ISIS Enthusiast Creates Grand Theft Auto-Inspired Games Featuring ISIS Themes

An unnamed Islamic State (ISIS) supporter and video game enthusiast maintains a Telegram channel where he shares his latest ISIS-inspired videos. The channel was created in December 2016. The channel's creator also maintains two YouTube channels to which he links from the Telegram channel, and notes that the videos he posts are unofficial ISIS productions made using existing video games such as Arma 3, a military tactical shooter, and Grand Theft Auto (GTA) 5, an open world action-adventure game. He states that he has modified the games, inserting ISIS flags and nasheeds (Islamic songs) in the background.

This process of creating videos using existing video game platforms is known as "Machinima."

The YouTube channels currently host a series of videos, featuring burning corpses, prisoners being shot in a body of water, U.S. soldiers surrendering, and other U.S. solders being bombed and killed.

Shortly after its creation, the Telegram channel posted: "Inshallah the new video is done soon! Picture will soon be uploaded." It later uploaded a still from the video and wrote: " Uploading now to YouTube! Video is 10 minutes long, so enjoy akhi's [my brothers]. Inshllah more of these videos will come."

The following are stills from videos on the YouTube channels connected to the Telegram channel that were made using GTA 5:

Source: MEMRI JTTM report ISIS Enthusiast Creates Grand Theft Auto-Inspired Games Featuring ISIS Themes, January 30, 2017.