The Importance of Iconography in Counterterrorism.

Are There Clever False Flags and a Grand Deception by the Taliban and AQ Pretending to be ISIS as LinkedIn post says?

Today I saw a posting on LinkedIn that seemed topsy turvy in its conclusion.

See LI posting and the video here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/alimaisamnazary_for-over-three-and-a-half-years-the-national-activity-7281367007713808386-aF9k?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

In it, the poster wrote:

“The video shared here proves this tactic. It features Tajikistani terrorists from Ansarullah, an Al Qaeda-linked group based in Afghanistan trying to overthrow Tajikistan’s republic with Taliban support. They are praising former Taliban terrorist leader Mullah Omar for defeating the US in Afghanistan and declaring their intention to “take Tajikistan just as we took Afghanistan.” Despite using an ISIS flag, their allegiance clearly lies with the Taliban and Al Qaeda.”

How?! So, the guys in the video are al Qaeda if they say so. The flag doesn’t mean they are ISIS, especially when the flag is not an ISIS flag because it is probably an AQ flag. To say your group is one thing and wave the flag of an enemy group doesn’t make sense.

Is it a grand deception? A false flag? I don’t think so.

Iconography is an important skill in counterterrorism and anti-terrorism.

Here’s a bit of iconography about the flag and Islamists, the flag in the video is not likely an ISIS flag:

The flag in the video uses the traditional seal of Mohamed, as is used on the ISIS black flag, but this seal is extensively used on many other Islamist movement’s iconography. It all can get confusing. In other words, this seal is not exclusive to ISIS. The flag in the video is the same white flag with a seal used by Al Qaeda affiliate Al-Shabaab (who also use a black flag that looks the same as ISIS’s flag) but the script of the Al Shabaab flag vs the one in the video does seem slightly different. Again, it can all get confusing.

It seems these Jihadis cannot come up with original iconographical stuff for their movements because they are stuck on claiming to be the true continuers of Mohamed’s caliphate; so many of their symbols and flags look like the other, especially when using the same Seal of Mohamed—which by using the seal it is to claim legitimacy, even whey they fight other Jihadis with the same Seal of Mohamed claiming the same legitimacy.

I’ll bet even the Jihadis get confused.

As someone pointed out, indeed the style and script of the letters used is a factor in identifying the flags.

Below is the flag of AQ affiliate Al Shabaab in Somalia, the same as the flag seen in the video, though the letters seem to appear stylized differently, but it’s hard to tell:

Image from the video, where the letter script style might be different from the al Shabaab flag; and if so, in this case is it for reasons or just because?:

Below is another AQ affiliated Al Shabaab flag which looks a lot like the ISIS flag:

Below is the ISIS flag, which looks a lot like the AQ al Shabaab flag, where you can see the script and letter styles are different:

Again, I’ll bet even the Jihadis get confused!

Here is my LI reposting: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/royce-de-melo-39172813_for-over-three-and-a-half-years-the-national-activity-7281734296631943168-H1ZF?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

(I worry the repost will be taken down by the original poster and he might block me, because some people are fickle. So if the link doesn’t work, now you know why.)

About Islamic Colours:

There are many “Islamic colours,” but the ones more associated with Jihad are black, white and green. However, red is a Jihad-type colour, too, but we don’t see that with modern-day Jihadis too much.

Several Arab flags have the Islamic colours black, white, green and red, including the Palestinian flag, the Syrian (ba’athist) flag, Egypt, etc. Long list of Arab flags with these colours past and present.

Gold and yellow are also Islamic colours.

Below, the flag of Palestine:

Below, the flag of Egypt. I’m going to speculate that the reason the Egyptian flag has no green is because it is the flag of the Arab Republic of Egypt created under Nassar who was more secular (and anti-Muslim Brotherhood). Green is probably the most holy colour in Islam, so it might be why there is no green.