Pentagon program to combat Daesh online propaganda failing: Report

This file photo shows sailors assigned to US Navy's Cyber Defense Operations Command at work.

The US Defense Department’s online program to combat propaganda by the Daesh (ISIL) terrorist group has failed to reach its objectives due to widespread incompetence, cronyism and skewed data, according to a new report.

The Pentagon-funded web operation, known as “WebOps,” a critical national security program aimed at disrupting ISIL’s recruitment through social media, is having little impact due to inefficient staff and widespread corruption, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.

The AP investigation is based on Pentagon and contractor documents, photographs, emails and interviews with over a dozen people closely involved with WebOps as well as interviews with nearly two dozen contractors.

Operated by a small group of civilian companies and military officers working for the US Central Command in Tampa, Florida, the program relies heavily on Arabic-speaking analysts who scour Twitter and other social media platforms to find potential Daesh recruits.

Their mission is to contact vulnerable users and urge them not to join terror groups.

However, AP’s interviews with current and former WebOps personnel shows that many analysts lack experience in counter-propaganda, can’t speak Arabic fluently and are no match for Daesh’s online recruiters when it comes to knowledge about Islam.

The lack of linguistic skills has been so serious that in many cases the program has ran into problems, according to the report.

For example, one of the analysts working for WebOps became the subject of online ridicule after mistaking the Arabic word for “authority” with the word for “salad.”

Data manipulation

The report also cited at least four current and former staff of the project, who had personally witnessed the manipulation of data to create a fake appearance of success for WebOps.

Yet the companies carrying out the program for Central Command have evaded attempts to implement independent oversight and assessment of the data.

Manipulating information to give the impression of success is not unprecedented within the US military.

A government task force reported last year that CENTCOM, which is leading the US military operations against Daesh, was releasing classified and public reports that were far more positive than the actual situation on the ground.

Corruption

Last year, the US government granted a separate $500 million counter-propaganda contract. However, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service confirmed later on that it was investigating a whistleblower's "allegations of corruption" about the way the contract was granted.

According to the whistleblower, Army Colonel Victor Garcia, who led the information operations division until July 2016, had personal ties with the staff of the company that won the bidding on the contract.

Daesh terrorists, who were among the militants initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, now control parts of Iraq and Syria.