Journalist and former staffer at the Associated Press (AP) Ephrem Yalike-Ngonzo did not know he was being used when he was reporting on the activities of the Central African Republic Army and Russian forces in Africa. It was in 2019 that he was first approached by a Russian who suggested he might employ his pen to promote “the right cause”.
But soon enough Yalike-Ngonzo realised he was being used as a tool by “Kremlin-backed Wagner forces to spread Russian propaganda in the country, the crown jewel in Moscow’s operations on the African continent,” wrote AP in an article titled “A Former Staffer Exposes How Russia’s Disinformation Machine Worked in the Central African Republic.”
“Despite threats and intimidation, Yalike-Ngonzo fled and made it to Europe several months ago,” according to AP. “He became the first person to tell the story of the Russian disinformation machine in the Central African Republic from the inside.”
Yalike-Ngonzo told AP it was important for him to share his story not only to spread “justice”, but also “to expose the disinformation system which can be replicated in other countries.” He was lucky enough to know he was a victim of a disinformation system which, contrary to his wishes and despite his efforts, is “replicated in other countries” in many forms, sometimes by militants, governments, or even individuals, to serve different agendas, he said.
The term “soft terrorism” refers to underground tactics used to brainwash people and impact societies instead of attacking them physically or engaging them in armed conflicts. The devil of these methods lies in the details, since while they may seem to be benign on the surface, deep down they pose threats that may surpass that of bullets.
Soft terror, as opposed to its mainstream counterpart, may also use interpretations of some religious texts to justify the use of violence or employ culture and the arts to disseminate distorted ideas and values into society in a way that can outplay physical assaults.
It may, for instance, attempt to change the public mindset to justify violence even before it occurs, ultimately changing basic social values, challenging contemporary ideas, causing social rifts, or inciting hatred. This gradual change of the mainstream mindset may be even more challenging to confront when it is a matter of protecting national identity and values.
There is almost a consensus among media experts that soft terrorism is now dangerously penetrating our lives without our realising it or feeling its destructive impact. It is becoming more dominant, creeping into societies, infiltrating homes and universities, and changing people’s minds, ideas, and values.
In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, Hani Khamis, dean of the Faculty of Arts at Alexandria University, warned that “soft terrorism has become one of the most prominent tools of fourth-generation wars, those which do not rely on conventional weapons, but on disinformation and rumours.”
“It’s a covert tactic that works underground to harm social consciousness by broadcasting false news and promoting distorted facts to confuse public opinion,” Khamis said. “We are facing a new type of war, which relies on brainwashing and distorting people’s perception of reality. This kind of warfare may shake public confidence in the state and its institutions, and it may fuel feelings of frustration, division, and loss of belonging.”
The emerging power of social media has provided a platform for such warfare, and it has sometimes been used to spread hatred and discrimination among different social groups by spreading rumours, inciting violence, defaming people, and even helping to form extremist groups.
This has become easier now that many platforms keep users constantly bombarded with a tremendous amount of information that may sometimes be distorted or fabricated.
“These smart attacks have no direct physical impact, but they can strike at the heart of society, weakening national belonging, raising doubts about the credibility of the state, and destabilising society,” Khamis said.
He is particularly worried about the perceptions of members of the younger generations, as they are the heaviest users of social media and as such probably represent the largest victims of disinformation.
“This can create a state of mental confusion and loss of certainty,” Khamis said. “Concerted efforts among all state institutions, including those working in education, the media, and religion, should be exerted to correct misconceptions and refute rumours in systematic ways.”
MEDIA LITERACY: As a result of the spread of sometimes malign disinformation through social media and elsewhere, it has become more and more important for young people in particular to become media literate and to know how to verify news and distinguish between the fake and the authentic.
“We need more awareness campaigns and training programmes in schools and universities in order to enhance the critical thinking skills of young people and enable them to filter information,” Khamis said. “Social media platforms must be monitored, and the family should also play a role in educating children in the values of national unity and loyalty since cultural identities can be particularly harmed by the manipulation of thoughts and ideologies.”
Yomna Samir, a professor of psychology, explained that one of the most prominent types of soft terrorism is psychological warfare, which can sow fear and anxiety in the hearts of individuals and weaken their confidence in themselves and their society.
“Fear is the strongest human emotion that can destroy a person from within,” Samir told the Weekly. “Fear sometimes pressures individuals to make aggressive decisions or to abandon their principles and values. Soft terrorism often exploits this feeling, using intimidation as a tool of control as totalitarian regimes have done throughout history when they planted terror in the hearts of people to subjugate them.”
Soft terrorism strategies range from inciting hatred, exploiting social differences to deepen divisions, and smear campaigns against individuals and institutions with the aim of undermining their credibility. It also includes attempts to distort the cultural identity of societies by imposing extraneous values that contradict authenticity, leading to a loss of a sense of belonging and national identity.
For Samir, psychological manipulation and brainwashing are the most dangerous soft terror techniques. Extremist groups, she said, “rely on precise psychological techniques to change individuals’ convictions and behaviours without their feeling it.”
“Brainwashing is a complex process that plays on psychological and social weak points in an attempt to reshape thought and behaviour to serve extremist or anti-social goals,” she said. “A man could lose his inner freedom and become a tool in the hands of those who direct him as a result of being brainwashed.”
Confronting this type of terrorism requires “deep psychological awareness, positive education based on enhancing self-confidence, and developing critical thinking skills in individuals, especially young people,” she said.
“It is important for each person to ask himself what motivates him — is he acting out of love and conviction, or is he driven by fear and pressure? Recognising the difference is the first step towards resisting the impact of soft terror,” Samir said.
Real protection also starts from within. “Building a strong personality capable of distinguishing the truth from falsehood makes a person immune to psychological manipulation,” she explained.
“The roles of the family and educational and media institutions are very important in this respect, spreading psychological awareness and promoting the values of belonging and psychological resilience, so that society becomes more capable of facing hidden threats.”
A study of the role of media and social media in spreading the kind of soft terrorism associated with the Islamic State (IS) group authored by researcher Mohamed Abdel-Rahman and published in Cairo University’s Egyptian Journal for Media Studies discusses the psychological and sociological tools used by the terror group, including the repetition of ideas and the exploitation of emotions, for example.
The study reveals how the perpetrators of soft terrorism exploit crises and social issues to form fake relationships and attract new members to their ranks. False promises that their problems will be solved can create a sense of belonging that makes people an easy target for recruitment. Targeted individuals are classified into small groups, or “sleeping cells”, which then covertly spread extremist ideas and promote certain agendas.
This technique has been used by IS to recruit new members. Studies have shown how those recruited have been subjected to brainwashing and tempted by promises that their problems will all be resolved in this life, as well as their being rewarded in the next. They are then used in acts of violence that have no link to religion and do not offer any real solution to their problems.
ZIONIST PROPAGANDA: Another study by Cairo University professor of mass communication Mohamed Abdel-Fattah was published in the Egyptian Journal of Media Research under the title “Zionist Propaganda in the Western Media”.
It investigates the spread of disinformation as one of the most important challenges facing contemporary societies, especially in the light of the rapid growth of social media.
It shows how manipulating and distorting facts and the dissemination of rumours and fake news have become effective tools influencing public opinion. Propaganda, the study reveals, is one of the most prominent forms of those tools.
A case in point is Zionist propaganda, which depends on the dissemination of lies and rumours, sometimes seriously impacting global public opinion and justifying the crimes of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
The alleged slaughter of 40 Israeli children at the hands of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on 7 October 2023, widely spread on social media at the time, is a blatant example of this mechanism. These Israeli allegations and fabricated narrative immediately went viral on social media, being published on accounts having millions of Western followers and in the Western media and rallying support for the Israeli war on Gaza.
Of course, the alleged slaughter of 40 Israeli children was proved unfounded, but by then it was too late since the war had already begun. The incident, however, remains a blatant reminder of how soft terrorism can be used to justify violence.
Electronic hacking, the theft of information, and blackmail can also be used as tools in the hands of soft terror perpetrators.
Recently, some major companies have been exposed to hacking and the theft of the personal data of millions of customers’ credit card data, health records, and other financial data. These data are then typically used in fraud, market manipulation, and the blackmail of individuals, forcing them into actions that serve the interests of the blackmailer.
Ahmed Mohamed Attia, director of systems operations for major mobile companies in Egypt and the Middle East and a lecturer in telecommunications network technology, says that personal data can turn into a dangerous weapon in the hands of criminals in the digital age.
“Social hatred and divisions provide fodder for such crimes,” Attia explained. “Digital hatred is the use of technology to spread extremist and violent ideas against individuals and groups.”
He mentioned the ban on social media platforms including Facebook in countries like China and Russia to support his viewpoint. “Have we thought about why those countries have imposed such a ban,” Attia asked. The reason, he said, is that “social media applications rely on giant servers and huge database storage capacities including user data.”
“The danger of this data is that information about, for instance, how many individuals are carrying weapons in any country is just a finger-click away and can be easily obtained via a simple query,” Attia explained. “Today, data that were previously hard to access is readily available about every single citizen due to the information people voluntarily provide about themselves on social media without realising the consequences of such actions.”
It is little wonder that cyber-security has become the first line of defence against extortion and cyber risks.
“The protection of data and systems is no longer a luxury; it’s a vital necessity in the light of the dominance of technology in all aspects of daily life,” Attia stressed. “Cyberattacks have become more complex and frequent, and there is an urgent need to develop advanced defence strategies,” he added, referring to the technological crisis that the world witnessed last year that led to the paralysis of vital sectors in several countries.
It led to the disruption of airports, banks, stock exchanges, and intensive care units in major hospitals and telecommunications and energy-service companies in several countries, causing huge losses. The crisis raised mounting fears that cybersecurity would not always be able to cope with such crises.
“Better preventive strategies should be adopted, and there is an urgent need to redesign the infrastructure of technological systems,” Attia said. “It is also not logical to rely on one single system, as any damage means the suspension of all the services associated with it.”
He insisted that “confronting soft terrorism and cyberattacks requires community awareness and advanced technical planning. It’s no longer an individual responsibility but rather a national necessity to ensure the security and stability of the community,” he said.
TERROR OF SEDITION: Sedition is another form of soft terrorism and one of the most serious, challenging societies and fragmenting their social fabric. It becomes more viable in times of crisis and major events when the environment becomes more open to the sowing of public doubts, fuelling sectarian conflicts.
One prominent case in point is the turbulence taking place in Syria today, where some external powers have exploited the media and social media to spread rumours and fake news, deepening sectarian rifts and stimulating armed conflict.
In Rwanda, too, intense propaganda campaigns pitted two of the largest groups in the country against each other in the 1990s, causing more than 800,000 Rwandans to be slaughtered. Most of the victims were from the Tutsi group and were killed at the hands of Hutu militias and Government forces over a period of 100 days.
In South Sudan, political and economic conflicts have provided an opportunity to escalate conflicts between different groups, leading to an ongoing civil war. India has also witnessed communal riots between Hindus and Muslims, often instigated by extremist political rhetoric.
In Africa, digital platforms have been exploited to spread hate speech and incite violence between different ethnicities, leading to armed conflicts and mass displacement.
Spreading drugs and addiction to undermine young people and make them an easy target for abuse is another form of soft terrorism. Saudi Arabia has apparently recently been targeted by drug-trafficking networks, especially those emerging from countries experiencing armed conflicts and security issues. According to a 2021 report in the US Foreign Policy magazine, Saudi Arabia has been facing systematic targeting by drug-traffickers backed by militias in the Middle East.
In the same vein, Iraq has reportedly been witnessing a remarkable escalation of drug abuse. Addiction is also no longer viewed as a merely social issue; it has grown into a dangerous tool in the hands of terror groups and those aiming at inciting social disintegration to spread violence and conflicts.
There is now an urgent need to design a comprehensive strategy to combat the challenges of soft terrorism. This should include a set of integrated interventions at the individual, community, and international levels and should start with educating the community and developing critical thinking skills as well as providing job opportunities.
Sustainable development is the first line of defence against extremism. Spreading digital awareness, especially among young people and strengthening international cooperation to combat terrorism-related cybercrimes are equally important.
The media can be used to spread awareness in significant ways. It is important to understand that confronting soft terrorism is a shared responsibility that requires awareness, planning, and cooperation at all levels and that doing so will create safer and more resilient societies.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 28 August, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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