India to keep eye on al-Qaida-ISIS competing on social media

NEW DELHI: The chilling ISIS videos showing the beheading of two US journalists, which drew condemnation from Barack Obama and other world leaders, appear to have driven al-Qaida to match the sensationalism announcing the launch of its branch in the Indian subcontinent.

The security establishment is of the view that the brazen use of the social media by ISIS to establish its prominence in global jihad may have only added to al-Qaida's marginalisation as the face of transnational terrorism.

"The Qaida video was possibly meant to match the brutal IS posts, and make the world take notice of its potential to reinvent itself by expanding its arc of infl uence," an intelligence official said.

The Indian agencies fear that the Zawahiri video is only the beginning and may be followed by far more brazen posts online. "The coming days may see ISIS and al-Qaida indulging in competitive aggressiveness on social media, exposing the average net user to much more ruthless styles of propaganda," warned an official.

Given that social media posts play a major role in radicalization of minority youths, the prospects of IS and al-Qaida trying to resort to sensationalism to project themselves as the more ruthless outfit have led the security establishment to alert the cyber monitoring agencies.

"Cyber surveillance has to be more aggressive and such campaigns must be tracked in real time. The agencies have been told to scan Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other social media websites for any objectionable or infl ammatory posts and tackle the issue domestically...We are competent enough to do this," an offi cial said. "For now, we are geared up to counter the increased jihadi activity online with our cyber monitoring mechanisms. But with time we may need to get countries like the US on board, since most social website servers are located there...," the official said.

Incidentally, the capability of Indian agencies to monitor and block incendiary posts remains in question.