on-line sphere,
01:00there are videos and content that can be created
01:04for the actual reality of recruitment.
01:10For example, there are particularly drone attacks, drone strikes,
01:14which are non-state actors' hands,
01:16and south of Khyber-Pukhtun Khawai,
01:18we see that these groups are going to be created.
01:23So, today, we have to discuss all these,
01:25who are joining us from Venice, Italy,
01:29and are researchers, scholars,
01:31and keep a lot of attention to these things.
01:34Thank you very much, Wale, for giving us time today.
01:37I just want to jump straight into the topic.
01:41Propaganda networks, the way that they have been developing,
01:45we have been having multiple guests on this platform.
01:49And today, the reason for calling you was,
01:51because you have a deep insight in terms of
01:53how these propaganda networks function.
01:56My question to you is,
01:58that there are alternate realities that are being created,
02:01and alternate narratives by these groups,
02:05of terrorist entities across the globe.
02:07But when we look at the complexity of it,
02:09on how one terrorist network is actually collaborating
02:15with another terrorist network on these platforms,
02:18I need your insights in terms of that,
02:20why is it nearly impossible to stop it completely?
02:23Yes, it turns out.
02:28So, I would say that the major obstacle for tackling how these groups,
02:36and we can talk mostly about the Islamic State usually,
02:40but this, of course, involve a plethora of different militant groups,
02:46including those in Afghanistan, Pakistan region.
02:49The main obstacle is the fact that these groups have, in time,
02:54developed the skills and capabilities that allows them to shift
02:59from one platform to the other whenever there is a crackdown
03:04from a certain platform to within their own online environment.
03:09And, being this the first major obstacle,
03:13the second major obstacle connected to the first one,
03:17is the fact that most of the time,
03:20these social media platforms and the owners,
03:24they do not actively collaborate, not only with governments.
03:28To some extent, there are Meta and other groups,
03:31as we will see, like, they have been trying to cooperate in the last few years,
03:36but they have very limited cooperation with governments,
03:40and specifically, they have limited cooperation among these major social media
03:45and messaging application platforms.
03:48So, this prevents the organization of a long-term strategy
03:57in order to tackle these spaces, these online spaces,
04:02that leads to either radicalization or to cooperation between militants,
04:07in order for them to then frame major plots and attacks.
04:11Yeah, I totally understand where you are coming from.
04:15But in terms of, you know, how technology in the last couple of years has plummeted,
04:23and spread over across this entire spectrum of counter-terrorism, you know,
04:29but how these groups are evolving, they seem to be always ahead of state practices,
04:34a few steps ahead.
04:36Does that actually show that there are a lot of tech-savvy people within these groups?
04:40Definitely, definitely.
04:42We witnessed how all the administrators or the organizers,
04:50those users who set up these accounts, whether it is on,
04:54and we can discuss more in detail about this platform,
04:58whether they are Telegram, whether they are RocketChat or Element,
05:01or even Facebook and Instagram and TikTok,
05:04we see that those in charge of moderating and organizing these online spaces,
05:11they are completely aware of the risks that these platforms can pose to the security
05:22and the identity of the users and specifically of their own militants.
05:28And they are extremely aware of the fact that some of these platforms are actively collaborating
05:35with security forces from other countries.
05:39So not only do they provide guidelines on how to avoid detection,
05:44on how to avoid getting trapped by security forces or secure accounts
05:50and to migrate effectively from one social media platforms to another whenever there is the need.
05:56So my question then is that, I mean, in terms of how technologies have actually evolved over this space in this time,
06:06we've seen that not just on the online sphere,
06:10but we've seen them also coming into the physical sphere as well.
06:13And drones are one of those, you know,
06:16those devices that have now been activated into the region.
06:21We've seen them being used by non-state actors in the Middle East.
06:25We've seen them being used in Africa as well.
06:29But over the last one and a half year, we've seen this phenomenon grow within the Pakistan-Afghanistan sphere.
06:35I want to just ask you a little bit of a history in terms of which group initially had the idea on how to actually use UAVs.
06:46So I would say that most recently, the two are the major groups that have been using drones as effective weapons for their own activities
06:59within the context of the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
07:02And these two groups are both related to the Pakistani Taliban.
07:07One is the GTP, of course, and the other one is the newly born IMP in Pakistan.
07:15So we saw how gradually the GTP shifted from using drones from reconnaissance
07:23and more simply for recording battle scenes and for the production of media content.
07:31So what we saw also for other groups in the region,
07:35we can think about Jesuit Adel, who started to do that between 2022 and 2023.
07:42And they gradually developed the use of drones from merely these more simple tasks to actual fighting.
07:52But just to intercede, we've seen that this was a phenomenon that was originally developed by Al-Qaeda as an operational tactic.
08:02So historically, I mean, they would have the, you know, understanding on how this warfare works.
08:09And Al-Qaeda seems to have completely disappeared off limits from this entire spectrum.
08:14Hardly anybody talks about it. But the rejuvenation of some of these groups that have had historical linkages
08:21and then became dormant and now reactivated again clearly shows that obviously there are other factors
08:27rather than just local phenomenons involved in all of this.
08:30Exactly. And this comes to the second group, to IMP, which there are a lot of indicators that behind this group
08:41there are segments or former members or active members of Al-Qaeda in Pakistan,
08:47at least in the expertise and tech department. And definitely the use of drones that we have been witnessing from IMP,
08:56which just to recall, is a platform that is mostly formed by Hafiz Kul Bahado group.
09:06That is a group that usually did not employ the tactics of drones, drone warfare.
09:13Recently IMP, after the merger of Hafiz Kul Bahado group and the Inqilab Islami Pakistan group,
09:22which is again suspected of being a branch or a sub-branch of active or former Al-Qaeda members.
09:29I mean, after this merger, we have been seeing Hafiz Kul Bahado group actively using drones.
09:35for connected operations. And this suggests that these are an expertise that has been shifting from one theater,
09:43mainly in Afghanistan.
09:45So, it's time for a little break, but we'll come back and talk to you about this in more detail.
09:49Now, it's a little bit of a break, but let's continue this discussion, particularly with drone warfare,
09:56where we have come from.
10:01It's a little bit of a debate here, particularly in that situation.
10:07Welcome back, Nazirin.
10:09While we're continuing the discussion in terms of open source intelligence,
10:13while states have benefited from that tremendously for surveillance,
10:18as well as to keep a check in terms of what citizens are doing or non-state actors are up to.
10:23But simultaneously, we do see this trend also being used by non-state actors.
10:28Also, we have seen that in order to avoid being spotted, they have now been using cover of mainstream media organizations
10:36or either pretending to use AI to create sub-identities through which they operate.
10:42Yes, so, militant organizations in the online sphere have adopted and developed new tactics to avoid detection
10:52and to avoid that their own social media environment are completely disrupted by the intervention of either major media companies or by states.
11:04So there are a number of tactics that these individuals usually use.
11:08One of the most successful ones has been employing distorting keywords that can trigger automatic detection from softwares of the media companies,
11:24social media platforms and messaging apps.
11:28For instance, Telegram and Facebook have been adopting quite effectively this auto-detection
11:34and have been disrupting Telegram channels and social media platforms.
11:39However, at the same time, militant organizations have started distorting these keywords with punctuation symbols or numbers or other stuff,
11:48which can effectively prevent the detection of these channels and groups.
11:54And the same goes with the adoption of pictures that do not resemble the militancy-related content.
12:05So, for instance, children or flowers or other stuff, including mimicking the logos of major media companies from the West or from local environments.
12:19And this is one of the most one of the major threats that is posed by these militants.
12:25That is that in order to actively cracking down on them and their online spaces,
12:32there is the need for a human intervention.
12:35Human intervention is vital and actively monitoring from humans and people who have been trained in knowing how to detect these
12:47these social media accounts or users on Telegram and other platforms.
12:53There is an aid for them because otherwise these militants have been developing such skills that it is very difficult to assess whether one user,
13:05one account on Instagram or Facebook is a supporter of a militant group or just simply some common user who is reporting news from the media, for instance.
13:16That is another very common tactic, which also can help them in fueling conspiracy theories and fake news by sharing apparently innocent pieces of news distorting them.
13:31And hence avoiding being detected as actively supportive of the Islamic State, for instance, which is one of the most common practice employed by.
13:39But we've seen local groups from Pakistan and Afghanistan also adopting the same technology.
13:45I just wanted to ask you one last question, Wale, and I need a little detailed answer on that in terms of what are the current trends that we see?
13:52What kind of themes are there that have been activated within the sphere for recruitment purposes, particularly aimed at the younger generation?
14:01So this it really depends on which group we are trying to.
14:10A general assessment in terms of what it would be.
14:13Yes, in general, the younger generations in Pakistan and in general, they are very exposed to certain key narratives that have been recurrent whatever the group is,
14:27whether it is Islamic State or Pakistani Taliban.
14:30And that is the delegitimization of the Pakistani state in particular.
14:37And there are a number of topics which these groups like to focus on, which is international relations and the role of Pakistan or another country within the international community and its linkages, particularly with Western countries, of course.
14:53And then there is the role of religion within society and politics and the legal framework of the country, which is one of the most debated topics among users.
15:05However, for younger generations specifically, another key topic which is always recurrent is the socio-economic issues.
15:14So perceived injustice and perceived economic dissatisfaction, whether it is factual or perceived, is one of the major topics that is constantly debated and regurgitated by the media outlets of such militant groups.
15:34And it has been discussed under different lengths, whether it is videos or podcasts in the form of rapid propaganda or as a discussion between so-called experts, economic or social media experts of militant groups.
15:56So it really depends on how the group is trying to address these issues.
16:04Thank you very much, Wale, for the detailed answers.
16:08Thank you very much, Wale, for the detailed answers.
16:18Thank you very much, thank you.
16:46friends نظر آتے ہیں locally بھی اور globally بھی لیکن خصوصی طور
16:50پر پاکستان کے اندر جہاں پر youth کی population جو ہے وہ
16:53considerably old age population سے زیادہ یہ narratives deeply جو ہے وہ
16:57state کے functionality کو بھی affect کرتے ہیں اور youth کے
17:01engagement کو کہ کس طرح state ان کے ساتھ interact کرے اس کو
17:04بھی affect کرتے ہیں programs میں
17:16موسیقی
Comments