How terrorists and tyrants do PR

"Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising," observed the American writer Mark Twain. Unfortunately, this principle is known to terror groups and tyrants as much as it is to businesses that use high-flying public relations firms.

Terrorists of all types have long utilized the media for propaganda purposes—from the Irish Republican Army timing bombings to ensure they appeared on the nightly news to al-Qaeda's exploitation of the Al-Jazeera news network during the second Iraq War. Indeed, as long-ago as 1987, the analyst and psychiatrist Dr. Jerrold Post was pointing out that many terror groups had what he called a "vice president for media relations," tasked with orchestrating press coverage.

Some of them are more skilled than others.

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has attracted recruits via flashy videos that feature the beheading and immolation of their victims, among other heinous acts. The group also published a glossy magazine called Dabiq, which takes its name from a town in northern Syria where they believe the end-of-days battle will occur. The magazine—whose one-time editor was a University of Massachusetts-Boston grad named Abu Sulayman ash-Shami —featured editorials on topics as varied as the necessity of cutting off the limbs of the sharianon-compliant to the need for women to stay at home and support their terrorist husbands.

Al-Qaeda, the progenitor and rival of ISIS, was also media savvy. Videos of Osama bin Laden in caves evoked tales of the Islamic prophet Mohammad, who, it is said, received his first revelation in a cave called Hira near Mecca.