Jihadist Organisation Use of Cognitive Warfare in the Artificial Intelligence Age: An Evolving Hybrid Threat for European Security

Introduction  

The jihadist organisation’s use of advanced tools and artificial intelligence (AI) to bolster their recruitment and radicalisation strategies shifted from traditional approaches to more innovative and personalised postmodern forms of cognitive warfare (Awasthi, 2025), which gained momentum after COVID-19, as the Islamic State targeted digital natives from Generation Z and Alpha (Pandith, 2021). The militarised AI has increasingly spread from the Russian-Ukrainian war to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas (Ferey, 2024). However, this evolving landscape of hybrid and transnational threats marks a major turning point for European security.

Against this backdrop, this policy paper explores how jihadist groups, namely Al-Qaida and the Islamic State, and their affiliates are incorporating artificial intelligence and cognitive warfare in the digital age to enhance their operational actions of recruitment and radicalisation, with implications for the European region’s security landscape. It will also outline EU counter-terrorism governance of the malicious use of AI by jihadist networks at the legal and institutional levels, including policy recommendations for sustainable cyber risk management to mitigate the hybrid nature of these transnational threats.

Jihadism Generative Artificial Intelligence: An Evolving Transnational Threat 

The digital ecosystem has become a weapon of war for jihadist groups, which are using cognitive warfare and artificial intelligence to enhance their operational capabilities (Kapsokoli, 2026) and embracing a new form of “low-tech terrorism” (Hoffman, 2014). However, the “democratisation” of developing technologies, the inherent imbalance in terrorism and its retaliation, and most notably the increasing reliance of society on technology and data within the framework of globalisation are all closely related to the malicious use of artificial intelligence for terrorist aims (UNICRI & UNCCT., 2021) by jihadist groups affiliated to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Al-Qaeda, through Osama bin Laden and later Ayman al-Zawahiri, was the first jihadist group to embrace internet technologies, whilst the strategy of militarising cyberspace was implemented by Anwar al-Awlaki. It encouraged terrorist acts in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and France, providing support to the Kouachi brothers in the attack on Charlie Hebdo. In a post-modern approach to self-radicalisation and self-recruitment, IS concurrently changed the notion of “cyber-jihad” by using platforms such as blogs, instant messaging, video-sharing websites, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Tumblr, and Ask .fm (Liang, 2015). 

The “Jihadist Sphere” has evolved from the fledgling forums of the 1990s to the encrypted messaging services of the post-caliphate era of fifth-generation cyber-jihad—a movement without a physical territory, united by a shared culture and platforms that bridge distances, where radicalised actors simultaneously master the mechanisms of virality (TikTok and Instagram) and spaces of concealment (Telegram, Signal, and Session), thus reflecting a duality of tactical sophistication navigating between hypermedia coverage and clandestinity (NOSTRUM, 2026 ). Consequently, in the digital age, jihadist recruitment and radicalisation rely on static websites, as well as hybrid online and offline processes that incorporate social media, apps, video game platforms, and artificial intelligence systems (Winter, 2020).

The Use of AI-assisted Cognitive Warfare: Jihadist Networks’ Strategies Between Recruitment and Radicalisation

Cognitive warfare has aided the recruitment and radicalisation of jihadists in hybrid warfare domains by deliberately utilising AI, ICT infrastructure, information cyberattacks, and psychological operations to alter human perception (Ariton, 2025). Technological innovation has become integral to indoctrination, mobilisation, and recruitment (Alonso, 2008). In the context of “neo-jihadist radicalisation”, the web has completely transformed the nature of the threat, marked by the shift to new-generation terrorism, thus disrupting the conventional pathways. The dynamic has led to double-edged impacts; on the one hand, a “virtual Ummah” community and “group-based terrorism” have emerged. On the other hand, due to the process of individualisation, new terrorist actors known as “lone wolves” have spread, including “lone jihadists” (Boily, 2019). At the same time, the internet has both transformed the operational methods of jihadists and facilitated the mechanisms of radicalisation as part of an “electronic jihad” communication strategy (Zeman, 2017), which manifests itself through the emergence of a new generation of “tech-savvy Generation Y jihadists” and “selfie-jihad” exploiting technological innovations stemming from the digital revolution, social media and encryption, enabling “lone actors” to create and disseminate content more effectively whilst facilitating communication between extremist groups and recruits (Burke, 2016) under the multi-channel online recruitment of foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) by jihadist organisations (Weimann, 2016).

The jihadist groups are using AI technologies for targeted recruitment. This dynamic is operationalised by targeting vulnerable young, isolated, or politically frustrated individuals through the amplification of content via recommendation algorithms, the circumvention of moderation filters, language models, and, most importantly, the automated generation of content through text, images, and videos, thereby facilitating the radicalisation process (Ganaie, 2026). Undoubtedly, jihadists are well-adapted to AI algorithms, particularly a strong grasp of “rabbit holes”, radicalisation pipelines, conversational AI (chatbots), echo chambers, epistemic isolation, and selective amplification, all of which facilitate online radicalisation (Shin, 2024). AI has emerged as a powerful tool for jihadist networks through AI-driven content recommendation systems, data analysis, pattern recognition, micro-targeting, personalisation, natural language processing (NLP), and natural language generation (NLG) (Irfan, 2023). All the more so, as social media algorithms can fuel radicalisation by accelerating existing trajectories, particularly via platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, and Gab (Whittaker, 2021). Since 2022, the Islamic State has been using the Rocket chat server and the free ChatGPT software to provide advice on supporting the Islamic caliphate via “Perplexity Ask” and to create content promoting recruitment through personalised messages (Lahav, 2024 ). In parallel with the operational strategy of exploiting virtual spaces in video interaction through “gamification” as new vehicles for recruitment and radicalisation (Mahmoud, 2022). 

Figure 1: See the diagram drawn up by the researcher. “Jihadist AI Cyber Ecosystem Strategies” (Source: Author).

Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State’s Generative AI Operational Capacity: Hybrid Warfare in The Age of Cyber-Jihad 

Generative jihadist AI has used machine learning to simulate conversations via platforms such as Anthropic’s Claude, Google Gemini, and Llama 2, as well as image and video generators, including Bing Image Creator, DALL-E 3, Midjourney, and the open-source Stable Diffusion model; and voice generators, such as Microsoft VALL-E. Generative jihadist AI also appears in the form of warfare applications and interactive recruitment. For instance, in 2023, the Islamic State released a guide on the secure use of generative AI tools, while al-Qaeda shared posters created using these technologies (Nelu, 2024). ISIS and its regional affiliates, primarily the Afghanistan-based Khorasan Province (ISIS-K), have launched an awareness campaign on the use of AI via the magazine ‘Voice of Khorasan’, produced by its Al-Azaim Foundation. Meanwhile, Al-Shabaab has released a series of messages translated into several languages using AI tools; it is with this in mind, therefore, that IS has been targeting the recruitment of cybersecurity experts and engineers to strengthen its operational AI capabilities (O’Connor, 2026). 

In fact, the jihadist processes of radicalisation and recruitment leading to terrorist attacks are increasingly taking place via online platforms, including the 2017 Manchester Arena attack (Núñez-Guerra, 2026). However, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb AQIM has developed an online communication strategy under Al-Andalus Media by producing content in various formats and languages, including Twitter and the blog “Africa Muslima” (Besenyő, 2021). Henceforth, AQIM leader Abdelmalek Droukdel released an audio message in 2018, criticising Macron’s policies towards the Yellow Vest crisis to recruit and radicalise youth in the suburbs (Joscelyn, 2018). In 2025, AQIM launched a smartphone app in collaboration with Al-Qaeda’s Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF), featuring a media archive, videos, audio files, and English and French translations of jihadist documents (MEMRI, 2025).   

 Furthermore, the use of gamification by incorporating rewards and leaderboards into jihadist forums is also evident, as seen in a 2020 video from the Islamic State’s Al Hayat Media Centre, which presents a “mission briefing” similar to video games, and how recruiters compare games such as Call of Duty to real-life war situations (Lakhani, 2022). ISIS is a pioneer in jihadist gamification, directly targeting teenagers via the video game Roblox, which has been exploited as a tool for radicalisation through the creation of games such as “The Battle of Fallujah” (R, 2025a ) and “Muslim Mali”, which have become training grounds and war simulations in virtual spaces such as Arma and the metaverse (Tenré, 2025). In 2023, affiliates of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State regularly used online platforms to create voice clones and audio deepfakes of popular YouTubers like PewDiePie and MrBeast, alongside TikTok content featuring animated characters performing jihadist-themed songs (such as SpongeBob, SquarePants, and Peter Griffin). Additionally, during the Israel-Hamas conflict, jihadist generative AI has produced TikTok videos depicting IDF soldiers in humorous situations, including a voice clone of an Israeli commander suggesting he wears nappies (Siegel, 2024). 

Jihadist AI-enabled Cognitive Warfare: A Hybrid, Cyber, and Information Threat to European Security

AI poses a multifaceted risk to European security, with a growing emphasis on social engineering and widespread fraud, creating unprecedented challenges for governments and private-sector entities. AI enhances security dilemmas for critical infrastructure by increasing the capability to develop unconventional weapons and execute cyberattacks. It automates the identification of vulnerabilities that can compromise military communications, manipulate satellites, or disrupt power grids, empowering terrorist organizations to produce unconventional weapons with reduced resource requirements, thus threatening national security (Wagman, 2025). AI’s potential to destabilize communities, encourage cybercrime, disturb public order, and threaten democratic institutions is increasingly being exploited by jihadist non-state actors who routinely use AI technologies to undermine democracies. Using culturally and linguistically specific multilingual generative AI, sophisticated behavioural targeting intensifies polarisation, erodes institutional trust, and distorts electoral processes by focusing on voters’ concerns about immigration and economic insecurity. Additionally, algorithmic manipulation and generative AI seriously compromise democratic integrity (Mansur, 2025).

Al-Qaeda and IS have employed sophisticated financing methods, posing a threat of cybercrime and financial fraud via social media and new payment products and services (FATF, 2015), including AI-powered cryptocurrency trading, as seen in the 2015 Paris attacks carried out by ISIS (Buenaventura, 2015), which confirmed transactions in Bitcoin wallets using the CoinPayments platform (Katsiri, 2019), and the hoarding of wealth in virtual currencies, with over 300 cryptocurrency accounts worth millions of dollars linked to Al-Qaeda and IS (The Soufan Center., 2020). Jihadist malicious actors use AI, directly impacting the EU’s cyber, physical, and political security domains, including socio-political concerns (Romanovski, 2022). Simultaneously, the hybrid threats arising from jihadists’ use of AI are blurring the line between the EU’s internal and external security, thereby affecting human security, stability, and social cohesion (Mafart, 2025), with evidence showing that the radicalisation and recruitment of minors in France by ISIL have risen from 1% to 21% between 2022 and 2024 (R, 2025b).

European Governance Countering jihadist AI: A Sustainable Engineering Between Legislation and Institutionalisation 

The EU’s legal framework operates at the intersection of artificial intelligence, data protection, and cybersecurity to prevent and counter violent extremism (P/CVE), including jihadists’ use of generative AI (Andraško, 2021). However, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018 (Jones, 2022) and the EU Cybersecurity Act (Regulation EU 2019/881) established the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) and a European cybersecurity certification framework (European Union, 2019). Additionally, the Digital Services Act (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065) was enacted to secure the online ecosystem by regulating digital services and holding platforms accountable for illegal content (Gabadou, 2024). The EU institutional efforts through the Council, the Commission, and the European Parliament (EP) culminated in the 2024 Artificial Intelligence Regulation (AI Act), a comprehensive legal framework with a risk-based approach (Cancela-Outeda, 2024). Thus, AI systems are classified according to their potential risk levels: prohibited, high-risk, limited-risk, and minimal-risk (Briend, 2025). 

From this perspective, the European AI Office was established to support the AI Act and enforce AI rules (De Mercey, 2025). Indeed, EU policies that combat jihadist AI are supported by the National Supervisory Authorities (Mishova, 2025) and the European AI Alliance (Diaz, 2017). These mechanisms are complemented by the implementation of EU Regulation (2021/784) on terrorist content online (Pingen, 2024) and operationalised through the Europol European Counter-Terrorism Centre (ECTC) as part of the EU’s security policy (Ortiz, 2024), in accordance with the EU Counter-Terrorism Agenda, which incorporates AI within the strategies of anticipation, prevention, protection, and response (European Commission., 2020), enhanced by the RED-Alert System and Europol’s counter-terrorism unit (Bernabe, 2019). Consequently, cyberattacks, including the use of AI by jihadist groups against the EU and its Member States, have been the focus of a common cyber defence policy since 2022, equipped with proactive operational capabilities and strengthening NATO-EU cooperation on the protection and prevention of cyber threats (Poptchev, 2020).

Figure 2: See the diagram drawn up by the researcher. “The EU’s Main AI Governance: Institutional and Legal Framework” (Source: Author).