Special to WorldTribune.com

The producers of Islamic State of Iraq and Levant’s (ISIL’s) stylized propaganda are now releasing videos of “unparalleled brutality,” an analyst said.

“The reason ISIL ups the ante is because they think people will be bored and they need or want to stay relevant,” said Mia Bloom, a professor at Georgia State University.

Bloom said the terror organization has taken advantage of social media’s instant publishing power to distribute videos of increasingly brutal execution methods, including firing rockets at captives or strapping them to ancient artifacts that were then blown up.

Instead of showing before-and-after shots of beheadings, ISIL videos now show the entire execution process.

In November, U.S. President Barack Obama took heat for shrugging off ISIL’s global appeal, referring to the jihadists not as “masterminds” but “a bunch of killers with good social media.”

“The graphic videos are attracting a personality type, people who want the real life ‘Call of Duty,’ people who have violent pasts and want to reinvent themselves,” Bloom said, referring to a popular first-person shooter video game.

ISIL has even turned to using children in the propaganda videos. In one instance, child soldiers weave are shown making their way through a building to find and murder captives.

“Children went from being observers of violence on the periphery, to actively involved and fully committed in the videos,” Bloom said. “This is unparalleled.”

Analyst Charlie Winter told AFP that the “ultraviolence” is used to “project ISIL’s message across the world.”

Winter, who monitors jihadist activity online, said that “in the last few months, ISIL has continued to explore new depths of depravity – killing people by dragging them to death behind SUVs, drowning them, burning them and so on. It has mainstreamed mass beheadings such that people are no longer shocked.”

Analyst Aaron Zelin, in a post for the International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence, said ISIL’s propaganda machine peaked at 3,762 releases during the three-month period between June and August, but fell to 2,750 releases in September-November.

Zelin attributed the drop in output in part to the deaths of several ISIL media operatives, including the infamous “Jihadi John” – the executioner featured prominently in the group’s videos of Western hostages.

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