Robin Williams, stew and Google Images: Islamic State supporters show human side

The Islamic State (IS) social media campaign seemed to move to a new level on Wednesday, with accounts run by alleged supporters promoting the human side of the militants, who have forced hundreds of thousands of Iraqis from their home in the last two weeks and ravaged parts of Syria. 

As IS fighters made huge gains in Syria, killing at least 52 people according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, supporters were tweeting about engineering projects aimed at increasing water supplies to Raqqa, the northern Syrian town under IS control since July.

Another supporter, who usually tweets about issues of Islamic law and the latest developments on the battlefield, shot to quicksilver fame after he shared his sadness about the death of much-loved Hollywood actor Robin Williams in an apparent suicide on Tuesday.

The media frenzy surrounding news that IS supporters watch films was greeted coolly by many.

Others began asking supporters questions about other more mundane aspects of life as an IS supporter, such as their favourite books and types of food:

Elsewhere on Twitter, supporters were circulating a document that claims to “debunk 40 lies” circulating about the organisation.

The document rejects clumsily doctored images purporting to show female IS supporters playing pool beneath the black flag of the caliphate.

It also rails against an image that professes to show the beheaded body of a Mosul citizen killed by IS fighters.

Instead, it claims that the picture was taken in Indonesia in 2006.

Another user has published a step-by-step guide to checking the date of gruesome pictures appearing to show crimes committed by IS.