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| BM Amaro/pexels.com |
TikTok, by simplifying content publishing and broadcasting through videos, photos, and audio clips, has become one of the most popular platforms among jihadists. I reviewed dozens of accounts on this platform, disseminating jihadi content in multiple languages from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and other countries. These accounts, each with thousands of followers, bypass TikTok’s algorithms using emojis, censoring forbidden words, and editing videos and text to avoid account suspension.
Accounts broadcasting jihadi content on TikTok are split into followers of ISIS ideology and Taliban ideology. Although using social media and the internet to promote jihadist ideology, recruit followers, and spread extremist ideas is not new, TikTok’s popularity, particularly among youth, has recently turned it into a platform for promoting jihadi beliefs.
Currently, TikTok is one of the world’s most popular social media platforms, regularly ranking among the top three alongside Facebook and Instagram. Recent statistics indicate that TikTok has over 1.2 billion active monthly users, a number that continues to grow. In many countries, particularly among the younger generation, TikTok is very popular and has topped social media download charts in recent years.
Although the Taliban regime has banned TikTok, thousands of Afghan citizens continue to use the platform. Despite TikTok’s strict policies against promoting extremist and violent ideologies, users from Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, and other countries share content promoting jihad and violence on this platform.
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| Taliban in TikTok |
TikTok’s guidelines for users prohibit any content promoting terrorism, violent extremism, and jihadism. The platform also states that any content encouraging violence or supporting terrorist organizations and extremists will be removed. However, TikTok’s algorithms appear to struggle to identify ISIS and Taliban-affiliated users sharing jihadi content.
One account named “xati__notamom,” with 56,000 followers and 648,000 views, regularly shares videos of Taliban female preachers. The account description, written in the Cyrillic script used in Tajikistan, states that its goal is to “guide people to the right path.” This account recently posted a video featuring a woman named “Hafiza Aisha Emarati,” who, speaking to a classroom of women, discusses raising children with a jihadi mindset. Aisha Emarati, a religious educator at a Taliban-controlled school in Kabul, regularly shares her videos on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Her jihadi videos on TikTok have garnered thousands of views, where she tells women: “Revive jihad. Enough baking cakes, enough sweet treats. Raise your sons and daughters with the belief in jihad.”
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This account has also published dozens of videos labeled “Shia Rafidah” (a derogatory term for Shia Muslims), where men and women with Tajik-accented Farsi recite hadiths denouncing Shia beliefs as false.
Other videos on the account address ethical issues and answer questions from followers. In one video, for example, it responds to whether it is permissible in Islamic law for a husband to drink his wife's milk, citing a book titled "Radd al-Muhtar ala al-Durr al-Mukhtar" by Aisha bint Abidin, stating that it is forbidden.
This account has also published numerous videos and audio clips in Tajik-accented Farsi, using the Cyrillic script, on “Islamic hijab” and denouncing the dress style of Tajik women as un-Islamic.
Dozens of other accounts with various names actively share and broadcast speeches and photos of Taliban officials daily, disseminating jihadi content. Most of these accounts operate in Pashto, Farsi, and Urdu, with some also utilizing infographics.
IS-KP on TikTok
Another group of accounts sharing jihadi content on TikTok follows IS-KP (Islamic State – Khorasan Province) ideology, regularly reposting speeches and messages from influential figures among ISIS members. One account, under the username “Osman,” recently shared a speech by Mawlawi Abu Obaidullah Matuqel, a former faculty member at the Kabul University Faculty of Theology, who was killed by the Taliban in 2021. In this video, Matuqel says, “Muslims must befriend God’s friends and oppose His enemies,” describing Shias as enemies of God and urging “real Muslims” to avoid befriending Shias.
The same account also shared a speech by an IS-KP preacher named “Abu Hanthala Javanmard,” addressing the President of Tajikistan, criticizing Emomali Rahmon for passing laws against Islam. Javanmard, an inspiring figure among IS-KP members, tells his followers to “behead Rahmon and his supporters wherever you see them.” This video, in Farsi, has been viewed hundreds of times, and TikTok not only failed to remove it but also suggested it to users searching terms like Islam and jihad.
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| IS-KP propaganda in TikTok |
Dozens of similar accounts repost video clips of speeches by IS-KP figures, including Maruf Rasikh, Abu Mustafa Darwish, Zahir Da’i, Abu Muhammad Madani, Zahir Aslamyar, and other ISIS preachers.
One of these channels, named “Kalam-e Haq” (Word of Truth), publishes content from a book titled "Contradictions in the Words of the Opponents of the Islamic State [ISIS]" in Farsi, answering questions about ISIS ideology.
This page also shares IS-KP anthems and some publications from Al-Azaim Media Center, ISIS-Khorasan’s media wing, in Farsi.
Since the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, IS-KP has emerged as a significant threat to regional security. This group, with deadly attacks in Russia, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and attempts to launch attacks in European countries and the United States, has alarmed governments worldwide.
Security agencies in the United States have frequently expressed concerns about the rise of ISIS-Khorasan, referring to Afghanistan as a haven for terrorist groups. With the spread of jihadi ideology in this country, ISIS-Khorasan recruits fighters from religious schools and disenfranchised, unemployed young people.
- The original version of this report was published in Independent Persian.
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