Synthetic intelligence would possibly not create a brand new roughly terrorism, however it makes current ways inexpensive, quicker and more straightforward. That’s the central argument of a July 2026 record from the U.S.-based assume tank Heart for Strategic and Global Research.
This can be a convincing argument, however it leaves one query unanswered: Are other terrorist teams occupied with the generation in the similar method?
As a terrorism skilled who research how militant teams assume and adapt, I’ve analyzed propaganda, guides and strategic writings from the 2 maximum influential jihadi actions of the twenty first century – al-Qaida and the Islamic State team – to watch how they interpret and undertake new applied sciences, comparable to AI. I additionally tested documented makes use of of AI via their associates, media retailers and supporters.
I discovered that associates, media retailers and supporters throughout each actions use AI for propaganda, recruitment, safety and making plans. However al-Qaida and Islamic State-linked networks way AI in ways in which replicate how every motion fights. Al-Qaida is extra planned and thinks in a long time. The Islamic State strikes temporarily and seeks quick impact.
In brief, every team’s way displays its organizational tradition and divulges a special view of time and conflict. The Islamic State constructed its mission round a caliphate to carry and show now – and that urgency rewards whoever produces a visual impact these days. Al-Qaida constructed its mission round a generational conflict of attrition, making a bet that can and staying power may just live much longer than a technologically awesome enemy.
The Islamic State AI way
The Islamic State has lengthy been the extra competitive media innovator of the 2 actions. On the top of its self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq, it constructed an advanced media equipment prioritizing velocity, spectacle {and professional} manufacturing. That intuition has carried into the AI generation, aided via more youthful, digitally immersed supporters and recruits who readily experiment with new equipment.
Since 2023, Islamic State supporters and associates have produced a rising flow of AI-generated content material. After the March 2024 Moscow live performance corridor assault that killed greater than 130 other people, supporters circulated a bulletin celebrating the killings. It featured a pretend, AI-generated Arabic-speaking anchor who framed the assault as a part of the crowd’s wider conflict in opposition to its enemies.
Other people convey plant life to a makeshift memorial following a terrorist assault on the Crocus Town Corridor outdoor Moscow on March 25, 2024.
Olga Maltseva/AFP by means of Getty Pictures
Islamic State-linked networks have extensively utilized AI to generate pictures, accelerate translation and convey multilingual propaganda.
In June 2025, the Islamic State team’s Afghanistan associate, Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-Okay), printed a topic of its English-language mag, Voice of Khorasan. Launched via al-Azaim Basis, it framed AI literacy as a person spiritual accountability for each Muslim. This positioned AI literacy in the similar prison class that jihadi ideologues incessantly follow to defensive jihad – an obligation to struggle when Muslims, their religion or their territory come below assault.
The object casts AI as a power already shaping conflict, industry and identification. It additionally warns about deepfakes, surveillance and information assortment, providing sensible steering on protective oneself.
The root later withdrew the spiritual label, reportedly after ridicule from different jihadi teams, however left the steering in position. This implies a development of speedy adoption adopted via doctrinal correction.
All for wider Islamic State-linked experimentation, the episode issues to a common sense of mobilization, wherein fans are taught that lack of knowledge leaves them liable to adversaries already the use of the generation.
Within the subject material I reviewed, the central query isn’t whether or not AI adjustments the character of conflict, however the way to use it, guard in opposition to it and keep away from being left at the back of.
Al-Qaida is experimenting, too
Al-Qaida’s associates and supporters also are experimenting with the rising generation.
Professional-al-Qaida retailers had been circulating most likely AI-generated imagery as early as 2023, and its networks have promoted chatbot workshops and guides. In 2024, the al-Qaida-linked Al-Malahem Digital Military launched a information titled “Amazing Ways to Use AI-Powered Chatbots,” providing supporters recommendation on the use of the generation.
The quilt web page of a information via al-Qaida-linked al-Malahem Digital Military launched in 2024 titled ‘Amazing Ways to Use AI-Powered Chatbots.’
In July 2025, the United Countries reported that al-Shabaab, al-Qaida’s Somali associate, used AI equipment to translate its messaging into a number of languages.
In Would possibly 2026, India’s Nationwide Investigation Company filed fees over a November 2025 automotive bombing in Delhi that killed 11 other people. Investigators alleged that the cellular accountable was once related to al-Qaida within the Indian subcontinent and hired an engineer who used YouTube and ChatGPT to analyze explosives.
One at a time, some analysts have prompt that the new drone variations via al-Qaida’s West African associate would possibly contain open-source AI equipment, despite the fact that the proof stays oblique.
Al-Qaida-linked militants have warned that deepfakes may just infiltrate or manipulate their on-line discussions. Al-Qaida-linked social media channels have additionally debated the use of AI for spiritual analysis. Some posts argued that depending on it confirmed lack of knowledge and susceptible spiritual wisdom.
Converting the character of conflict
Each actions subsequently educate supporters the way to use those equipment and guard in opposition to them. However portions of the pro-al-Qaida media ecosystem ask a special query. Does the generation exchange the character of conflict itself?
The clearest instance is the pro-al-Qaida Anaziat Basis. Throughout six consecutive installments of its Fiqh al-Harb, or “Jurisprudence of War,” collection in 2025, the root printed Arabic translations of Western strategic writing on AI, cyberwar and technological exchange.
One textual content examines AI and the way forward for conflict. Some other asks whether or not strategists will have to take the philosophy of AI critically. Two extra debate whether or not AI may just exchange the character of conflict. The collection then reviews cyberwar and the idea that technological superiority can conquer the long-lasting realities of struggle.
Learn in combination, the texts level a revealing debate that time and again returns to human company, awareness, political function, staying power and can. The collection does now not achieve an anti-AI verdict. Somewhat, its importance lies within the questions it chooses to invite and the assumptions it time and again exams.
Other organizational cultures
Those approaches replicate other organizational instincts. Al-Qaida has traditionally been extra affected person and planned, framing its battle as an extended conflict and vetting its messaging moderately. Its technique rests on a guess that political will and staying power can conquer technological superiority. The motion survived the upward push of drones, mass surveillance and precision moves via dispersing, soaking up losses, adapting and ready.
Anaziat’s editorial alternatives stand out as a result of they echo those assumptions. Its collection turns to Western students who ask whether or not machines and AI can exchange human judgment and conquer conflict’s uncertainty, and whether or not awesome guns can exchange staying power, political function and human will.
The collection makes use of Western army writing to check al-Qaida’s long-war technique and time and again returns to the similar proposition: Era would possibly exchange how wars are fought with out deciding who in the end endures or wins.
Al-Qaida believes staying power, political will and human company want it. Army or technological superiority, in its view, does now not ensure victory.
Each actions use AI for most of the similar sensible functions. The variation lies in how they perceive the generation and the questions they ask past quick use. Islamic State-linked discourse treats AI principally as a device to grasp now. Portions of the pro-al-Qaida ecosystem do too, but in addition position it inside of an extended debate about conflict, staying power and strategic victory. The ones organizational cultures would possibly form now not simply which AI equipment every motion alternatives up subsequent, however what it makes use of them for – and the way.
