Undercutting Violent Extremists in the Middle East, North Africa And South Asia

Accadian’s directors have spent many years devising and implementing campaigns to undercut violent extremism in countries such as Iraq, Syria, Somalia and Pakistan.

Organisations like Daesh (or so-called Islamic State) have always employed a variety of media to frame and amplify their violent ‘propaganda of the deed’ and to cultivate narratives of sectarian grievance or utopian fantasy.

The proliferation of this coercive material can make the extremists seem omnipotent among those they seek to subjugate and helps to perpetuate the factional cycles of violence that they thrive on.

In countering these kinds of narratives, our approach has always focused on providing ordinary people with the methods and means to expose the myths and absurdities of what such groups claim.

Between 2014-17, when Daesh controlled Iraq’s second city of Mosul, the group imposed a media blackout, while at the same time releasing a stream of appalling propaganda that claimed only the Islamic State could bring vulnerable Iraqi Sunnis the rights, dignity and justice they craved.

In response, Accadian implemented a programme to empower a circle of brave, covert activists to expose the myths of life in ‘the Caliphate’ using video testimonies and reportage filmed on smart phones. The powerful footage these citizen journalists recorded was smuggled out of the city and then released on social media platforms, to be viewed across Iraq and the wider region.

This rare glimpse of ground truth debunked Daesh’s version of events and restored the voice of the beleaguered Mosulawis. In doing so, it revealed ordinary people’s contempt for Daesh and its ideology. At the same time, it movingly called for safe treatment, representation and justice for people living in a post-Daesh Mosul.

With well over one million views, this reportage, and the responses of the local people who engaged with it, the city’s residents a vital voice and helped to deny Daesh its chokehold on Mosul.