As part of their online media strategy, jihadi groups have in recent years begun using Western websites and technologies – uploading videos to YouTube and to the Internet Archive, creating official Facebook pages, tweeting news flashes from the jihadi fronts, and most recently posting images on Instagram. Jihadis have come to depend on free web hosting, where content can be uploaded anonymously, reliably, and at no cost.

The use of social media in the current conflict in Syria highlights the global jihad movement's total dependence on the Internet and on U.S.-based social media companies. For example, Skype is now being used by one jihadi group, the Al-Haq Brigade (part of the Syrian Islamic Front) to help recruit new trainees for its Al-Ansar Battalion training camp, and a large number of jihadis who have gone to Syria use Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to communicate, plan attacks, fundraise and keep in touch with family and friends.

Another use of U.S.-based social media is to disseminate death photos and eulogies for jihadis killed in battle (see MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis No. 990, Faces Of Death - Part II: On Twitter, Jihadis Disseminate Death Photos Of Martyrs - Noting Their Beatific Smiles, Scent Of Musk Emanating From Their Bodies, And The Virgins Awaiting Them In Paradise; Other Popular Tweets Include Death Photo Of Boston Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Photo Of Basket Of Sweets Celebrating Martyr; Hashtags Created For Notable Martyrs, July 2, 2013, and Inquiry and Analysis No. 939, Faces Of Death: On Twitter, Jihadis Distribute Photos Of 'Martyrs', February 22, 2013). For example, a eulogy posted on Facebook for Abu Qasura Al-Tunisi, a Tunisian who was an important contributor to the now-defunct Al-Falluja jihadi forum and who traveled to Syria to fight alongside the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat Al-Nusra, noted: "He joined Jihad with no help but Allah and Google Earth." His death photo has also been disseminated and shared widely via Twitter by online jihadis and videos of the martyrdom operation in which he was killed, and of his funeral, can be viewed on YouTube. He apparently used Google Earth not only for joining jihad in Syria but also for other travels; posted on his Facebook page are photos of him in Western countries such as Italy before he went to Syria.

Flickr, the popular online photo management and sharing application, is now one more of the large U.S. social media companies that are infested by jihadis and are being used to help drive jihad in Syria. On May 3, 2013, a member of the jihadi forum Al-Fida', "Ghuraba Al-Sham" ("Foreigners in Syria"), reported that the Facebook page called "The Foreigners in the Syrian Revolution," which documented foreign nationals fighting in Syria – particularly "martyred" ones – had been removed by Facebook for terms-of-use violations. This member went on to note that a new Facebook account had been launched for the same purpose, and that the images and videos of foreigners killed in Syria that had been posted on the removed page could now be viewed on both YouTube and on Flickr.

As of this writing, this Flickr account, which was opened in February 2013 before the Facebook page was shut down, includes 360 photos of martyrs; most of these photos are included in this report. The photos are of martyrs who came to Syria from Albania, France, Ireland, Sweden, Australia, Spain, the U.S., the U.K., Denmark, Azerbaijan, the Caucasus (Dagestan and Chechnya), Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey, the UAE, and Yemen.

Flickr Photostream: "Foreigners in the Syrian Revolution"

Martyrs From the West



"Muhammad Abu Karaa', nicknamed 'the Olive Tree,' Libya, was martyred in Aleppo on April 2, 2013. He left his studies in America and came to Syria seeking martyrdom"

Uploaded April 13, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/8645321840/in/photostream



"Abu Amr the Albanian, Flora, Albania, was martyred in Aleppo on December 15, 2012"

Uploaded April 13, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/8645334156/in/photostream



"Rafael Gendroun (Abdullrawuf – Abu Marwa), a martyr from France, was martyred on April 14, 2013. He was a member of the Syrian Hawks Brigade in northern Syria"Uploaded

May 1, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/8697298549/in/photostream



"Marwan Al-Bul'azzi, Tripoli-Ireland/Libyan origin, was martyred in Daraa on April 30, 2013"

Uploaded May 1, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/8698655706/in/photostream



"Sammy Salma, Melbourne, Australia, was martyred in the outskirts of Aleppo on April 17, 2013"

Uploaded May 1, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/8697346711/in/photostream



"Mohammed Ali Abu Hammur, Salt, Jordan, was martyred on April 15, 2013, a Swedish resident"

Uploaded May 1, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/8697324037/in/photostream



"Mustafa Mazjoub, martyr from Sydney, Australia, was martyred in the outskirts of Aleppo on August 19, 2012 of Egyptian origin, born in the country of the Two Holy Mosques (Saudi Arabia)"

Uploaded April 30, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/8698246002/in/photostream



"Shams Al-Din Ibrahim Gheidaan the Moroccan, Dublin, Ireland, his martyrdom was announced on February 23, 2013, of Libyan origin and he was 16 years old"

Uploaded April 13, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/8645353274/in/photostream



"Yousef Toubrikaya the Turk (Abu Al-Walid the Australian), Melbourne, Australia, was martyred in Ma'arat Al-Nu'man on December 30, 2012"

Uploaded April 13, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/8645342620/in/photostream



"Abu Adam the Moroccan, Spain, was martyred in Aleppo. His story was the first in part one of the series of Arab Mujahideen in Syria"

Uploaded April 13, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/8644240601/in/photostream



"Adam Samir Wali, Tripoli, Libya, was martyred on March 30, 2013, a resident of Sweden"

Uploaded April 13, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/8644201461/in/photostream



"Kamaal Babkr Ibrahim Badri, martyr from Gothenburg, Sweden, was martyred in Aleppo on January 25, 2013, of Sudanese origin"

Uploaded April 13, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/8644079027/in/photostream/



"Osama Rajah Abas Tartousi, Lebanon, residing in Australia, he was Lebanon's kickboxing champion. He was martyred in Aleppo on November 1, 2012"

Uploaded April 13, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/8645192104/in/photostream/



"Abu Al-Yaman Huthifa the Egyptian, an Egyptian who was living in Ireland but left his European life, preferring to live in the mountains and plains. He was martyred after clashing with Alawite soldiers at one of the checkpoints…"

Uploaded March 10, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/8545961095/



"Nu'man Damoli, a martyr from Kosovo, was of the fighters of Kosovo's Liberation Army against the Serbian army. He was wounded in the mountains of Kosovo in 1999. Thirteen years later he joined the mujahideen of the Al-Nusra Front in Syria to fight against the Assad regime, and was martyred in one of the battles of Talbisah (in the Homs province) on November 8, 2012"

Uploaded March 10, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/8545973435/in/photostream/



"Hasam Al-Sham, a French national of Lebanese origin, God gave him abundant knowledge whether it be in forensics, military, or political analysis…. On the dawn of Wednesday, the sixth day of Ramadan, he was wounded in a bombing in one of the suburbs close to the Lebanese Syrian border and was martyred immediately"

Uploaded March 10, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/8546887074/



"Ibrahim Al-Mazwaghi, a martyr from Libya. He is an excellent American football player in London-based teams. He has British citizenship. He sold everything he owned and came to Syria seeking martyrdom… and he achieved it"

Uploaded March 10, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/8545430581/in/photostream/



"Mohammed Jheidr, Tripoli, Libya, was martyred in the outskirts of Damascus, was living in Britain to study before joining the jihad for the country of Syria"

Uploaded April 13, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/8645175698/in/photostream/



"Abdulmalik Adam, was martyred on March 3, 2013, from the city of Al-Zawiyah.. a Muslim of Danish origin.. Born in 1983, he converted to Islam 11 years ago in Denmark…. He decided to go for jihad for the sake of Allah and to support his brothers in Syria, and to be martyred for the sake of Allah was one of his wishes. He was martyred in the Turkmen Mountains on the coast of Syria"

Uploaded March 10, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/8546397066/

*Steven Stalinsky is Executive Director of MEMRI.

To read the full report on the Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor click here. To view this report, you must be a paying member of the Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor Project (JTTM).