The Wall Street Journal
By Melik Kaylan
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For the first time, the war in Syria has given global audiences a close-up view of war
In one video, two men in jeans and hoodies take a rocket tube to a rooftop and fire it. From another angle, we see three Syrian tanks in a row. The middle one takes a huge hit, emits a sheet of orange flame and burns away; a smoldering figure jumps from the tank and runs off as bullets smack the ground around him.
Another video opens with a long take of a busy traffic area, full of buses and pedestrians, some of whom seem to be soldiers. One bus suddenly erupts from within, and dozens of people collapse. The videotaker repeatedly cries “Allahu akbar” and claims to be from the Al Nusra Front, a radical Islamist group.
This confluence between mercenary motives and killing for the faith isn’t news to Ali Soufan, the Lebanese-American former FBI agent who, after the attack on the USS Cole and 9/11, successfully interrogated numerous Al Qaeda operatives, including Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard. “Jihadi elements learned years ago to use video and social media for recruitment and funding,” he said. “They’re in the business of promoting themselves while the mainstream media isn’t promoting…
For Mr. Soufan and others who monitor online traffic for antiterror purposes, Syrian war videos have proved a vital resource. Charles Lister, a prominent analyst for the U.K.-based IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center, has acknowledged his dependence on videos. In a report over the summer, he analyzed scores of videos to…
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