Markers Of Materials Belonging To Terrorist Organizations

Abstract

In the situation of veiling conflict-prone content, conspiracy of extremists and terrorists, text attribution is difficult. The method of analyzing verbal extremism, developed in the BSPU center of linguistic expertise and editing, shows high efficiency and includes the following procedures: a) identification of communicative intentions of the speaker; b) description of strategies and tactics of veiling conflict-prone content; c) extraction of hidden semantics, including acts of motivation; d) characterization of acts of involvement; e) linguistic and religious text attribution. The article considers the ways of establishing the attribution of texts to extremist and terrorist organizations during complex linguistic and religious studies. On the example of more than seven thousand texts, verbal and non-verbal markers of their belonging to a number of terrorist and extremist organizations were revealed, including full and short names of organizations, names of members by status in the hierarchy of the organization; the political program, the positive characteristics of the organization denying its terrorist/ extremist fact; the availability of basic literature required for the study of adepts and members of the organizations; availability of special names and algorithms for conducting public and private meetings; mandatory involvement of new members; substantiation of necessity of military, terrorist, destructive actions, etc. It is emphasized that linguistic and religious attribution of the text should be based on the macro-text, discourse, the expert's knowledge of the ideology of existing extremist and terrorist organizations, their basic literature reflected in derivative texts in the form of intertextual elements.

Keywords: Extremismforensic examinationterrorist organizationtext attribution

Introduction

The identification of materials of one or other extremist and terrorist organizations in terms of masking the conflictogenic content is a complex problem not only for law enforcement but also for professionals conducting forensic examination. The relevance of its solution does not need proof: the whole world is shaken by explosions, sudden terrorist attacks, numerous crimes against individuals, social groups and states, involvement in this activity through the Internet (social networks, YouTube) is public, mass, it has no territorial restrictions.

Problem Statement

Our practice of carrying out complex, linguistic-religious, forensic examinations demonstrates the productivity of using a special technique aimed at more accurate qualification of the facts of verbal extremism-by: a) identifying the communicative intentions of the speaker; b) describing strategies and tactics of veiling conflict-prone content; c) extracting hidden semantics, including the content of acts of motivation, in particular appeals; d) characteristics of acts of involvement (who? whom? in what actions? for what purpose? to what extent does it successfully involve?); e) linguistic and religious attribution of the text-based on the macro-text (in fact cognitive, communicative-pragmatic and broader – discursive aspects of the existence of statements, proposition), taking into account the ideology of existing extremist and terrorist organizations. Many such organizations, being aimed at solving Hyper-tasks (overthrowing the system, the formation of new States, ensuring the domination of any religion, social, national or racial group, etc.). They distribute well-thought-out educational complexes, which include literature and other materials obligatory for step-by-step study, with intertextual references in the form of specific vocabulary and phraseology (including ideologies), point quotes, allusions, hints, etc. They apply special methods of speech conspiracy aimed at: 1) reducing legal risks; 2) veiling meanings that should not be available to adherents at the early stages of their involvement ("anchoring") in the activities of these organizations, see about this (Khazimullina, 2016).

Attribution in the case of forensic examination of extremist materials involves: a) the search for direct (verbal) indications of their belonging to any organization (see: "Appeal of Amir Imarat Kavkaz Dokku Abu Usman and Amir Supyan to the Mujahideen..."; "We, members of the Hizb ut-Tahrir party, call..."; "We like hisui should..."; "...this is the call of JAMA'ata Tabligh, whose center is in Nizamuddin"; " Tabligh Rules:... serve and inspire comrades in JAMA'at"; " Today, here in Daul, we are on Jihad...So-called Muslims! You are here, our Dawla, our government here. You have to install Daul here!"); b) identification, comparison of texts (often producing and a derived, secondary, e.g., comment, brief or more full details, list of questions and tasks to the primary text, tables, reports on activities, video message, proclamation, news release, report, code, rules, instructions, memos, oaths, political / military programs, etc.; c) identification of cross-cutting themes, characteristic strategies and tactics of their disclosure, repetitions, typical speech techniques, stereotyped expressions (including ideas), target audience, method of influence, systems of argument, types of appeals and self-presentation (texts of different organizations regularly to discover the specifics of these parameters: for example, texts of the extremist organization "Tablighi Jamaat" is inherent in the reasoning about friendship and love of the Muslims to each other (weak polarization), breeding the 6 characteristics of the "Islamic piety", the theme of "Hijra" (migration) and the Association of Muslims around the world, armed Jihad, they are not at the forefront, though, and believe it necessary to fight the infidels and apostates. The terrorist organization "LIH" is irreconcilable not only in relation to the infidels (aimed at their complete physical destruction), it promotes takfira "deviated" Muslims, their murder, i.e. preaches the cult of violence, death, shahidism, merciless offensive Jihad); d) interpretation / deciphering of actual speech meaning (in particular appeals and other types of motivation) in relation to the macro-text, with other texts; e) description of the nature of the act of communication (official / unofficial, PUBLIC / personal), including communication roles, subordination, hierarchy of interaction participants, taking into account extralinguistic factors, type and content of discourse (for example, "Tablighi Jamaat" is close to "sermons" in mosques, "Hizb ut-Tahrir" – to public (video)proclamations, rallies, proclamations, "Caucasus Emirate" and "ISIL" – to appeals recorded in the context of military, violent actions); e) analysis of the method of speech generation (spontaneous / prepared), forms of speech interaction (monologue, dialogue, polylogue), see (Galyashina, 2001), the genre of speech (conversation, debate, dispute, polemic or sermon, prayer), intentions and the register of communication (including soft / categorical will, etc.). Naturally, linguists and religious scholars solve all these problems strictly in accordance with their professional competence. As a rule, religious and linguistic attribution of texts is carried out on the basis of a set of features.

Research Questions

Question addressed to the linguist: "Are there statements in the submitted materials aimed at involvement in the activities of the terrorist organization "Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami" ("Islamic liberation party") / "Islamic state" / "Caucasus Emirate" / extremist organization "Tablighi Jamaat"?», — as well as a religious question: "Whether there are in the submitted materials direct or indirect indications of their belonging to the terrorist organization "Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami" ("party of Islamic liberation") / "Islamic state" / "Caucasus Emirate" / extremist organization "Tablighi Jamaat"?",- suggest the isolation in the religious and political texts of such signs that reveal a similar affiliation. This applied, expert task is essentially a variant of the classical philological problem of attribution of the text – the establishment of authorship, any information about the addressee of speech, the time and place of creation of the text, its belonging to a certain literary, including national, aesthetic school, etc. (Galyashina, 2001; Gorbanevskij, 2004; Likhachev, 2001; Lutsenko, 2004; Zherebilo, 2016). Religious scholars also solve it traditionally, based on the tools of their science: establish the religious or non-religious nature of organizations, the relevance of materials to any particular religious group, denomination, movement, etc.

It is important to emphasize that the driving texts usually contain tokens of their assignment to an organization due to installation effects, the intent of the speaker, his psychological motives ("if such motives do not exist, the person has neither a thought, nor all the consecutive steps of expressing the thought in the expanded statement" (Luria, 2002, p. 108). Even if the text is intentionally deprived of all formal signs of author's individualization and identification of speech, the subtext formed by subjective, affective attitude to the transmitted information, as a rule, includes components dictated by the true motives of the speaker (otherwise the text completely loses the ability to influence). "Dedicated" readers / viewers / listeners read these signals (this is the so-called "implicit context" (the concept of Slama-Kazaku, 1981, p. 97), and expert problem-solving objective, comprehensive, exhaustive research, you must be able to detect a conflict in the text. Otherwise, they miss multiple instances of manipulation of meaning, hidden propaganda.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this work is to describe a technique that allows to establish the affiliation of conflict-prone texts to terrorist or extremist organizations using a number of verbal and nonverbal markers.

Research Methods

The results of the study were obtained by applying the methods of discourse, contextual, intertextual analysis, identification, attribution of the text, linguopragmatic, intent analysis, content analysis, as well as lexical-semantic, logical-grammatical, linguostylistic, linguosemiotic analysis, methods of semantic and thematic field to the extensive conflictogenic speech material.

Findings

More than seven thousand texts studied by us regularly show variability in the following markers, allowing to determine the affiliation of texts to a particular extremist / terrorist organization:

1) full and short names of organizations: "Islamic liberation party", "Hizb ut-Tahrir", "Hizbut-TahrirPresents", "www.Htvideo.info", "HT MEDIA of RUSSIA", "http://hizb-russia.info", "http://htvideo.info", "Member of Hizb ut-Tahrir. Russia", "HT", "HT", "www.hi", "Hizb", "Islamic state", "IG", "ISIL", "Tablighi Jamaat", "Jamaat" and "Tabligh" (in one context), "Caucasus Emirate", "imaratkavkaz.3gp". Indirect nominations are also variable ("Dar al-Islam", "do/aulya", "The Khilafah", "tema-mujahida-4.avi", "Kavkazcenter_com", "KavkazChat.com", "Kavkaz.tv", "wap.kavkaz.tv", "kavkazcenter.info", "2 operacii_mudjahidov_KBK_chast_1_gotov.3gp", "IMAMTV"), including indicating that we are talking about a certain Association of people: "party", "(party) cohesion", "www.turkiye-vilayeti.org", "(political) movement", "group", "victory group", "firm", "cell". Indirect units serve as identifiers of organizations only in conjunction with ideologies and other features;

2) names of members of the organization and recruited in them by affiliation and status in the hierarchy of the organization ("htshnik", "hizbiy", "hizbovets", "Tahrir", "dagvatchik", "Yes(a)vatchik", "tablig", "tabligovets", "igilovets", "da/oulil", "jamaatchik", "Caliph", "Amir", "mutamad", "masul", "musoid", "naqib", "naqib yerdamchisi" (naqib's assistant), "responsible", "Mushrif", "Shabab", "daris", "ziyarat", etc.). Indirect units are also used, naming members of organizations by their function, correlated with the main purpose of the organization and the method of achieving it: "governors on earth", "politicians", "politicians", "leaders", "Mujahideen", "warriors (in the way) of Allah", "army of Allah", "shahids" (must be evaluated by experts in conjunction with ideologems and other features). The unity of those present as members of any organization is evidenced by the regular use of tactics of "we"-communication;

3) authorship of publications ideologues, founders and other members of organizations, positive reviews, quotes, links to their work: Takiuddin an-Nabhoni, Abdul-Kadim Zallum, ATA Ibn Khalil Abu Rashta, Muhammad Ilyas Kandehlevi, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, etc.;

4) affiliation of publications, media products to terrorist / extremist organizations: "Hizb-ut-Tahrir publication", "Hizb-ut-Tahrir Central Information office", "Hizb Ut-Tahrir media office Russia", "Hizb ut-Tahrir Information office in Turkey", "Hizb-ut-Tahrir Information office in Bangladesh", "Hizb-ut-Tahrir Vilayat Information office Bangladesh";

5) the existence of a political program, revealing (with varying degrees of detail) the goals, stages and methods of its implementation; positive characteristics of the organization, the denial of its terrorist / extremist essence, condemnation of court decisions against members of such organizations; detailed coverage of various aspects of the history and modern activities of organizations; propaganda, agitation of joining their ranks;

6) the availability of basic literature required for the study of adepts and members of associations, control questions, tests and other teaching materials for learning effectiveness ("concentrated education" – in "Hizb ut-Tahrir"), changes in consciousness and behavior of adherents, monitor their activities and personal life (this kind of literature actively and often secretly distributed, studied, read aloud in class, discussed by members of extremist / terrorist organizations; at its basis appear secondary texts – reports, proclamations, reviews, etc.): "Kit for Ziarat", "Milap Idari", "System of Islam Social system of Islam", "Party unity", "the Concept of Hizb-ut-Tahrir", "Islamic personality", "Islamic state", "Draft Constitution of the Islamic state Caliphate", "Islamic Foundations of natsii", "fortress of the Muslim", "Selected hadith", "the Value of the Tablighi Jamaat", "the Values of the Qur'an", "the Value of Prayer", "the Values of Ramadan", "Values Zikr", etc. Almost all of these publications are included in the Federal list of extremist materials;

7) the obligation of swear, oath, the presence of administrative rules, statutes, instructions for the implementation of activities ("Oath to Amir", "Bayat Caliph Ibrahim Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi", "Hymn of ISIS", "Milyaf Idariy", "Six qualities", "Duties of Amir", "Adab in the mosque", "Dagwat", "Hizmat-service to people", etc.);

8) availability of special names and algorithms (including scenarios) for public and private meetings: "ziyarat", "halakat", "suhbet", "Amali", "Markaz", "mashura", "Shura", "ijtema", "daavat / dagwat", "tablig", "Islamic appeal", "Islamic enlightenment", "sermon", "propaganda", "Assembly", "Assembly-vigil", "conversation", "gasht", "door-to-door dissemination of teaching", "haruj", "training", "occupation", etc. For the purposes of conspiracy, indirect nominations are also regularly used: "tea party", "(call) for pilaf / kebab", "iftar" (should be taken into account only in conjunction with other features);

9) the obligation to involve new members, assistants, sympathizers-translators of their ideas in organizations; the availability of instructions on the methods and principles of involvement, on working with members of organizations at different stages of involvement;

10) standard manner of external design, different quality of printed literature, video products (use of symbols, attributes of organizations; typographical/ artisanal way of publishing literature; professional/ Amateur/ author's videos/ movies for the Internet/ audio recordings);

11) justification the rationale of military, terrorist, destructive actions, their detailed elaboration in relation to particular social groups (infidels, apostates, women, children, "enemies"); the availability of instructions for the destruction of social groups and their representatives; the opposition of the organization to representatives of the same religion ("genuine"/ "insincere" Muslims, "clean", "true"/ "unclean", "not true" Islam); different degree of commitment to religious rituals, canons of faith and detailed system of penalties for deviation from them;

12) installation on publicity or concealment (conspiracy) of activity of the organization, belonging to it; existence of instructions on storage, use and distribution of the forbidden literature, measures of counteraction to security officers in case of detention, arrest;

13) the system of special ideologies, basic theoretical provisions and practical installations of the organization, compare Baran (2004), Egorov (2016), Fedorchenko and Krylov (2015), Glazova (2015), Ilminskaya (2014), Komissina (2011), Kuzmenko (2015), Maevskaya (2015), Moiseev and Shaganyan (2015), Starostin (2015), Zhirukhina (2014), for example: "illuminating thinking" – 'thinking enlightened in the spirit of the ideology of the terrorist party "Hizb ut-Tahrir"', "sincere Muslim" – 'working on the establishment of the Caliphate, including in the ranks of the party "Hizb ut-Tahrir"', "Islamic political identity" – 'enlightened in the spirit of the ideology of the party "Hizb ut-Tahrir" and working to establish a Caliphate in its ranks', "the bearer of the Islamic call" – 'a member of the party "Hizb ut-Tahrir", which carries on the ideological education of other people establish the Khilafah according to the way of the party', "we will implement Islam (almost)", "we will implement Islam completely" – 'work to establish the Khilafah according to the way of the party "Hizb ut-Tahrir" through political struggle and armed Jihad', "according to the method of the Prophet» – 'work to establish a Caliphate by the method of the party "Hizb ut-Tahrir": by rallying Muslims, Islamic appeal, political struggle and armed Jihad', 'work to establish a Caliphate'- 'to carry out political actions according to the ideology of the party" Hizb ut-Tahrir "in order to establish a world Caliphate'; "party unity" – 'uniting Muslims in the ranks of the terrorist party "Hizb ut-Tahrir"', "treating people with the Koran" – 'to carry out Islamic education/ enlightenment in the spirit of the ideology of the terrorist party" Hizb ut-Tahrir "in order to rid people of disbelief, other faith', etc.

The listed signs are differently subdivided into direct and indirect in the linguistic and religious conclusion-depending on professional competence of experts.

In cases of veiling the identification features of speech, text, their linguistic and religious attribution should be based on the macro-text, the discourse in which this text is created and perceived, the expert's knowledge of the ideology of existing extremist and terrorist organizations, their basic literature reflected in the derived texts in the form of intertextual elements. The macrocontext (socio-political, discursive situation in which a conflictogenic text is created and perceived) acts as a compensating factor that ensures the adequacy and completeness of the perception of hidden information.

The political, religious, ideological, economic, historical, sociocultural, situational, psychological and paralinguistic elements of the macro-text are significant in extremist print, audio and video texts. Objective markers of their purposeful inclusion in the the text are: 1) information flows’ contrast – external and underlying (for example, in the originally stated argument about the content of the hadith or religious ceremonies can cut comments about the injustice of the existing government, social relations, prosperity departed to the oblivion of the Caliphate and the decline of the "infidel" civilization, the need for change); such a contrast can be expressed also in opposite values, stylistic marking of means used; 2) multiple repetition of the units that make up the basic ideological, religious and political thesaurus and covertly, step by step represent the program of activity of a particular extremist / terrorist organization, for example: diligently "read Dua" – "unite in teams, groups / unite" – master the "Islamic way of thinking", become an "Islamic person", "work" – "fight", "lead a political and ideological struggle", "follow the path of Allah / Prophet" – "to revive the Islamic way of life" by means of "Jihad body and soul"/ "(virtually) implement Islam in life by the method of the Prophet" – "to live by Sharia law to flourish," "as it was during the time of the messenger of Allah" (the program of the terrorist organization "Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami", with coded speech meaning that requires careful decoding); 3) the arrangement of the permanent set of statements framed as quotes from religious sources, often in the same sequence; 4) the use of ideologies as means of sealing information, the intertext, and effeminacy speech in order to reduce legal risks, see (Osadchij, 2016): "to execute orders and requirements of Allah", "to live under Sharia law", "to resume the Islamic way of life", "to correct the shortcomings of other people, change a vicious reality", "to carry the leadership of Islam to other people," etc.; 5) reservations (audio and video): "...to strive to ... abide by these laws, to revive these laws as it was in the time of the Messenger of Allah" (= 'reclaim the Caliphate; to work on the restoration of the Caliphate'); "but no-people started... to rule, we will always think for ourselves, live as we wanted" (= 'people abandoned the Islamic state, Sharia rule; destroyed the Caliphate'); 6) the use of special speech strategies and tactics (manipulative appeal to the "expert opinion" and values significant for the religious consciousness of Muslims, an example of successful implementation of conscription actions, a positive assessment of desirable actions for the speaker and negative – their unrealization, etc.), the use of indirect genres – call-supplication (with a mandatory socio-political component (self-)motivation, for example, to establish an Islamic state, the approach of victory over the "kafirs"), approval, condemnation, admonition, intimidation, threats, promises of reward, etc.

Conclusion

The completeness and accuracy of the expert analysis depends not only on the actual professional knowledge of the researcher, but also on his expertise, experience in studying such materials, possession of macro-text, the elements of which allow to identify speech in terms of its relevance to a particular extremist / terrorist organization.

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