Cyber World War III

When she was arrested, the young 22-year-old Spanish woman was wearing a full-length Islamic abaya. María Ángeles was at the Madrid Adolfo Suárez Airport, about to board a plane to Istanbul. In her handbag she carried a copy of the Koran in Spanish and the phone numbers of contacts in Turkey who would help her cross the border to join her ISIS captors in the caliphate of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Like hundreds of young Europeans, this Christian woman had been contacted through social media by ISIS recruiters, using their characteristic technique based on prolonged and exclusive attention, in order to radicalize the subject till he or she is considered ready to leave the Western World and defect to Islam. Since 2013, 18 women have been arrested in Spain, according to Real Instituto Elcano. Until 2012 no woman had been convicted of jihadist activities in Spain. Now there are 13 serving prison terms, as stated by High Court Judge José Luis Castro.

From the very beginning, social media has been vital for ISIS, enabling its militants to create the “cool image” used in the overtaking of older jihadist competitors like Al-Qaeda. Social networks facilitate the coordination of troops and allow the group to manage the territory under its control. But not happy with Facebook and Twitter’s recent –¿what took them so long?– efforts to eliminate terrorist accounts from their organizations, ISIS activists have threatened to kill their corresponding CEOs, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey. Islamic State’s latest threat-video features images of both entrepreneurs riddled with bullet holes, claiming that ISIS controls over 10,000 Facebook accounts and more than 5,000 Twitter profiles, warning that they will react with their branded violence to the closing-down of any of their sites on both networks. Allah willing, they add, almost jokingly.