Inside the Digital Battlefield: How Technology is Following Salafi-Jihadist Groups in India

By New Age Islam Correspondent 23 September 2025 The technology is rapidly changing, and radical elements are exploiting the grey areas of technology for their vicious purposes. India has to march ahead in ensuring digital technology to beat the extremists prowling in cyberspace. Main Points: 1. The terrorism battlefield is constantly evolving. 2. As the planet moves toward Web 3.0, decentralised platforms, and the metaverse, extremists will find new hideaways. India's dilemma will be keeping pace – without sacrificing the freedoms that are the point of democracy. 3. The war against Salafi-jihadist terrorism is no longer fought in the Kashmiri mountains or the Syrian wastelands. It is increasingly fought in the faceless spaces of the internet — on phones, on servers, and on algorithms. 4. In that war, India's capacity to marry tech with human intelligence may determine how safe its future will be. ----- A Young Man From Kerala. It was a humid August evening in 2016 that Abdul Rashid, a 29-year-old engineering graduate from Kasaragod, disappeared with his wife and child. When police followed his online trail, he was already in Afghanistan swearing his loyalty to the so-called Islamic State (ISIS). In the investigation that followed, it was discovered that he was not radicalised in a mosque or school, but on his smartphone -- via Telegram personal channels, YouTube propaganda videos, and pep-talk messages circulated through closed Facebook groups. He was not alone. In the following years, an increasing number of young Indians based mostly in Kerala, Maharashtra, and Telangana found themselves in the same situation. They escaped the country, while others were caught even before that. What was common in their stories was not where they lived, but the internet. This was India's first foray with digital jihad — a new theatre of conflict wherein Salafi-jihadist groups used not just propaganda but recruitment, organisation and planning via the medium of computers. It forced Indian intelligence organisations to re-examine their counter terrorism strategies in the 21st century. From Pamphlets to Platforms Terrorist propaganda is not new. In the 1990s, organisations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen employed pamphlets, cassette tapes, and emotional speeches in mosques in Kashmir. But the internet transformed it all. By the mid-2010s, ISIS was adept at waging war with social media. Scientists found that a small number of highly active Twitter users could post thousands of messages, blending memes and images of cats with beheadings and war slogans. In India, it led to sophisticated videos with Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam, and Bengali subtitles. Facebook, Twitter, and afterwards, Instagram were the main platforms. When their platforms were closed down using tough rules, the jihadist networks moved their base to Telegram, Rocket Chat, and even less popular platforms, including Wickr. In Kashmir, militants shared encrypted PDFs of ISIS's magazine Dabiq and shared tutorials about making IEDs. In Hyderabad, police arrested students attending online classes on secure communication platforms. People moved from communicating on street corners to using cellular phones. India's Digital Experience The National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the cyber cell of the Delhi Police, and the state anti-terror squads suddenly had to turn into digital detectives. They weren't merely able to track money transactions or unusual phone calls. They needed to be familiar with hashtags, VPNs, spoofed IP addresses, and the dark web. In 2020, a young man in Coimbatore was arrested for planning a strike after police observed his unusual cryptocurrency purchases linked to secret internet forums. In Kashmir, militants began using Telegram "channels" with generic names such as Kashmir News Update, which secretly posted jihadist propaganda as well as news. Indian intelligence was especially worried about the "lone wolf" strategy. It is where individuals, inspired by internet-based overseas jihadist chatter, are capable of planning attacks alone without ever encountering a recruiter. The Sri Lanka Easter bombings in 2018, blamed on internet-based radicalisation, revealed the simplicity with which internet propaganda may flow across borders. Indian intelligence was apprehensive — and remains so — of a similar attack taking place within India. OSINT: The New Weapon To counteract this, intelligence agencies worldwide, including in India, began using Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT). Simply put, OSINT is collecting what is already out there — on social networks, open websites, message boards, and even Google Maps. But there is so much. Billions of posts, tweets, and messages go out each day. How do you find the one Facebook post that portends a Delhi attack? Or the one Telegram account that is transporting Indian recruits to Syria? That's where artificial intelligence (AI) and data fusion tools are helpful. AI can look through posts in many languages — like Hindi, Arabic, and Urdu — find patterns, and report suspicious actions. Data fusion brings together clues from various sources: a suspicious IP address here, a WhatsApp group there, a money transfer in cryptocurrency somewhere else. When combined, they can show a picture that humans cannot see. Throughout the planet, corporations such as Flashpoint and Palantir developed such tools initially. In New Delhi, the Ministry of Home Affairs quietly upgraded its own "National OSINT Grid," linking up state police branches with central intelligence repositories. IITs collaborated with agencies on algorithms capable of scouring encrypted chatrooms and locating perilous key words in vernacular languages. The Blind Spots Even with all the gadgets, there are gaps. Indian agencies still depend so much on Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) — tapping phone calls, emails, or internet chatter — and miss out on Open Source Intelligence (OSINT). There are bureaucratic silos that prevent the Intelligence Bureau (IB), Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), and state police from exchanging information seamlessly. And then there is the linguistic issue. An AI system trained on English extremist propaganda may fail to catch subtle signals in Malayalam or Urdu. Terror groups take advantage, promoting region-specific material that is difficult for AI to identify. Regardless of what big tech professes as efficiency, some content gets through. In 2019, after claiming it deleted 99% of ISIS and al-Qaeda content even prior to users reporting it, Indian scientists found multiple Hindi and Urdu posts glorifying jihadists still up. When Terrorists Outsmart Algorithms Jihadist groups are never static. Indian cyber police say that they have seen extremists work: Fake profile pictures of Bollywood actors or cricketers to hide their identity. VPN and spoofed IP addresses appear as if one is in Europe while actually in Kerala. Gaming platforms like PUBG or Discord are used to chat secretly. Coded language and memes combine humour with secret messages of radicalism. When accounts get taken down, they simply open new ones. Crackdowns frequently lead to a "Streisand effect" – generating even greater awareness of the very information being censored. Ethics and a Democracy It raises tough questions for India. Is there too much watching? Should the government search every Telegram chat? What about the right to privacy? Civil liberties groups are concerned that mass surveillance will turn India into a virtual panopticon. There are already examples that have arisen of counter-terrorism powers apparently being misused against dissidents and journalists. The balance between liberty and security is never so strained. Across the globe, the EU has tough regulations named GDPR that regulate the processing of data. India recently enacted its Digital Personal Data Protection Act, but it is criticized as providing excessive empowerment of the government with insufficient checks. Both sides of the fear exist for ordinary Indians: one is the threat of terrorism, and the other is the possibility of being wrongly accused. The Indian Way Forward Pundits suggest that there is a need for an indigenisation of counter-terrorism technology. It is expensive and dangerous to rely on Western software like Palantir. We must promote home-grown start-ups, IIT research centres, and collaborative partnerships with cybersecurity companies. Training is no less crucial. A rookie police constable in Kerala might be familiar with colloquialisms that AI is not aware of. On the other hand, millions of posts are picked up quicker by AI than any human. A human-machine collaboration is the future. India must also tackle the social reasons for internet-based radicalisation — unemployment, loneliness, and community-oriented politics. Technology may identify issues, but technology cannot solve grievances. Conclusion: The Digital Battlefield Welcomes Us In 2016, when Abdul Rashid went to Afghanistan, Indian agencies were surprised. Now, they are better prepared. The NIA has cyber forensics labs, the Delhi Police uses AI for monitoring, and there are also volunteers who help collect open-source intelligence. This makes them stronger. But the battlefield is constantly evolving. As the planet moves toward Web 3.0, decentralised platforms, and the metaverse, extremists will find new hideaways. India's dilemma will be keeping pace – without sacrificing the freedoms that are the point of democracy. The war against Salafi-jihadist terrorism is no longer fought in the Kashmiri mountains or the Syrian wastelands. It is increasingly fought in the faceless spaces of the internet — on phones, on servers, on algorithms. In that war, India's capacity to marry tech with human intelligence may determine how safe its future will be. URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-terrorism-jihad/digital-battlefield-technology-salafi-jihadist/d/136949 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism