Trump and Pete Hegseth inspiring Islamic State recruitment propaganda

Experts say president’s dismantling of world order, rapport with Netanyahu and choice of Pentagon chief benefiting IS

Donald Trump has a long and colorful history with the Islamic State. He incorrectly blamed the founding of IS on his predecessor, said its infamous leader “died like a dog” while announcing his assassination, and rallied an international coalition that successfully ended its so-called caliphate.

So far, in his second presidency, his administration has much less to do with IS. But the terror group has still benefited from him.

Experts tell the Guardian that IS is capitalizing on Trump’s dismantling of the international order, his affinity for Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in Israel, and most of all – his most controversial cabinet appointment – in its recruitment propaganda.

In the US, IS supporters consuming that online messaging have become bona fide security threats in recent months, with a string of incidents dating back to before the presidential election.

On New Year’s Day in New Orleans, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a 13-year veteran of the US army, used a truck to kill fourteen partygoers in the name of IS. Earlier in May, Ammar Abdulmajid-Mohamed Said, 19, an ex-national guardsman, was arrested and charged with plotting a mass shooting at a military base near Detroit, on behalf of the group.

“The January 1 New Orleans attack and subsequent IS-linked arrests in the country demonstrate the continued influence the organization can project into the US,” said Lucas Webber, a senior threat intelligence analyst at Tech Against Terrorism, who has tracked the terrorist group for several years.

“These incidents also highlight how IS leverages the online space through social media and messaging applications to spread its ideology and inspire supporters to plot attacks.”

Part of that, as Webber explained, was persistently defining the US as a “crusader” state – the name jihadists have long used for all western countries.

But secretary of defense Pete Hegseth’s tattoos, referential to those pan-European medieval invaders, have fueled IS propaganda dispersed on Rocket.Chat – a recruitment platform the terror group uses to communicate with its followers and recruits.

An April IS-article, titled Clear Evidence in Ink, zeroed in on Hegseth’s ink, which features crosses associated with crusaders and another on his arm that reads “infidel” or “non-believer” in Arabic.

The term also became better known among war on terror soldiers, who, like Hegseth, served in Iraq and Afghanistan, as a pejorative for themselves.

“This takes us back to the media stir just days ago when the American ‘crusader’ secretary of defense published photos of himself with the word ‘kafir’ written on his arm in Arabic, alongside other explicit phrases glorifying the crusades!” said the IS propaganda, amid a backdrop of Hegseth’s tattooed chest and arms.

“Events like these, orchestrated by Allah’s wisdom, serve as warnings and clear evidence of the true nature of the war waged by Jews and Christians against us – it is a deeply rooted religious war.”

On Rocket.Chat, pro-IS users fervently responded.

“What more do you want as proof that they want to wipe us all together?” wrote one user underneath an image of Hegseth’s tattoos.

Other fodder tapped for its digital propaganda, is Trump’s associations with Netanyahu and the IDF’s continued flattening of Gaza, which several experts and governments have called a modern-day genocide.

IS images and articles call for “revenge for the Muslims in Gaza” and the war, which has become one of its most valuable recruitment topics.

IS also sees the stream of international tariffs unleashed by the Trump administration as a sign the west and its power structures are unravelling. As another IS article described how “the reckless Trump has repeatedly claimed victory over jihad, yet now he is preoccupied with fighting German cars and Chinese goods” and stoking “commercial wars” that would lead to the demise of “kafir nations”.

Combinations of these topics are mainstay recruitment hooks that IS and its predecessor organization, al-Qaida, have used for years attracting men into its ranks. IS is in a rebuilding stage as Syria – once a base for its most successful era – has vowed to banish the group and other jihadist elements from operating within its borders, as the nascent government seeks rapprochement with the US.

But other IS chapters have shown they are attracting Americans, foreigners, and locals to their cause, by peddling anti-US messaging.

“Trump and the US have been monitored by [IS-Khorasan] Pashto, Urdu and Farsi channels specifically referring to developments in Syria and Afghanistan,” said Riccardo Valle, the director of research at the Islamabad-based publication the Khorasan Diary and an expert on the group’s Afghan wing.

“[IS-K] continue to foster the idea that there is no difference between Afghanistan and Syria trajectories and that both are puppets in the hands of the US, Russia, and China.”

The IS-K branch has shown its reach inside the US, too. An Afghan national and a co-conspirator were arrested in October, after the FBI disrupted an IS-K sponsored plot to attack a mass gathering on election day.

The justice department also described in 2024 court documents that IS-Somalia, an upstart branch which has become the intense focus of Pentagon airstrikes, had attracted an American foreign fighter who was in contact with their recruiters.

“IS-Somalia is becoming more internationally ambitious in its recruitment, associated online propaganda, and incitement efforts,” Webber said. “Pro-IS Somalia outlets are creating media content focused on US policy in the region and support for governments in the area.”