The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham [ISIS], along with its ongoing offensive on Iraqi cities, continues to intensify its use of mobile electronic devices and social media as important weapons of war. Tweets of beheading videos and posts of gruesome images led to Twitter’s suspension of two important ISIS pages, al-I'tisam and al-Hayat, three days after ISIS’s conquest of Mosul. Twitter's action, while symbolizing a step in the right direction, is too little too late.

The current conventional wisdom in Washington is that al-Qaeda (AQ) is no longer a real threat and that it has been dismantled by the US drone attacks in conflict areas. That is nothing but wishful thinking and shortsightedness.

A recent move by al-Qaeda's wing in Syria, the al-Nusra Front, illustrates again the importance of social media for the global jihadi movement and its effect on the evolution in jihadi online platforms.

In an unexpected and unprecedented turn of events, al-Qaeda members and jihadists from all over the world who embrace the ideology of global jihad are now doubting the group's leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and calling for his removal.

On December 5, 2013, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) joined the long list of al-Qaeda affiliates with a presence on Twitter.