Amaq News Agency
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| Available in | Arabic, English |
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| Launched | 2014 |
| Current status | Active |
Amaq News Agency is a news outlet linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). It gets tips from ISIL and is often the "first point of publication for claims of responsibility by the group".
Amaq publishes a stream of short news reports, both text and video, on an encrypted mobile app. The reports take on the trappings of mainstream journalism, with "Breaking News" headings, and "embedded" reporters at the scenes of ISIS battles. The reports try to appear neutral, toning down the jihadist language and sectarian slurs ISIS uses in its official releases.
Experts—like Charlie Winter of the Transcultural Conflict and Violence Initiative at Georgia State University, and Rita Katz of SITE Intelligence Group in Washington—say Amaq functions much like the state-owned news agency of ISIS, though the group does not acknowledge it as such. Katz said it behaves "like a state media. ISIS sees themselves as a state, as a country — and a country needs to have its own media". Amaq appears to have been created, or allowed to develop, by ISIS as a way to have a news outlet that is controlled by the group but is somewhat removed from it, giving ISIS more of the appearance of legitimacy.
According to Chris Tomson of the Assad-friendly Al-Masdar News, Amaq "is usually accurate" when reporting ISIS advances but "never admits caliphate losses."
Amaq News Agency was first noticed by SITE during the Siege of Kobanî (Syria) in 2014, when its updates were shared among ISIS 'fighters'. It became more widely known after it began reporting claims of responsibility for terrorist attacks in Western countries, such as the 2015 San Bernardino attack, for which ISIL officially claimed responsibility the next day. An Amaq cameraman shot the first footage of the capture of Palmyra in 2015.
Amaq launched an official mobile app in 2015 and has warned against unofficial versions that reportedly have been used to spy on its users. It also uses a Telegram account. It had a WordPress-based blog, but it was removed without explanation in April 2016.
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