ntioned in a hadith about Armageddon. Harleen K. Gambhir, of the Institute for the Study of War, found that while al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's Inspire magazine focused on encouraging its readers to carry out lone-wolf attacks on the West, Dabiq is more concerned with establishing the religious legitimacy of ISIS and its self-proclaimed caliphate, and encouraging Muslims to emigrate there.
ISIS's use of social media has been described by one expert as "probably more sophisticated than [that of] most US companies". It regularly takes advantage of social media, particularly Twitter, to distribute its message by organizing hashtag campaigns, encouraging Tweets on popular hashtags, and utilizing software applications that enable ISIS propaganda to be distributed to its supporters' accounts. Another comment is that "ISIS puts more emphasis on social media than other jihadi groups. ... They have a very coordinated social media presence." In August 2014, Twitter administrators shut down a number of accounts associated with ISIS. ISIS recreated and publicized new accounts the next day, which were also shut down by Twitter administrators. The group has attempted to branch out into alternative social media sites, such as Quitter, Friendica and Diaspora; Quitter and Friendica, however, almost immediately worked to remove ISIS's presence from their sites. ISIS released some special videos to influence Muslim youths in the Indian subcontinent. Reportedly two youths from Thane and four from Mumbai joined ISIS from India. After finding this to be a genuine report the Indian Government has introduced measures to stop youths joining ISIS. Four youths from Hyderabad were caught in Kolkata while flying to Syria to join ISIS.
On 19 August 2014, a propaganda video showing the beheading of US photojournalist James Foley was posted on the Internet. ISIS claimed that the killing had been carried out in revenge for the US bombing of ISIS targets. The video promised that a second captured US journalist Steven Sotloff would be killed next if the airstrikes continued. On 2 September 2014, ISIS released a video purportedly showing their beheading of Sotloff. In the video the executioner says, "I'm back, Obama, and I'm back because of your arrogant foreign policy towards the Islamic State, because of your insistence on continuing your bombings and on Mosul Dam, despite our serious warnings. So just as your missiles continue to strike our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people."  The next scene shows the same executioner holding the orange jumpsuit of another prisoner, and saying "We take this opportunity to warn those governments that enter this evil alliance of America against the Islamic State to back off and leave our people alone." On 13 September 2014, ISIS released another similar video purportedly depicting the beheading of David C. Haines, a British aid worker they had been holding hostage.
There are many foreign fighters in ISIS's ranks. In June 2014, The Economist reported that "ISIS may have up to 6,000 fighters in Iraq and 3,000–5,000 in Syria, including perhaps 3,000 foreigners; nearly a thousand are reported to hail from Chechnya and perhaps 500 or so more from France, Britain and elsewhere in Europe". Chechen leader Abu Omar al-Shishani, for example, was made commander of the northern sector of ISIS in Syria in 2013. According to The New York Times, in September 2014 there were more than 2,000 Europeans and 100 Americans among ISIS's foreign fighters.
A study of 200 documents—personal letters, expense reports and membership rosters—captured from Al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Islamic State of Iraq was carried out by the RAND Corporation in 2014. It found that from 2005 until 2010, outside donations amounted to only 5% of the group’s operating budgets, with the rest being raised within Iraq. In the time-period studied, cells were required to send up to 20% of the income generated from kidnapping, extortion rackets and other activities to the next level of the group's leadership. Higher-ranking commanders woul