From online videos to the social network postings of their fighters, the propaganda of the Islamic State jihadist group is evolving to prevent the leaking of strategic information while at the same time maintaining its impact.

Experts and journalists say they have observed a change in the group's approach to communications since its offensive on the Syrian town of Kobane and air strikes by a US-led coalition.

After making extensive use of social networks and different Internet platforms to publicise their activities, IS seems to have realised that some of the images being posted by their fighters could also be used against them by foreign intelligence services.

Abdelasiem El Difraoui, author of "Al-Qaida par l'image" ("Al-Qaeda through images") and an expert in radical Islam, told AFP the group had responded to the potential dangers created by this earlier strategy.

"The social networks helped greatly with recruitment. (But) as soon as this put operational security in danger, they tightened up," he said, adding that many of its recruits were Westerners who were confident social media users.

David Thomson, a French journalist and author of the book "The French Jihadists", said that before the intervention of the coalition the publication of photos taken by IS fighters had been positively encouraged.

"The instruction was to 'show a positive image of us' in order to push immigration and facilitate recruitment," he said.

The jihadist group launched an offensive against Kobane, near the Turkish border, last month as it sought to expand its control over large parts of Syria and Iraq where it declared an Islamic "caliphate" earlier this year.

But Thomson said that at the start of the offensive, what appeared to be an internal IS document had asked fighters not to film or take photographs with their mobile phones any more.

The instruction was applied with "varying degrees of rigour" and had not stopped some from continuing to post "photos or selfies", he said.

- Propaganda strategy -

The shift in IS's propaganda strategy was also discernible in the videos put on the Internet and aimed at the media, according to Henry Bouvier, a senior editor at Agence France-Presse's video service.

"We feel that the jihadists are evolving in the way that they are communicating. They are adapting to the media's needs," he said.

With the areas controlled by IS inaccessible to journalists, AFP uses selected images shot and put on line by the group and its affiliates in order to transmit them to other media.

Celine Pigalle, director of information at the French television group Canal+ noted recently that IS's images appeared to have been "produced by a specialist agency" with "great professionalism".

AFP uses such images only after careful consideration of each one.

Most of the media, including AFP, has refused to broadcast recent videos showing the beheading of journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, aid worker David Haines and humanitarian convoy volunteer Alan Henning.

"They (IS) are well aware that to be picked up they must respect certain codes. More and more, when they can, they show car licence plates or identifiable places, such as the Kobane cultural centre" in order to allow the media to authenticate the images, Bouvier said.

"They shoot images TV-style, without music or special effects. Even in the way they present people or speak, they are more neutral and more journalistic," he added.

Canada attacks follow Al-Qaeda, IS instructions to a tee
Paris (AFP) Oct 23, 2014 - While they may not have officially been designated as jihadists, two suspected extremists who killed Canadian soldiers in shooting and driving rampages followed instructions issued by Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group to the letter.

The country was left reeling Wednesday after a gunman shot dead a soldier and stormed parliament in Ottawa, just two days after another suspected Islamist militant ran over two military personnel with his car in Quebec, killing one.

These deadly acts appear to follow what Al-Qaeda has been preaching for years through articles or videos posted online, calling on recruits and volunteers to go it alone without specific orders or training.

Members of the group founded by Osama bin Laden had always been scattered across parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan among other nations and were the regular target of US drone attacks, making it hard to group together all those who wanted to volunteer for jihad.

As a result, in late 2010, the English-language jihadist magazine Inspire, published from Yemen by American Muslim convert Adam Gadahn -- known as "Azzam the American" -- lauded individual jihad.

"Muslims in the West have to remember that they are perfectly placed to play an important and decisive part in the jihad against the Zionists and Crusaders... So what are you waiting for?" he asked in a video posted some time later.

Online jihadi magazines have published recipe upon recipe for homemade bomb-making -- "how to make one in your mother's kitchen" being one of them -- as well as lists of prime targets.

Any method goes: shooting or knifing them, planting homemade bombs, giving poison, or using a car or a truck as a weapon.

In Inspire's ninth edition in May 2012, Al-Qaeda ideologue Abu Musab al-Suri wrote an article about individual jihad's targets -- the first being "main political figures who lead the campaign against the Muslims such as the heads of states, ministers, military and security leaders".

Next, "large strategic economic targets" and "military bases and barracks where the armies are concentrated, especially the American military bases in Europe".

"The mujahid, the member of the Resistance, practices individual jihad on his land, where he lives and resides, without the jihad costing him the hardship of travelling, migrating, and moving to where direct jihad is possible," he wrote.

In an eery echo, the Islamic State (IS) group also called on Muslims around the world last month to kill fellow citizens, particularly from countries that are part of an international coalition fighting the extremist organisation that controls swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq.

- Preventative detention, jail? -

Experts have long warned against the danger of so-called "lone wolves" who are often so discreet before taking action that it is difficult to spot them.

And since the emergence of IS, candidates for jihad have been able to flock to territory under the organisation's control without too much difficulty, sending jitters in the West amid concerns they will come back and wage attacks on home soil.

In one such chilling example, Mehdi Nemmouche, a French national who spent more than a year fighting with Islamic extremists in Syria, is suspected of having killed four people at Brussels' Jewish Museum in May.

And in Canada, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the gunman who stormed parliament Wednesday before being shot down, was on a terror watch list.

"It's Inspire magazine that started by telling them: 'Here's what you have to do'," said Louis Caprioli, who led the fight against terrorism at France's domestic intelligence services from 1998 to 2004.

He pointed to another incident in London last year, when two Islamists ploughed their car into soldier Lee Rigby and knifed him to death.

"How to neutralise them? It's very difficult. We need appropriate legislation, preventative measures," he said.

"The two Canadians had been spotted, their passports were confiscated, but Canadian legislation did not allow for anything more.

"In these types of cases, the only solution is to detain and jail them preventively."

France is in the process of adopting a law that will slap a travel ban on anyone suspected of planning to wage jihad and bring in punishment for "lone wolves".

Other countries are also considering preventative measures, despite fears that citizen freedoms are being sacrificed in the name of national security.