Even organizations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) have assimilated into our computerized age. It is not only bullets but the manner in which they attract and influence people using the internet. The article discusses the role played by LeT using online social media services, encrypted messaging services, and the less-traveled recesses of the web to staff and spread radical mission statements.
Social Media and Coded Texting Apps
There is a clear change in LeT; face-to-face recruitment has been replaced by digital recruitment. Security agents state that LeT also targets the vulnerable youth in the Jammu & Kashmir region by targeting them on social media platforms such as X (previously Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, among others. They use made-up profiles and VPNs to obscure their trails. After establishing contact, these young people are silently included in exclusive groups with suggestive content: they are shown fake videos that teach horrible practices by the security forces, and they are supposed to develop emotions of anger and hatred.
These messages aren't random. Recruits are also occasionally exposed to extremist literature, such as older works by Islamic theologians, who inspired Islamist extremists in the earlier years. Recruits are even reportedly instructed to use encrypted messaging to provide or receive instructions and share extremist materials, according to the officials. It is simply WhatsApp, Telegram, and other secure-radicalization.
Propaganda and Radical Literature on the Internet
In addition to messaging applications, LeT also maintains publications and online media geared toward spreading the LeT message. The organization issues publications in print and electronic forms, magazines such as Wyeth, Al-Dawa, Gazwa, and Voice of Islam. As recently as 2017, they ran ads in newspapers asserting that jihad is something people could do over the internet and through smartphones- urging young people to log on and join in.
The suggestions made by these materials are dualistic because LeT positions itself as a force of defending the Muslims against oppression, particularly in such hotspots as Kashmir. Such emotional attraction, combined with convenient access to the contents of the Internet, simplifies the process of recruiting people who are sidelined.
Moving off to Less-Regulated and Decentralized Platforms
Due to the crackdown on extremist content by mainstream platforms, LeT and its affiliates changed the venue of their online activities. Researchers discovered that one LeT-affiliated group, which was known as TRF (The Resistance Force), relocated its activity to a platform with fewer checks and balances, such as Rocket Chat and Matrix. They are decentralised, that is, the user can set up the server at any location, and law enforcement makes locating such a server difficult. This is similar to some tricks employed by other extremist organizations, such as ISIS, which also shifted to encrypted apps, such as Telegram, as well as developed their own news-sharing applications under other nicknames.
Why online strategies make sense to Terror groups
Researchers indicate that close to 90 percent of the planned acts of terrorism on the Internet occur through social media. Social media are inexpensive, user-friendly, and allow extremists to have a direct one-way flow to the target audience, devoid of social media filters. LeT takes advantage of these. Online tactics enable them to evade the trace of the physical recruiting camps, according to reports. They can pretend to be local factions, conceal themselves using false identities, and evade notice whilst on the training and indoctrination of apprentices.
Real-World Effect and The Law as Practiced
There is an impact of all these online strategies. On one occasion, police in Kashmir broke a network of online recruitment of LeT. They took the hand of a few individuals and garnished phones, laptops, and SIM cards that were used to conduct messaging. That indicates two facts: one, that LeT is already actively applying such tactics in practice; and two, that the security forces are trying to keep up by monitoring encrypted platforms and tracing digital footprints.
Conclusion
Lashkar-e-Taiba has shifted a great part of its recruitment and radicalization activity online. They groom recruits with fake personas and telegrams via Facebook, Telegram, WhatsApp, Instagram, and X. The Jihad is promoted through the internet, utilizing magazines and advertisements; also, the ideological promotion is made by using emotional stories. They now use unfocused chat apps such as Rocket Chat and Matrix as an evasion of moderation. They are low-cost and conceal the operations footprint that in the past revealed them. The Kashmir police have detained individuals and seized devices employed in radicalization via the internet. LeT is attempting a digital recruiting avenue by combining ideology, technology, and affecting emotions. To cease them is to learn to be aware of how they work on the screen and to make sure we are watching, both on the screen and in the real world.
