One of Britain’s highest-ranking intelligence officials on Tuesday castigated the giant American companies that dominate the Internet for providing the “command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals” and challenged the companies to find a better balance between privacy and security.

The battle against the "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL) is not only military but ideological, Syrian Kurdish cartoonist Dijwar Ibrahim tells Al-Shorfa.  In an exhibition held October 12th-22nd in Iraq's Kurdish region of Erbil, Ibrahim addresses the issue with a selection of cartoons and caricatures.

“It is only when we contest (ISIS') presence online, deny the legitimacy of the message it sends to vulnerable young people and expose (ISIS) for the un-Islamic cult of violence it really is ... that (ISIS) will truly be defeated,” Allen said.

Hundreds of young Muslim women from the west who travelled to Syria to marry fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, known as Isis, are part of what experts call, the “soft-power” of the militants. Isis has used social media to attract new recruits and build an image of the group as a reincarnation of the just and righteous state to which many Muslims aspire.

Harun Yahya in this opinion piece advocates that Turkey should always be on the side of diplomacy, soft-power, and effectively administer an intellectual struggle to defeat the opponents that resort to violence and persecution.