Direct mention of me and lars orange a Muslim Minority as he appeared alongside the countrys leader on san suu cheap a military crackdown has forced hundreds of thousands of rahane just to flee to neighboring bangladesh well those are the headlines do stay with us coming up next its the stream and im going to have more news for you in half an hour thanks for watching by. Ok and youre in the stream live went out to sea air and on you tube today i saw has been defeated on the battlefield but it is not really the end many experts say the conflict continues and that the front line is digital im only going to allow so does defeat in iraq and syria i mean i suppose ideology has been toppled or is that more just beginning today well hear from a panel of experts and the former wife of an assault commander. Last month more than three years after i still captured rocca in syria it was pushed out of the city that happy come in effect its capital and the heart from which it controlled its operations after a series of battlefield defeats this was seen by many as the final blow to the groups ambition to hold territory and build its socalled caliphate but was it really the end of eisel itself many experts say the war continues in one space that i so has always been strong online but will the groups defeats on the ground in iraq and syria affect his ability to pump out information and recruit people to his cause but joining us on such a heroine all is author of Digital World war in plano texas tanya joya is a counterterrorism consultant she was married to a man who became and im still commander and spent time with him in syria and cancer barry in the u. K. For his courage she is a lecturer in criminology at Canterbury ChristChurch University and in baghdad imran khan is an aljazeera correspondent in the middle east and south asia welcome of what is good to have you with us a man you have covered the rise of i still around the middle east where is the organization now and now that there have been defeats sincerer in iraq what would you say in terms of to have a tree that it holds how are they doing. Well physical therapy particularly here in iraq in recent days theyve actually lost they remain in territory that was. Ramana and now because theyve lost that territory theyre now moving into the online space and this as you say was something they were very good at now when they get into the on mine. Its the building message and pushing it really forward there are a number of Different Things theyre looking at things like instant messaging apps that a secure signal but i think but theyre also still using traditional websites to get their message out so they have a rock they dont really control any territorial but the Digital Space is so much more difficult for any terrorism experts i think outside forces to get it because its so much to show your. Little bit of a map and this map is syria in the last year so you can see whats happened i still look for the plaque am someone from twenty sixteen all the way up until twenty seventeen november and you can see those black areas growing and then shrinking and this is where we are right now so from the online and battlefield we got this comment on facebook from who says what it looks like online you can kill them in the battlefield but if their ideas are not wiped off and all domains then its almost impossible to declare a victory over them haroon you look at this comment do you agree with that and what is that on my landscape even look like how would you go about declaring a victory there yes so the online what i think of it is its the information battlefield at the heart of this is that this is a content war and i think a lot of people lose sight of that and you know i saw in a lot of ways we declared a lot of people declare victory when they saw the pictures and rock in mosul but they would they forget about it they built this ecosystem online so you have people like muhammad ali arraf who lot of people havent heard of in the western i havent heard of around the world but hes a number one person on twitter in the middle east and hes a cleric thats oftentimes the biggest driver of why young people were joining i saw and you know this is part of their fan boys in their infant. Im just looking at some of the publications that i saw put out over the years we have to think we have right now weve caught the media find this shaun king in terms of actual territory in the offline welt what does that mean for the territory in the online world what are you seeing thats changed well i think that one of the things that we see with the online content of isis. Is that i was actually very media savvy so it recognizes the value of online engagement. And i think that its losing territory in iraq and syria online and gateman with its audience has become much more important. And so we see very efficient very snazzy. Magazine that it produces. And it uses a language which is warn that young people in particular looking at this material can recognize the rhetoric of it and theres a lot of work now coming out from some universities people like carrots comps and have been looking at this work and they look at the kind of rhetoric and the kind of language and the narratives that are being produced. A kind of rhetoric of empowerment and dignity. Offering some kind of to some of the sort of problems that young muslims are dealing with in europe and other parts of the world theyre recognizing that these issues and i think that that emphasizes the value of these kinds of organizations because that speaking to the concerns of young people ten years you know just like i just Say Something usually want to have that out its something thats really interesting and i think we have to make a real definition there are two very different types of ice there are those that went and fought and they were in syria they were in iraq and they picked up guns and then there are those who have never felt all in the online space and theyre talking about i saw dignity as the last guest just pointed out and the problems that muslims face in europe but theyve never picked up a gun these are the ammo like you well so i think its really important we make this distinction to me just bring you in here because your story is really tied into this rise of i still you met your husband back in two thousand and nine what was it that three two thousand and three what was it that you were seeing online that he was seeing online that was so compelling and attractive. Our goals for a caliphate were really what drew us together. He had the advantage the advantages that i didnt have you could read arabic fluently they had he knew the middle east where he was afraid to go to the middle east i like that about him and he knew syria. So. I looked to his knowledge of the middle east and his devotion im fired was talking about how a lot of the material is designed to bring in young people to fight for them to find it appealing to remember looking at anything online that made you feel like ok this this is talking to me this resonates with me. Yeah theres a lot of push and pull back to pull back and had a lot to do with your property that was. You know i think. To help each other and when we were children and women. That we. Found. We wanted a solution and. Online we were seeing all the pictures and then really the western propaganda. Were pushing. The ideology. Yeah you know i mean what tony said exactly right so that she you know which is true shes getting on its audience segmentation so i saw is understand her audie to say one thing in arabic they say another thing in english they understand where theyre maybe vulnerable you are at risk youth they have different channels like iran and father suggested they use open source for certain things twitter and facebook that they moved and then encryption telegram they use whats the use a new app which is really big in the arab world. So they and they feel fast i mean what tony is getting at is that they know how to perfect their pitch. So one of the comments coming one of the comments and ill direct this to you fired this is a common to be a Facebook Abraham says isis is an ideology based on mr much mis interpretation of religion and fueled by injustice of arab dictators as well as despair of the youth from ever making their countries great again he goes on to say as long as these causes exist side by side with the have to load of weapons from america there will always be tens of organizations like isis this is really picking up on a point that iran made earlier about those who are fighting in those who have an ideology that they are seeking online but when you look at this as the impetus behind why people might join organizations like this how do you even begin to tackle that. I mean i think its a very interesting comment. I mean over the last few weeks and months weve been seeing media reports that hailing the defeat of isis but i think thats a little bit premature i think that we cant look at organizations like isis in isolation they are a product of broader. Wars that have been going on now for several decades. And just as a few years ago we. People were calling that talking about the end of alqaeda in its place we have we had isis and i think that this is not something that we should see in isolation i think that if were interested. In syria i mean i dont think that its accurate to say that we can enter reason but i think that we can do with certain things that mean that the likelihood of terrorism happening significantly reduced so that we can do some things to manage the problem of terrorism and i think that there are things like wars militarism. And these kind of things the arms trade is what is quite significant particularly in the u. K. You cases second largest arms dealer in the world so i think the police some of the things some of the big things that we can look at if were interested in in dealing with terrorism but it is important say that i dont think that. There is a sort of the bullet who deal with. What god said exactly right so theres look theres a blueprint and i in times when i talk about in my book i take a data driven approach which is we have data that backs up what works how do you win the war on information battlefield so one thing is that you cant just do tit for tat narratives and lot of times it causes backfire effect so if someone says the caliphate is bound to fall and someone else responds in sort of a counter narrative as theyre not out to fill that oftentimes it can reinforce a pretty predisposed belief so what you what does work is defector narratives and i interviewed a lot of them in my research for my book voices of mothers a very influential and then theres these thousands of stories of these malawis a Young Lawyers out there that are organic authentic narratives and thats why i talk about a Manhattan Project we really need a collection of talent and technology there is a blueprint for how to win this on information battlefield if you actually there is absolutely you have to have. You got for us to have her there is actually a blueprint there is actually a blueprint saying is absolutely right but i do think what youve got to understand particularly when where i am in baghdad is as i say becomes defeated Online Presence becomes stronger rhetoric yes we have been defeated but we will prevail this is just one battle that we are taking place and we have lost it through their programs that theyve lost thirty but they say this is the long war and the defeat almost strengthens the message that this is not only interesting to me because theres a fatalism to what i saw. In iraq where they say doesnt know whats going on with us. We are talking about it. I mean this is something that they say will go on a thousand. So thats something we also look at when we talk about rhetoric. And so pulling that rhetoric down to what it actually looks like in real life there is a tweet we got from sharif he says i have a friend who receives a bunch of i sold videos and follows them on social media platforms the propaganda is too strong he even regards going to somalia his biggest dream i dont really know how to react with him but i told him not to show me the videos again and i know everyone could weigh in here but tony i want to give this one to you what would you tell sharif i would. Try to i would tackle the ideology because the ideology that night. And i were going to try and break it up. Make them question and compare their ideology to other the. Other forms of social justice and and you know just trying to pick apart the right hand they can. I feel like if you can just present it to the right not to feel that case that is it. They can prevent it and they want to show that terrorism and violence isnt. It doesnt. Mean that its not going to be there. So what tanya brings up exactly right is that theres this idea that you know in online you have it in dynamic so i call the one nine ninety model which is that one percent of people online create content their key influencers nine percent are content curators they share content ninety percent of consumers oftentimes people that tony is talking about those that receive content and so in terms of winning this in terms of fighting back to sort of against its ideology its mobilizing that ninety percent right the content is there but how do you get people on the sidelines that are willing to participate in this battle and your question is whats well they need to get platforms we have to make enable its a combination of the private sector government and Civil Society working together you take a holistic approach of Community Leaders you have religious leaders that are on the front lines but how do you let those stories be told because the end of the day as i said this is a content war in iran talking about i so well theyre putting out online maybe five or ten thousand pieces of social media day and theyre building their fan boys network and so thats why we have to mobilize that ninety percent because look i take this example when we see nazi content online i think its so horrific i dont feel the need to say anything against it and a lot of people that ninety percent category thats the way they view i so its not related to religion it has nothing to do with them and in fact most of the propaganda that i saw does less than ten percent of it actually has to do with religion eighty percent is positive messaging a lot of times we talk about the dark narratives well thats in english but if you look at arabic a lot of its about governance a lot of its about corruption and the social justice things that tony talked about so we have to think about collecting the best talent the narratives that actually work because thats what we need this Manhattan Project ok so thats one idea here is another you might agree with this is someone on twitter saying social Media Companies should identify and block quote unquote. Terrorists account as much as they can a simple solution though yet a difficult one another person picks up on that and says there needs to be a proper mechanism to report handles and groups set up social media sites and be taken down immediately when reported also a counter narrative to their evil ideology is the need of the hour ahead i know that social media organizations are being tasked with this because governments are bringing them to task to do what they can but what do you make of that argument. I mean it is true that. This is happening now so just recently i think it was youve deleted fifty thousand videos by anwar our lucky who was i think killed in a cross strike several years ago by the american military. But i think that we also need to think about the longer term. Consequences of those kinds of moves because it can lead to a stifling of Political Engagement political discussions and it can have other sort of unintended consequences that can be quite dangerous as you think i would like to say here is i think that its very clear that the online space is a big battle space for the hearts and minds and i think thats true for terrorist organizations but also kind of terrorist organizations right so this is just as much as were talking about the rhetoric and messaging of terrorist organizations that something that kind of terrorism organizations are also trying to do as well in their messaging you know playing on notions of heroism and evil encouraging cultures of vigilance and reporting. Making kind of terrorism look kind of official and also saying something about what is what is correct islam and what is not what is not correct islam what is the good way to be a muslim and what is not a good way to be a muslim in the research thats been conducted by comes thompson for example he looks at some of the magazines the dubby can magazines that isis produced and what he finds that theres quite an interesting similarity in the kinds of visual rhetorics that have being employed so then they use kind of on the one hand i says use kind of rhetoric the young people with the milieu with i call that i think is called call of duty like a First Person Shooter game using those kinds of languages and i think that they learn that from the american kind of terrorists who use games like the American Army to try and recruit you know young people into the American Army right in the early period of the war on terror so i think that the important thing of all of this. Is the right message and going on a book site but in the middle of the big audience for both for both groups is an audience that is a thinking russian audience its not something its not a its important to recognize that this is not a look at zombie audience that is easily brainwashed this is an audience that is thinking that is looking at different arguments and making decisions that thinking about the value of different arguments from different sides and i think that when we think about why it is that some people might join different organizations when you think about what it is about the message that resonates with young people who look at. The messages that its an aspirational identity and look theyre playing on people like tanya mentioned her husband and you go back to im a leak i said look theres a role for censorship i think its overplayed frankly because you know as fast as they can take down content these groups are evolving and we talk about isis but theres also i says two point zero and three point zero they use like kitten in nutella and so like what are we going to get start taking down two of my favorite things they idea is that theyre using our coded language and theyre being more sophisticated in what they put up on open source iran that well let me tell you just a personal example from two thousand and four i really started covering the rise of i saw as a territorial i was able to go into twitter go to a few accounts and i was able to talk to fight in iraq in beijing there were a number of English Speaking arabic speaking studies as well that was on twitter. It could direct message them at the time dot was really useful as a partner so as it was a couple of guys on the ground that i could speak to when facebook and twitter started shutting those accounts that when they stopped allowing me to post news reports about i still saying that it was in violation of the standards it became problematic and that becomes even more problematic when we are trying to censor online space because Security Services clearly taking a look at all the material that we as john they send academics and researchers are looking at as well which probably is when you have access to this material when you are looking into this particular to talk with as well thats another space that you use you become very paranoid that you might be arrested as a journalist because youre looking all of this material youll speaking with people who are giving you information about why people join eisel why this now this to me is a real problem when it comes to speech and the ability to but we need to really understand that censorship doesnt really work in the way that we wanted to i guess thats one way of shutting people down always find another way of getting their message out whether its sensible or not its how we how we get there as to how were allowed to report and research because the last thing we want and this is happened to people into simply being journalists have been using encrypted messages and apps have some awesome contacts on that theyve been arrested i think its not me and i mean how did this case because youve been talking about messaging from Counter Terrorist organizations and messaging from i still let me show you something could you time have a look. Oh. And im happy to. See you time when you turn and you can just see in that clip there is that there edgy the base and jed i spent time with their c. E. O. Theyre like a social media incubator theyre producing viral content theyre doing things that are newsie but theyre doing stuff thats creative with young people and theyre tackling eisel directly theyre doing things and comedy satire theyre doing things directly speaking to the same youth that are want to theyre presenting another alternative say you know what were frustrated like you two we also have discontent with whats going on were not happy about what happened the arab spring but this is how were channeling it and here are more positive ways you could channel the sort of frustration and they get millions of views and we need that type of thing social media incubate or voices of defectors voice of victims thats how you win theres a real cultural battle that this case the cliche hearts and mind tanya im just going to show these two pictures of your exhusband this is john here and he was fighting in two thousand and four in twenty fourteen excuse me in syria thats him with two of your youngsters and then again here in syria do you think that kind of message and those kind of videos would have changed his mind about where he wanted to be. No i mean that he is particularly stubborn but. I mean i think i often think like what could i have said and i tried to say to him to get him to turn around and change of mind. That i think for me it was again i just questioned his idea of social justice and thats what i think he was really doing. That its not. His on twitter whos on twitter whos in the dark web much more complicated than that thank you i guess for being part of. It continues online as always. With. The Antarctic Ice sheet is melting a process that is affecting the entire globe. In a special episode prize joins fifty five scientists on a wet psyching journey of discovery around the continent for look into the post on the future of the planet. But its quite amazing just to see that statistically new lines this time on aljazeera. And monday put it well on. Us and British Companies have announced the biggest discovery of natural gas in west africa but what to do with these untapped Natural Resources is already a source of heated debate nothing much has changed they still spend most of their days looking forward to from dry river beds like this one five years on the syrians still feel battered or even those who managed to escape their country have been truly unable to escape the war. I really felt liberated as a journalist was all about getting to the truth as i would thats what this job. Hello im Barbara Starr in london these are the top stories on aljazeera they