logo
episode-header-image
Sep 2019
50m 7s

Fighting the Islamic State group online

Bbc World Service
About this episode

When the Islamic State group took over Mosul in Iraq in 2014 they flooded the internet with propaganda, claiming life under IS was fantastic. One historian living in the city decided to post a counter-narrative online, setting up a website called "Mosul Eye". Also in this edition, one black man's experience of growing up in Hitler's Germany; the gruesome death of the famous bullfighter Paquirri, switching on the Large Hadron Collider and the birth of the Sound of Music on Broadway in 1959.

(Photo: Mosul Eye website. BBC)

Up next
Yesterday
E.T. the Extra Terrestrial and the creator of Star Wars toys
Max Pearson presents a collection of science fiction themed Witness History stories from the BBC World Service.Our guest is Lisa Yaszek, Regents' Professor of Science Fiction Studies at Georgia Tech in the USA.Actor Peter Coyote looks back on the making of E.T. the Extra-Terrestr ... Show More
1 h
Aug 29
Voting for water and surviving a hurricane
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes.We learn why, in 2004, Uruguayans voted to enshrine water as a human right in their constitution - the first country in the world to do so. And environmental historian Ellen Arnold reveals how water has shap ... Show More
1 h
Aug 22
The battle of Mandalay and the New World screwworm
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.Our guest is Dr Elisabeth Fondren, Associate Professor of Journalism at St John's University in New York, USA.We start by hearing some groundbreaking frontline reporting from the B ... Show More
1 h
Recommended Episodes
May 2022
After ISIS: Reviving the Jewish history of Mosul
When ISIS swept into Mosul in June 2014, the organisation immediately began a campaign to wipe out the most important part of the northern Iraqi city’s unique heritage - its a multi-sectarian culture. Mosul was home to ancient and modern Christian communities, Yazidis, Shia and S ... Show More
26m 29s
Apr 2016
ISIS Recruitment Tactics
<p>The advent of social media technology has made global communication easier than ever before - yet this innovation creates opportunities for evil as well as good. Learn how ISIS is using social media to manipulate, groom and ultimately recruit people across the planet.</p><p> < ... Show More
52m 24s
May 2025
Children of ISIS fighter find new life in Minnesota
When ISIS was at its height, its ranks included several hundred Americans. They were often young men radicalized online by savvy marketing that promised free housing and the chance to meet a wife. When the Islamic State collapsed, some of them ended up in huge detention camps in ... Show More
22m 15s
Jun 2017
#82 — The End of the World According to ISIS
Sam Harris speaks with Graeme Wood about his experience reporting on ISIS, the myth of online recruitment, the theology of ISIS, the quality of their propaganda, the most important American recruit to the organization, the roles of Jesus and the Anti-Christ in Islamic prophecy, f ... Show More
42m 59s
Jan 2022
I'm Not A Monster: 12. Those We Leave Behind
In Northern Iraq, Josh finds out how two people you’ve been asking about are doing now.In 2014, the Islamic State group killed thousands of members of the Yazidi religious community and kidnapped and enslaved many, many more. Ayham and Saud were both taken from their families and ... Show More
25m 44s