It's been just over a year since the US started bombing Daesh (ISIS) positions in Iraq on August 8, 2014. No one had ever even heard of them before that summer, but today the barbaric militant group has a brand more globally recognized than the Vatican.
So how has the US-led strategy against them worked so far?
In terms of gains on the ground — not great. But the US and its allies have also launched an Internet war against the group from their ideological epicenter.
Among these tools is Think Again, Turn Away, a project by the US State Department made up of a Twitter handle and YouTube channel disseminating information aimed at deterring people from joining the militant group's ranks.
Today, they include clips of ex-Daesh members explaining why they fled and tallies of ‘terror facts.’
But their most popular video by far is one presented on August 22, 2014, just weeks after the coalition began bombing in Iraq.
In 'Welcome to the Islamic State,’ the program sarcastically turns the group's propaganda tools against them. The English video’s since garnered almost 1 million views. Viral video-speaking, it's not all that much — the channel itself only has a little over 3,000 subscribers. Still, in comparison to the other videos, each of which have some 14,000 views at best, it wins by a landslide.
Watch the video below. Via YouTube.
