Islamic State have all but abandoned their notions of a caliphate having hemorrhaged militants in recent weeks.
The terror group recorded major battlefield losses in Syria and Iraq as coalition forces continue to flush the fighters out of areas they once considered their strongholds.
Now, the ISIS propaganda team have turned their attention to trying to recruit new members amid dwindling numbers.
The terror group has been rolling out disabled fighters to appear in their messages, including a wheelchair-bound suicide bomber, a one-legged American extremist and has reverted to photoshopped posters as opposed to the once-professional videos.
A disabled fighter in a wheelchair says goodbye to his wife and son before he blows himself up in a suicide bombing
ISIS fighter with an American accent delivers a propaganda message with a set of crutches placed on some rocks next to him
The once-professional and lengthy films showing barbaric executions and graphic training videos have been replaced by shaky footage and photoshopped posters like the one pictured
A new report compiled by IHS Markit has revealed how the terror group’s fake news machine has given up on promoting its military operations and state-building, which had been a tool to lure families to their regions.
After many of its leaders were killed last year in bloody battles for Aleppo, Raqqa and Mosul in particular, the many branches of it’s media operation dropped by almost two-thirds.
The once-professional and lengthy films showing barbaric executions and graphic training videos have been replaced by shaky footage and photoshopped posters.
As well as the number of posts – which has fallen dramatically – the terrorists’ narrative has altered, according to the report.
At the height of the group’s powers, many propaganda messages were aimed at attracting fighters and their families to live in ISIS strongholds.
But images featuring falsified daily life with ISIS food distribution and infrastructure building efforts plummeted from 93 of 922 pictures in January last year to just three from the 249 they published last month, according to the report.
The report also said: ‘The ISIL narrative no longer features state building and now focuses almost exclusively on the concept of perpetual war against its enemies.’
Fewer than 3,000 active fighters are thought to remain, and the US-led coalition this week killed as many as 150 Islamic State fighters in an operation in the middle Euphrates River Valley in Syria, officials said Tuesday
ISIS’ held areas were cut by 90 percent last year, according to The National, and it appears the group is attempting to retreat to smaller cells and recruit those defecting from other groups.
Fewer than 3,000 active fighters are thought to remain, and the US-led coalition this week killed as many as 150 Islamic State fighters in an operation in the middle Euphrates River Valley in Syria, officials said Tuesday.
According to a statement from the coalition, the air strikes took place Saturday near Al-Shafah, in Deir Ezzor province, on an ISIS headquarters where the jihadists appeared to have been ‘massing for movement.’
‘The precision strikes were a culmination of extensive intelligence preparation to confirm an ISIS headquarters and command and control center in an exclusively ISIS-occupied location in the contested Middle Euphrates River Valley,’ the statement read.
While IS has lost most of the terrain they once controlled in Syria, they still remain entrenched in pockets along the middle Euphrates River Valley.
‘There’s still have a heavy fight going on,’ said US Central Command spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Earl Brown.
‘We are continuing to go after those guys that are trying to reestablish themselves. It’s a hard fight right now.’
The coalition said that the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed Arab-Kurdish alliance fighting IS, had assisted in target observation prior to the strike.
‘The combination of intelligence and continuous eyes on the target ensured no accidental engagement of non-military personnel,’ the statement read.