US drops 60,000 propaganda leaflets on Islamic State de facto capital Raqqa
By Ruth Sherlock, Beirut
8:47PM GMT 27 Mar 2015
America ups its stakes in the propaganda war against Isil with graphic cartoons
The United States has upped the stakes in its propaganda battle with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), dropping 60,000 leaflets over Raqqa, the jihadists "capital" in Syria, designed to convince its members to defect.
The paper slips are imprinted with a graphic cartoon, depicting a monstrous-looking Isil fighter, feeding a procession of scared looking men into a meat grinder.
A sign overhead, says "Daesh Recruiting Office" - using the Arabic acronym for Isil - intending to send the message that anyone who joins the jihadist group is destined to die a grim death.
The leaflets were dropped from an F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jet on the 16 March, the United States Central Command has confirmed.
The "leaflet bomb", as the strategy has sometimes been referred to in the past, marks an escalation in the Pentagon's bid to weaken the grip of the extremist group, which now controls swathes of northern Syria and Iraq,
It comes after the US State Department has already launched a social media war with the group, seeking to curb the group’s ability to recruit foreign fighters online.
The Centre for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC), an experimental unit in the State Department, last year began running social media accounts to convince young would-be jihadists not to enlist.
The accounts in English, Arabic, Urdu and Somali posts stream of images of the aftermath of US airstrikes against the jihadists as a warning of what of the fate that awaits them.
Following the first wave of coalition bombing runs against Isil in Syria, one State Department account posted pictures of the corpses of four jihadists with the message: "Strikes against [Isil] in Syria mark major step towards getting job done".
Leaflet usage by the US military has a history that dates back generations. It was also used in the more recent conflicts of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
Last month the Iraqi government also adopted the trend, dropping leaflets on Mosul, the country's third city, now under Isil control, vowing that liberation would come "soon".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11500832/US-drops-60000-propaganda-leaflets-on-Islamic-State-de-facto-capital-Raqqa.htmlThe leaflet dropped on Raqqa by US planes shows ISIL recruits being fed into a meat grinder
Topic: 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL