Information Operations - PSYOP

PSYOP

Terrorist PSYOP differs from American PSYOP in one two major areas. First, US PSYOP targets foreign adversaries and information is coordinated with many other agencies and screened before it is published. Second, while PSYOP by US and coalition forces is "designed to bring an end to violence and save lives, terrorist PSYOP is frequently directed toward promoting violence and threatening civilian populations with death and destruction. Suicide bombers are portrayed as martyrs rather than killers of innocent people."

The Internet is the main resource to spread propaganda with al-Aqaeda and other terrorist groups. "According to Bruce Hoffman, before it was taken down, al-Qaeda's website Alneda.com emphasized three themes: 1)the West is implacably hostile to Islam, 2) the only way to address this threat and the only language the West understands is the logic of violence, and 3) jihad is the only option"

Terrorists also like to use the internet to recruit and persuade children to their cause. As Dorothy Denning has found, "Children are being taught to hate Jews and Westerners, and to take up arms against them ".