A divided Iraq and a fractured storyline

Listening Post covers the propaganda war and competing media narratives in Iraq.

The insurgent group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has rebranded itself.

Since June 29, 2014, it became known as the Islamic State group (IS). It made the announced in a video posted on YouTube, which also stated its intention to rule the entire Islamic world.

On the ground, the IS group has made violent advances, but in social media, it has also been heavily engaging in a propaganda war that has pitted the rebels against some of their own rivals in IS and al-Qaeda, as well as the governments in Baghdad and Damascus. Elsewhere in the region, state-owned media outlets are providing coverage that echoes their particular government’s own geopolitical interests.